The “Green” electric car
In a conversation about cars my friend suggested that , since I care about the planet a lot the best thing to do is buy an electric car. I asked a simple question , is spending lakhs on electric car good for the planet or buying a normal car and spending the remaining money for planting trees good for the planet? Or even better , use public transport and spend everything for planting trees good for the planet ? After all trees can offset the pollution caused by the car and also provide habitat for earth’s fellow inhabitants. Obviously the conversation went nowhere.
The much touted savior of the planet – the electric car ! A theoretical solution to the global warming problem is being implemented on a grand scale because big money started playing with the idea. After all this solution has created the world’s richest person. Even as we face the unknown with global warming , greenwashing has become even more relentless, rendering us all in the dark about the reality.
For me the truth is simple. Electric cars are still cars with everything similar inside them except for the batteries. So for manufacturing them all the associated activities like mining to marketing , all remains the same. Why would this be so much more “green” than the traditional one.
Since smoke doesn’t come out of the electric car, is it good for the planet ?
Now this story starts with a good intention – “Save The Planet”. Because of climate change the oceans are warming, polar icecaps are melting, cyclones are getting stronger, sea levels are increasing, the list goes on endlessly and people should act. It was literally dooms day call for action. While this is all true it is also an opportunity.
A business is born when a person can offer a solution to a problem and when people are willing to pay money for it. The business world jumped into action both ways. While the fossil fuel racket told the world, the climate change was a lie , those on the other side , who had no say in the oil business were vocal about the issue and tried to find an alternative.
In the endless research that was funded by these companies , the electric vehicle was born. For the fossil fuel industry it was trouble and they continued with their propaganda against climate change. Meanwhile in true capitalist style, the “Green Industry” started the marketing campaign that , electric car is the true solution to all of world’s problems. What could be wrong in that ? There is not even an exhaust tube in an electric car !
Looks all great. Now let’s come to a different version of the same story. Climate change is real alright but is emissions from vehicles the single cause? The answer is “NO” and it just accounts to less than 15%.
The transportation sector is just part of the bigger issue. There is no way we can convert all the vehicles in the world into electric and even if such thing happens for scaling up such electricity production it will fall only on fossil fuels. All we are going to do by changing to electric right now is only buy one more gadget to our collection.
Do you know that maintaining the internet contributes to 4% of world emissions which is nearly double than that of all the aviation sector put together.
Internet related emissions is a new stream we have created in the last decade just when we were all talking high pitched about climate change. The data centers of internet are energy guzzlers whether you like it or not. So in essence , as we stream endless videos , we are also heating the planet.
The vehicle industry obviously can only talk for itself and so it conveniently leaves out the whole picture. It just says if you drive a electric car you are planet friendly. This tremendous push for electric vehicle meant that people started buying into this idea of saving the planet one car at a time. This was a victory for the electric car industry like no other.
They had simplified the complex problem of climate change into a one line issue – smoke from the exhaust.
People love simple and feel good solutions. This can be compared with saving the planet by carrying a reusable bag for buying groceries. The entire groceries are packed in plastic but when you carry a cloth bag you feel good about yourself. One more important aspect about solutions to complex problem is that people will start following it if it looks good. The cloth bags have many designs, right? (FYI always use cloth bags for shopping)
As we walk down any supermarket, we can see everything packed in plastic but the industry convinced us to carry a cloth bag for shopping. The sick part is that , they very well know that we will forget carrying it sometimes and now they can charge us for the very same plastic bag which they were earlier giving it away for free.
Electric car and consumerism :
In the same spirit of cloth bags, electric cars came with a bang. Shiny, sleek, lots of lights and power. Electric cars have more power and pick up than the conventional models. In true capitalist style it was targeted at the rich who bought it as one more addition to their collection. Now most people right now who own electric also own a conventional car. What this means in the real world is simple. The number of cars on the road are continuously increasing whether they are electric or not.
To understand the impact , always check the growth of other industries. Is the road construction slowing down across the world ? With so many new vehicles on the road , can road building slow down ? Steel , cement and mining, petroleum (tar comes from petroleum) are core industries that feed the roads and as long as these industries grow the planet is consumed on an incremental basis.
More cars means more roads, it is that simple ? When did roads become eco-friendly ? All the tar, cement, gravel, soil, paint , conversion of land, cutting of trees, electricity for lighting the roads, road kills of wildlife etc will continuously grow but since your car has a battery , will you consider yourself mitigating global warming ?
Where will the metal for the new cars come from ? Ideally an electric car should replace an existing car but does it happen? We all know how well we recycle old cars !! Now apply that scenario to the electric cars when their batteries meet their end of life. The batteries that runs these cars are now lithium ion type and their production is an environmental hazard in itself. The way we throw away the mobiles and how well we recycle them will have to apply to the electric cars as well.
The electricity that drives the car is a whole another issue. Still much of the power is generated by fossil fuels like coal. Coal powered plants are still projected to be the major source of power even in the year 2050. Of course wind and solar will increase and they are renewable right ? These power installations are creating havoc on the natural world as of now. With every power installation , the human presence grows into the last remaining wilderness of the world. Wherever humans go, the biodiversity crashes. Trees are being cut and roads are laid in the name of Wind and Solar. In the name of hydro power forests are pillaged.
Solar, wind and hydro are renewable but they are not ecosystems friendly.
One of the most unbearable lies that the green washing industry runs is the eco-friendliness of wind energy. Windmills are touted as the revolution that the world awaited. What the industry doesn’t say is that windmills are huge structures and their installation means taking over the last patches of wilderness. This image is from Gandikota in Andhra pradesh. The beautiful scrub forest is now ripped apart in the name of these “eco-friendly” installations. More on this in a separate post.
What we are facing is a crisis of failing ecosystems but rather than handling that , we went and bought ourselves fancy cars.
All the the new charging stations and all the new lands for mining, factories for all the new cars and its parts, show rooms, the economic activities like marketing, new offices, etc would have never existed if this new electric car solution was never pushed as a solution.
Since new products which are technology milestones sell really good , the people are consuming electric vehicles like hot cakes. In the middle of this consumption frenzy , all the other viable alternatives like more public transport, reduction of travel etc have taken backstage.
Public trains are the most efficient form of transport and probably the safest too. Even if a railway passes through the forest like Mahanandha wildlife sanctuary , the space taken is only the width of a track. Compare that with the multi-lane highways that a car based system of transport needs.
This is not an unplanned scenario , rather it is an intentional outcome of planned marketing and propaganda. For unrestricted consumption people have to feel zero guilt about it. To take people further into the consumption frenzy , people should be convinced that if they consume they are doing a good thing. Can you remember the campaigns of some companies where they tell you that “If you buy they will donate for a cause or plant a tree” ?
This is what the green car is all about. When you buy an electric car you are doing a good thing for the planet.
Let me rephrase , If you are doing a good thing then what is bad about buying a new car ?
Batteries that power the electric car are vastly different from the above but all of them at the end of the day are chemicals. Cobalt which makes up a significant part in modern batteries is a real forest killer. Cobalt mining is particularly wrecking the pristine rain forests of the Congo. Congo has nearly 18 % of the tropical rain forests of the world and we are destroying them to make batteries for electric car.
Mindless consumption has brought the planet to it’s knees in the first place and transportation is just one of the several aspects of that consumption. Remember the simple thing, whatever that happened to the world has happened only because the western countries consumed so much. Since they have set the trend for lifestyle, the rest of the world which is nearly 80% of the world population is only starting to consume in that way. As China takes it’s bite of the pie , the implications are already profound. So when India, Africa & South America take their share , the planet will crash.
The electric cars can do nothing about that.
The people at the very top know that but how can someone convince you to spend lakhs on an electric car? Why can’t you just buy a normal car and spend the rest of the money for planting trees ? Why can’t we just reduce consumption and save the planet ? Why can’t we stop building new factories and save the planet ? Why can’t we make things that last longer and save the planet ? Why can’t we drive small cars ? Why can’t we drive slow?
A small car with less electronics and more mileage is the instant step we all can take today to reduce the emissions. If emissions are such a problem then why not ban the bigger vehicles with less mileage right now ?
The emissions of a car is a cumulative value which includes the production related emissions as well as the running emissions.
The dirty secret here is that electric cars create more emissions during their production.
So when you calculate the overall emissions during the life cycle of a car, a small car like Maruti alto fares much better than the Tesla model S.
Apart from this , also remember that all these electric cars are also electronic devices which involve complex electronics. The modern day electronics involves some of the most destructive mining in some of the most pristine areas. Browse the internet for Coltan and Gorillas and you will see how green a electric car can be.
Coltan is the raw material used for making Tantalum capacitors. These capacitors are an important component in all modern electronics. In the quest for a digitally connected world , Gorillas are being wiped out because of Coltan mining activities in Congo. Will the electric car be any different ?
None of the above information can stop the people in power as they always knew everything. They know that endless consumption is the basis of a capitalist economy. So even if people care about the planet , that feeling too will be manipulated and packaged into a product and like any product it will be “green washed “ and made ready for consumption.
So is the electric car “green” ? It will be, if it is painted GREEN !