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zombienudist t1_ix8h83s wrote

Reply to comment by LowGradePlayer in How do you find out whether companies manufacture their products morally and sustainably? by Dokayn

Unless that thing outputs something. There is far more to a product then just the manufacturing of it. So there is the labour that made it and the environmental footprint to build it. But then something like an appliance will use energy over its life. So whether something is more sustainable depends on the entire lifecycle footprint from manufacturing to end of life. Also the location you are, and the way you make electricity, will all have a factor.

An example where I live is a car. Based on your example I should buy a used gas car rather then a new EV. But a new BEV will have a far smaller carbon footprint even with the manufacturing one here because of how clean the electricity is. So if the goal is the reduction of carbon emissions then I am better to buy a new BEV then a used gas car. So keeping something running just because it was already manufactured is not always the most sustainable option.

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LowGradePlayer t1_ix8sjkz wrote

Buy a used gas car.

When they are no longer available get a used alternative fuel vehicle.

You understand there is a huge carbon footprint to generate the electricity necessary for an e-vehicle and their batteries will never biodegrade, never.

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zombienudist t1_ix91lab wrote

You understand there is a huge carbon foot print for burning gas. Again what matters is which one is worse. The math says the BEV is better in my case. So buying a used gas car would increase my carbon footprint over buying a new BEV. My suggestion is you do the math on this to see whether you are correct.

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Sweet_Guard3904 t1_ix93ll7 wrote

I'm in the market for a new car, and opting for a used gas than and new hybrid based on the mileage I intend to drive. It won't be a daily driver, so I've calculated that the difference would only be about a metric ton on GHG emissions which I can easily offset, versus buying a new car made from virgin materials.

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zombienudist t1_ix946dq wrote

Sounds like you have done the math and it is better for you to go that way. FOr me it is much better to buy a new BEV where I am instead of a used gas car based on the amount I drive and how clean the grid is. My comment was about how you have to be careful making blanket statements about what is better as there are many examples where it is better to buy something new then to keep using something that is older.

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Walkop t1_ix95ofh wrote

It's really better to buy a new BEV vs a used gas vehicle? That's interesting. How old are we talking? I figured the older you get, the better it is, until you hit a tipping point where fuel economy is really bad.

If you're driving a lot of miles in a year, too, I'm sure that makes a big difference. The more miles you drive over the lifespan of the vehicle the better a battery vehicle is.

Really, I feel like it actually depends on how long you plan on keeping the vehicle. E.g. f you keep a battery electric vehicle for 25 years after you purchase it, there's no way in heck any gas vehicle is going to be that over 25 years; new OR used. Obviously, the batteries lasting that long is doubtful, but the point remains.

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zombienudist t1_ix9bvtv wrote

Whether it is better depends on the factors used. Operationally the numbers are easy to do then you just have to figure out the manufacturing emissions. But yes in my case here it is better to buy a new BEV. The numbers are actually pretty easy to do from a carbon emissions point of view especially for the operation.

Here is an example of the math and I am doing it in metric because that's what we use here. I drive around 24,000 kms a year. So if I bought a gas car (or kept using one that I already bought) I would use 1882 liters of gasoline to drive that distance if the car got 7.84 L per 100 km (30 MPG). Each liter of fuel emits 2.3kg of carbon when burned and then there is another 0.4 kg of carbon per liter to extract and refine oil into gas. So a year i am looking at 5081 kgs of CO2 to drive that distance in the used gas car.

My BEV gets around 6.2 kms per kWh in efficiency on average. So to drive 24,000 kms will require 3871 kWh of electricity. Charging losses will add about 10% onto that number so make the number 4100 kWh a year used. Our grid produces about 45 grams of CO2 per kWh produced. So that is 184.5 kgs of CO2 or 28 times less CO2 then the gas car above.

See I think this is where people just don't really understand these numbers. They believe that the gas car and BEV might be far closer in operational emissions then they are. And they possibly could be on a dirtier grid. But on a clean grid the amount of CO2 from the car is almost negligible. In fact my car emits less CO2 in operation then I breath out in a year. And based on this (a negative view of electric cars) a 75 kWh battery will emit about 4500 kgs of CO2 to build the battery.

https://8billiontrees.com/carbon-offsets-credits/carbon-footprint-of-electric-cars-vs-gasoline/

So that is a tiny amount compared to the 15,243 kgs of CO2 the gas car will emit in operation alone over the next 3.

So again it is far better here to buy a new BEV then keep driving a used gas car if you want to reduce your carbon emissions where I live and with my numbers. Where you live and with your numbers it might be different.

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Fryceratops t1_ix9weuh wrote

A gas car battery never biodegrades. In addition the claims you are making about EV's are straight out of gas company funded studies. It might be the case the footprint of a new EV is greater than a specific used car but you cannot generalize that for all ev's.

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LowGradePlayer t1_ix9xgii wrote

Reduce

Reuse

Recycle

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Fryceratops t1_ixa10lb wrote

Sometimes that does not work to be the better option. There are times when new is going to be better over the long term, for example most medical implants, or in cases of things that use toxic or otherwise less ideal chemicals like old fridges running on CFC refrigerants. Reusing is ideal for most things but not everything.

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zombienudist t1_ixa3tsn wrote

Even just the extra energy of using something that is less efficient could mean it is better to make a new one rather then keep using it.

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Fruitndveg t1_ix9pj0o wrote

I’m so tired of this misinformation. The batteries get recycled. It’s really simple.

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LowGradePlayer t1_ix9xcmk wrote

How long will it take a batter to biodegrade once it can no longer be recycled?

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H2FLO t1_ix9zgkd wrote

I don’t want to nitpick, but an EV takes a long time for its use to cover the carbon output it takes to build one. You must consider the removal of forests to mine for lithium, the fuel it takes to transport this lithium, the energy it takes to produce them into cells and packs, etc. then to transfer these incredibly dense (heavy) materials large distances to be put into a car. At the end of the day, hybrids provide you with the balance of reducing carbon use from gasoline, and reducing the manufacturing shortcomings of a full on EV.

Plus, by the time your EV starts to become beneficial from a carbon perspective, it’s either close to end of life (EOL) or well beyond, requiring the purchase of a new EV.

I really don’t have faith that Lithium Iron Phosphate or any other lithium battery is going to magically solve our environmental/climate concerns. It’s like a magic bullet. We need to completely retool our economy and consumption to truly cut down on carbon footprint. At the end of the day, there’s really nothing any of can do about it. It sucks, but this is the reality.

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zombienudist t1_ixa0wyw wrote

I am including that carbon cost to manufacture in that. So even with the carbon cost to manufacturer the new BEV I am still better off with it rather then a used gas car. I did another comment further down where I did the math for someone else.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BuyItForLife/comments/z10bs2/comment/ix9bvtv/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3

People tend to vastly overestimate the emissions they think it takes to build a car whether electric or gas. And they vastly underestimate the emissions in operation of ICE vehicles. And the source of electricity also matters. I was saying this to show that there isn't a blanket answer that is correct here. It would depend on many different factors.

And it does reduce it that much. Where I live when you factor in the total lifecycle (manufacturing, operation, and EOL) a BEV has a carbon footprint that is 85% less then a comparable gas powered car.

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H2FLO t1_ixa5v3f wrote

I know we all want to do a better job of reducing our carbon footprint, and I have no doubt that you’ve done your research with this, but the embodied energy it takes to produce lithium iron phosphate (or equivalent) batteries varies wildly for a bunch of reasons.

Per the attached source (below, emphasis mine): Virtually every feature of the fuel cycle for conventional cars is well understood and narrowly bounded, significantly monitored if not tightly regulated and largely assumption-free. That’s not the case for EVs.

For example, one review of 50 academic studies found estimates for embodied emissions to fabricate a single EV battery ranged from a low of about eight tons to as high as 20 tons of CO2. Another recent technical analysis put the range at about four to 14 tons. The high end of those ranges is nearly as much CO2 as is produced by the lifetime of fuel burned by an efficient conventional car. Again, that’s before the EV is delivered to a customer and driven its first mile.

The uncertainties come from inherent — and likely unresolvable — variabilities in both the quantity and type of energy used in the battery fuel cycle with factors that depend on geography and process choices, many often proprietary. Analyses of the embodied energy show a range from two to six barrels of oil (in energy-equivalent terms) is used to fabricate a battery that can store the energy equivalent of one gallon of gasoline. Thus, any calculation of embodied emissions for an EV battery is an estimate based on myriad assumptions. The fact is, no one can measure today’s or predict tomorrow’s EV carbon dioxide “mileage.”

I do believe you have good intentions here, but I wouldn’t be so confident in your calculations. I’m in the energy industry (utility power) and I have very little faith that this technology is going to solve all of our issues. We’re going to end up with MORE waste, because these vehicles don’t last as long, and in order to recapture a fraction of lithium, you have to incinerate these cells, which produce more carbon.

In addition, I believe that the supply chain for lithium is going to get just as greasy as it became with oil. There will be a handful of countries with vast amounts of lithium that will likely control the price, similar to OPEC.

I’m not going to buy an EV any time soon for various other reasons as well, primarily the fact that there aren’t enough charging stations, and the cost for me to assume the change from my conventional gas vehicle is prohibitive. The only real solution to reduce your footprint is to simply travel less. Which, for some, is not an option. So here we are with this magic pill. I don’t believe in it quite yet.

https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/22/the-tough-calculus-of-emissions-and-the-future-of-evs/amp/

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zombienudist t1_ixa87ja wrote

You can write all you want but unless you can point out where my numbers are wrong then it is a wasted effort. If I wrong then my math would be wrong. So it should be pretty easy to run the numbers to show me where I went wrong.

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H2FLO t1_ixaubpr wrote

I’m not saying your math is wrong, I’m saying the numbers you are basing your math on are unreliable, that’s all. EVs are not as great as people think they are, is my point.

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zombienudist t1_ixcgus8 wrote

I give numbers and math and you give feelings. Then you say the numbers are unreliable but give no reason why. If the numbers are wrong you should be able to provide your own. But you keep writing words but have nothing to substantiate them. So again I say that your words are useless without the numbers to back it up.

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H2FLO t1_ixcp14c wrote

I provided you a source with plenty of information that explains my point.

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zombienudist t1_ixcr7fd wrote

But can't show me where I made a mistake with my numbers. Again you wrote a lot of words but unless you can challenge directly those words are meaningless. You can't just say that my numbers are wrong for reasons that are unexplained. Should be very easy to do the math with the correct numbers. I mean the only way you can know if my numbers are wrong is if you have others. So do the math and show me I am wrong.

This is why I love math. There is no BS. You can't write out long essays that obscure the truth. The base numbers are either right or wrong. So if they are wrong it should be pretty easy to point out which ones are wrong or to do your own math. Strangely I don't see a lot of numbers in what you are writing. So do the math or don't. But don't tell me I am wrong when you can't even put a few numbers together yourself to prove you are right.

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H2FLO t1_ixcx7h3 wrote

You’re obviously not understanding my point or read the article. It’s impossible to perform calculations when everything is variable. Enjoy your EV, brah. I’m not trying to keep you from that.

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zombienudist t1_ixd5sp3 wrote

I understand exactly what you are saying. I just don't think it makes any sense. If it does then every life cycle study that has ever been done is wrong. The variation in the numbers is because of differences in location. So the electricity in X place is dirtier then somewhere else and you have to adjust for that. These variables are well known. You just have to do the math for each location. This is exactly what I did and why I said that here it is better. Somewhere else it might not. See understanding this allows you to use the correct numbers.

So I will say the same thing again. Unless you are able to show which of my numbers are wrong, based on my location, then you can just stop writing anything at all because it is meaningless. Seriously it is like you are telling me that 2+2 = 5 but then can't tell me how you reached the conclusion. If you are right it should be extremely easy to show that using the correct numbers. Now if you are arguing that it is completely unknowable then what kind of stupid argument is that? You need to have words with every scientific publication that has ever published a life cycle study on this because they will all be wrong too.

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Available-Subject-33 t1_ixbu15z wrote

EVs might not be a perfect fix but it's hard to argue against them as being the future. They run primarily on electricity, which can be generated renewably through solar and wind, and while there are obvious and significant problems to be solved, Rome was not built in a day. Think how far automotive technology moved in just its first three decades.

I think that it's important that consumer embrace EVs, because increased demand will incentivize competition and thus these problems will be taken on.

What other possibilities are available, really?

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