The good, the bad, and the ugly, of electric vehicles

• Lithium: In 2024, the world mined about 240,000 tons of lithium, almost three times the amount mined in 2020. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that demand for lithium will increase to 450,000 tons per year by 2030. Despite a significant world resource base , production of those resources remains a major challenge.
• Cobalt: In 2024, the world produced an estimated 280,000 metric tons of cobalt, the highest amount ever recorded. The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) was the world's leading producer, accounting for 74% of the global total, while the country is known for the major problems with child labor and poor working conditions of its mineral sector.

Today, a typical EV battery for a Tesla sedan requires substantial raw material extraction for the battery's minerals and metals of lithium, cobalt, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum, graphite, plus the steel, plastic, and other metals for battery casings.

The documentary raises concern about those "blood minerals", mostly from developing countries, come from mining at locations in the world that are never inspected or seen by policymakers and EV buyers.

The mining and refining involve large quantities of raw materials. The estimated total mass of raw materials mined and processed for an EV battery, including overburden and waste rock-might range from 50,000 to 100,000 pounds, depending on battery size, chemistry, and mining efficiency.

The current rates of extraction of natural resources, such as coal, gas, lithium, cobalt, etc., to support the generation of electricity, are clearly unsustainable. Humanity is unable to replace those natural resources on Planet Earth, and obviously, the production sources will eventually run out.

At current rates of extraction of natural resources, the technically and economically available world resource base may be sucked dry in a few centuries, but our 4-billion-year-old Planet Earth will continue to exist in the solar system, with or without humans.

The documentary should be viewed by so-called zero-emission policymakers in the few wealthy countries that have disrupted the delivery of electricity with strict regulations, preferential subsidies, and cancellation of proven baseload sources like coal, nuclear and even natural gas. They should have solidified other sources, to ensure that the availability of affordable electricity that is continuous and uninterruptible would not be disrupted for consumers.

Readers are encouraged to view the documentary "Electric Vehicles: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly "to learn more about the shell game wealthy countries are using to exploit developing countries to support so-called clean and green electric vehicles, and decide for themselves if the world economies and the environment can accommodate EV's to satisfy the transportation needs for all, not just the few elites on this planet.