NYT: Will electric cars become an environmental catastrophe?
Ed Morrissey May 10, 2021 6:01 PM ET
Answer: Of course they will, with mining being among the many other issues in pushing to eliminate internal-combustion engines in favor of an all-electric fleet. No one who has studied the composition of the energy-storage systems in electric cars could possibly miss the environmental dangers of such a transformation.
The most interesting point of this brief review of one potential environmental catastrophe is the media outlet raising the issue. Even if it got buried over the weekend, the fact that the New York Times raises the mining issues is significant:
The United States needs to quickly find new supplies of lithium as automakers ramp up manufacturing of electric vehicles.
Lithium is used in electric car batteries because it is lightweight, can store lots of energy and can be repeatedly recharged. Other ingredients like cobalt are needed to keep the battery stable.
But production of raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel that are essential to these technologies are often ruinous to land, water, wildlife and people, Ivan Penn and Eric Lipton report for The New York Times. Mining is one of the dirtiest businesses out there.
https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2021/05/10/nyt-will-electric-cars-become-an-environmental-catastrophe-n388950
