By DOUG REILLY
Los Alamos

We hear much these days about electric vehicles, EVs, locally, nationally, and internationally. Various countries and governments are issuing rules to switch to EVs quickly. Our governor has ruled state vehicles will be electric by 2035. The Los Alamos Daily Post has printed numerous articles on the subject, both pro and con. Many people and organizations claim EVs are pollution free and a big step in meeting climate change.

The US Energy Information Agency says at least 63% of our electricity comes from fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency says it’s 80% worldwide. The vehicles don’t emit much CO2, but the fossil fuel plants do.  It is easier to limit emissions at the plant; however, it’s expensive and unpopular.

The required Li-ion batteries have characteristics that are ignored or not understood. Lithium and other elements, some rare-earths, are scarce in the the USA. China has large resources of them and is working to acquire more from countries that also have large reserves. Lithium is often called White Gold. A triangle of South American countries, Argentina, Chile, and Peru has large Li resources and is already exploiting them and negotiating with China to export them.

The production of Li-ion batteries is complicated and produces large amounts of toxic waste. They have limited life-times and disposal problems. The most interesting idea I’ve read is to collect a large number of them which still have energy, but insufficient to run the vehicles. Then wire them in parallel to produce electricity for the grid; this has already been tried on small scales.

Electric Vehicles are not quite the panacea many claim.