Mandating EVs in U.S. would require ’18 times current global production of cobalt…three quarters of lithium & half the world’s copper & rare earths. China dominates all these markets’
By: Marc Morano - Climate DepotAugust 27, 2022 1:28 PM
The hidden truth about batteries for electric vehicles. This is the reality the UN will not talk about.
Electric vehicle mandates will require massive rare-earth elements to achieve
In 2018, about 5.1 million EVs were in use around the globe. That means that cutting domestic gasoline demand by a third would require the U.S. to deploy roughly 20 times as many EVs as are now being used around the world. That’s a tall order. … Richard Herrington, the head of earth sciences at the Natural History Museum in London, and seven of his colleagues sent a letter to the British government that underscored the scale of the challenge. Herrington and his colleagues calculated the amount of commodities, including rare earth elements, that would be needed to convert all the United Kingdom’s 31 million motor vehicles to electric drive. (Rare earths are a group of 17 elements that includes neodymium, an essential ingredient in electric motors.) They found that doing so would require “two times the total annual world cobalt production, nearly the entire world production of neodymium, three-quarters of the world’s lithium production and at least half of the world’s copper production during 2018.”
The U.S. has about 276 million registered motor vehicles, or roughly nine times as many vehicles as the U.K. Thus, if Herrington’s numbers are right, electrifying all of U.S. motor vehicles would require roughly 18 times the world’s current cobalt production, about nine times global neodymium output, nearly seven times global lithium production, and about four times world copper production.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2022/08/27/mandating-evs-in-u-s-would-require-18-times-current-global-production-of-cobalt-three-quarters-of-lithium-half-the-worlds-copper-rare-earths-china-dominates-all-these-markets/
