October 8th, 2024

Electric vehicles need fossil fuels to run


By Lethbridge Herald on December 3, 2022.

Editor: 

 Electric cars are wonderful machines, but are they going to save the planet as some claim? If we look at all the material required to build them such as lithium, cobalt, copper, etc., that all has to be mined, and at what cost to the environment?

 And not only that, what about all the other components? Think tires, plastics, battery cases, etc., all partly made with fossil fuel. How long will those batteries last? What is the replacement cost? 

And what is the distance a fully e-car can travel? Some claim up to 600 kilometres. How do they test these cars for distance? Probably on a day when it is not too hot or too cold, no wind and on smooth roads. 

And where does all the electricity come from? Certainly not from those ugly bird-killing wind turbines and just as ugly solar panels. 

 That is one of the reasons why our power bills went sky high. Turbines and solar panels are all subsidized and subsidization always comes back to haunt the taxpayer. 

So we have to build more generating plants. Powered by what? Coal, natural gas, oil? So are the e-cars going to save the planet? 

I think at the end of the day, the e-car will leave just as large a carbon footprint as the internal combustion engine. So without fossil fuel, not one e-car would be built, nor a wind turbine, nor a solar panel.

 Phase out fossil fuel? Certainly not for a long time to come. 

George Van Bostelen 

Coaldale

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gs172

Maybe we should go back to horse and buggy? Yes, while resource extraction,manufacturing and electricity generation are harmful to the environment and contribute to ghg the fact is EV’s are less harmful. To say otherwise is to deny science. Oil is going nowhere for a long time as its needed everywhere but EV’s are going to become a bigger part of our transportation system.

buckwheat

Isn’t it amazing how the feel good enviro crowd eyes glaze over when you bring up cobalt being mined by children in the Congo. Where are the international human rights warriors decrying child abuse?????? Blinders, saving the planet. Lol.

johnny57

Advancing technologies are and will make oil extraction cleaner, that’s the road we should be making wider, not trying to shut the whole industry down because of the ever-growing extremist groups hi-jacking the environmental movement. If people think we can turn off the taps in a few years, then they are just as deluded as the David Suzuki and Al Gores of the world.

Citi Zen

No one ever mentions that approximately half of the electric energy is wasted to simply heat the electric car at sub zero temperatures.

Last edited 1 year ago by Citi Zen
gs172

Same thing can be said to keep the vehicle cool in the summer, there it’s been said. Happy now