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Asked by deer43can to Caitríona on 19 Nov 2019.
Question: If we all used electrical cars will that help the earth a lot
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Caitríona Sheridan answered on 19 Nov 2019:
It would help a good amount for sure! Ideally people could cycle more and use public transport to help the earth.
Comments
Jason commented on :
If we all used electric cars we would reduce Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions and improve the air quality around Ireland’s cities and towns BUT we would need to source alot of lithium and cobalt from mines around Australia, Bolivia and Congo. I have seen some calculation that thinks cobalt will be gone from Congo around 2026! Also the manufacturing process for electric cars is much more energy-intensive as the battery is about 500kg for one car. Over the lifetime of an electric vehicle, it will use about 60% of the emissions of a petrol or diesel car! Maybe in a few years, we will be able to make renewable batteries which would then change my perspective on electric vehicles!
Frances commented on :
Can i add to that. The insane part of asking us to buy electric cars is that noone is talking about where the electricity to power the car is coming from. Over 80% of Ireland’s electricity is coming from burning fossil fuels. So does it make sense to burn fossil fuels to power the car? NO! Additionally, nobody is talking about what happens when the battery dies? Recycling lithium batteries is prohibitively expensive and extremely energy intensive. You can’t just dump them. So I predict in 10 years time, when the batteries die, then that will be the next crisis.