Agencies of the Biden administration are pushing for a mythical transformation from hydrocarbon fueled vehicles and power sources to so-called “green” and “clean” all-electric alternatives.
They are proposing to do this in the interest of achieving “net zero” carbon emissions somehow achieved by switching over from about 80% of reliable U.S. energy that comes from fossil sources by increasing from the 3.7% of combined seasonal and weather dependent wind and solar systems.
On top of that, the idea is to replace the current 97% of petroleum fueled cars and trucks incentivized by government subsidies and mandates that grow the current 3% of electric vehicles (EVs) to make up 17% of the U.S. market by 2026, add them to already overloaded power grids, and depend upon China which controls 85% of the world supply of rare earth minerals required for all those intermittent solar, wind and EV batteries.
Keep in mind that most of the energy needed to recharge those EVs at night and when the wind isn’t blowing, would come from already skyrocketing costly global coal and natural gas power plant sources with no thanks to the Biden administration’s war on abundant fossil fuels.
Mining required for batteries will soon dominate the world production of many minerals, and already accounts for about 40% and 25%, respectively, of all global lithium and cobalt.
Consider that each EV’s half-ton battery uses thousands of smartphones’ worth of minerals. Even at only 10% of global auto sales, electric vehicles have already pushed annual cobalt demand to 140 kilotons.
By 2026 that cobalt requirement is expected to exceed 200 kilotons as new battery factories come online and will explode from there when proposed EV mandates are supposed to kick in, many within the coming decade.
Although most of those “rare earth” minerals are imported from China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Russia and other countries with far less stringent environmental and human labor standards, it’s not as if America doesn’t have rare earths of our own — we have plenty.
The problem is that environmental activists don't want us to mine them, resulting in a regulatory minefield of local, state and federal laws.
Mountain Pass, located 53 miles southwest of Las Vegas — the sole U.S. remaining rare earth mine — which in 2020 supplied 15.8% of the world's rare-earth production — sends all its mined ore all the way to China for processing.
An intense legal federal court fight with Indigenous peoples of the North Paiute and Western Shoshone tribes is underway regarding a proposal to create another lithium mine in Thacker Pass, Nevada.
Meanwhile, as costs for nickel — the primary component of lithium-ion cathodes — has nearly tripled over the past five years from $10,410 per metric ton in 2017 to more than $28,000 today — the Biden administration has imposed a 20-year ban on new mineral development which is blocking plans by Chilean mining giant Antofagasta for a $1.7 billion underground copper-nickel mine in northern Minnesota.
Most nickel extraction and processing takes place in Russia, China, Indonesia and the Philippines.
This is occurring at a time when the U.S. State Department has pledged this month to help build EV battery supply chains in the DRC and Zambia. The DRC produces more than 70% of the world’s cobalt, and Zambia is the world’s sixth-largest copper producer.
Production costs for EVs are no bargain for carmakers either. Most auto manufacturers are losing about $10,000 to $12,000 more on average for EVs over gas-powered cars, which they compensate for by charging more for the internal combustion trucks and SUVs that the vast majority of Americans still prefer.
As for purchasers, on the resale end an average on-the-road 12-year-old used EV will be on its second or third new battery before an owner can sell it. With a Tesla battery typically costing about $10,000, the resale price will likely have to be significantly higher than that of a comparably aged and sized internal combustion model in similar condition.
And there’s little wonder why most EV owners buy them as a second car. They are wealthy enough to afford two vehicles and retain a petroleum fueled model for long single-day highway trips to avoid time-consuming battery recharge worrying that an available supercharge station will be open where and when needed.
Nevertheless, apart from these fabled clean, green energy fantasies, if you like the idea of owning an EV and can afford one, then go for it!
But forego any illusions that in doing so you will achieve any real net mileage efficiency advantages; confidently plan to take any long trips without long interim recharging delays; think of it as any sort of trade-in investment; or benefit either the climate or environment in any conceivable way.
As for the rest of us, forcing taxpayers to subsidize such purchases with federal and state tax credits as auto companies pass along losses for EVs we don’t want in higher prices for the petroleum fueled version we may logically prefer is merely a costly shell game that we can’t afford to tolerate.
Putting the matter pure and simple — it represents part of a broader sweeping and destructive exercise in social and economic reengineering which will decimate America’s energy independence, create social and economic poverty, and empower our commercial and national security adversaries including China, Russia and Iran.
Larry Bell is an endowed professor of space architecture at the University of Houston where he founded the Sasakawa International Center for Space Architecture and the graduate space architecture program. His latest of 12 books is "Architectures Beyond Boxes and Boundaries: My Life By Design" (2022). Read Larry Bell's Reports — More Here.