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Tesla car battery production releases as much CO2 as 8 years of gasoline driving
Watts Up With That? ^ | 06/20/2017 | Anthony Watts

Posted on 06/21/2017 10:06:29 AM PDT by gubamyster

Ooops, looks like those “saving the planet” Tesla snobs just got their eco-ride de-pimped

From NyTeknik: h/t to Don Shaw (translated)

Huge hopes have been tied to electric cars as the solution to automotive CO2 climate problem. But it turns out the the electric car batteries are eco-villains in the production process of creating them. Several tons of carbon dioxide has been emitted, even before the batteries leave the factory.

IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute was commissioned by the Swedish Transport Administration and the Swedish Energy Agency to investigate litium-ion batteries climate impact from a life cycle perspective. There are batteries designed for electric vehicles included in the study. The two authors Lisbeth Dahllöf and Mia Romare has done a meta-study that is reviewed and compiled existing studies.

The report shows that the battery manufacturing leads to high emissions. For every kilowatt hour of storage capacity in the battery generated emissions of 150 to 200 kilos of carbon dioxide already in the factory. The researchers did not study individual brand batteries, how these were produced, or the electricity mix they use. But if we understand the great importance of the battery here is an example: Two common electric cars on the market, the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S, the batteries about 30 kWh and 100 kWh.

Even before buying the car emissions occurred, corresponding to approximately 5.3 tons and 17.5 tons of Carbon Dioxide. The numbers can be difficult to relate to. As a comparison, a trip for one person round trip from Stockholm to New York by air causes the release of more than 600 kilograms of carbon dioxide, according to the UN organization ICAO calculation. Another conclusion of the study is that about half the emissions arising from the production of raw materials and half the production of the battery factory. The mining accounts for only a small proportion of between 10-20 percent.

The calculation is based on the assumption that the electricity mix used in the battery factory consists of more than half of the fossil fuels. In Sweden, the power production is mainly of fossil-nuclear and hydropower why lower emissions had been achieved.

The study also concluded that emissions grow almost linearly with the size of the battery, even if it is pinched by the data in that field. It means that a battery of the Tesla-size contributes more than three times as much emissions as the Nissan Leaf size. It is a result that surprised Mia Romare.


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: tesla
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To: ifinnegan
water vapor is a bigger greenhouse gas than CO2.

Unlike carbon dioxide, water precipitates out of the atmosphere. It's called rain or snow.

By the way, I am also hydrogen fuel advocate.

21 posted on 06/21/2017 10:41:20 AM PDT by reg45 (Barack 0bama: Gone but not forgiven.)
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To: gubamyster

We could solve that problem by going nuclear.


22 posted on 06/21/2017 10:42:45 AM PDT by Brilliant
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To: gubamyster

I’ve been saying this. A few family members are quite the environmentalists. Even if they lose the argument on CO2 they jump to “pollution”. As though cars are still these massive polluters that they used to be.

...then I point out how batteries are produced:

- Mining of lithium. All the machinery, equipment, and local transportation of it
- Shipping the raw lithium to refinement plants in various countries
- More shipping to manufacturing plants, turn materials into batteries
- The resulting electricity STILL needs to be generated, batteries are just storage

This amounts to a huge CO2 footprint, before the car is ever driven. The batteries will also need to be replaced each decade.

It may make you “feel” better, typical of liberals, but doesn’t provide the claimed benefits. Same goes for “wind and solar”. How much energy does it take to make a solar panel? How much does it *really* produce during its lifetime? The assumption is that it is a net positive, even if it is, how much?


23 posted on 06/21/2017 10:59:54 AM PDT by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing consequences of poor moral choices among everybody)
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To: ifinnegan

‘I like the idea of hydrogen cars where water vapor is exhaust.”

Taken a step further.... recover the water vapor and now we have a closed loop system.

The ultimate clean vehicle IMHO. Produced on board.... now we are free, to a certain extent, from fossil fueled vehicles which should make any die-hard lib-tard giddy with excitement.

But even better than that is to understand how Tesla made that Pierce Arrow back in 1934 run on aether, the ultimate electric vehicle as well power source.

Man.... I get hyped just talking about it.


24 posted on 06/21/2017 11:06:01 AM PDT by A Voice (Finally... the adults are in charge. Go Trump!!!)
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To: gubamyster

LOL, and this is without the coal and NG power plants in most parts of our country charging the battery daily throughout its useful life.


25 posted on 06/21/2017 11:06:36 AM PDT by bigtoona (Make America Great Again! America First!)
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To: gubamyster

I think Musk is a visionary and very inventive guy. But the reality is that if the US Government did not exist neither would his businesses - Tesla, solar panels, ion Batteries and Spacex all of which are heavily subsidized by the US government. The first 3 are a waste of taxpayer money.


26 posted on 06/21/2017 11:07:52 AM PDT by chuckee
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To: gubamyster

Who could possibly have predicted that? ANYBODY WHO HAS AN UNDERSTANDING OF LIFE CYCLE COSTS!


27 posted on 06/21/2017 11:13:04 AM PDT by jimfree (My16 y/o granddaughter continues to have more quality exec experience than an 8 year Obama.)
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To: Brilliant

“We could solve that problem by going nuclear.”

Poop on that.... thorium reactors are the best long term solution with respect to fission reactors and are very scalable.

Will get us off centralized electrical system and release the populace from the slavery of the current antiquated system.


28 posted on 06/21/2017 11:13:26 AM PDT by A Voice (Finally... the adults are in charge. Go Trump!!!)
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To: A Voice

Could you provide an example of a commercial Thorium reactor that has been online for any length of time. Is there one?


29 posted on 06/21/2017 11:17:23 AM PDT by infool7 (The ugly Truth is just a big lie.)
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To: Kickass Conservative
Unless those same Batteries are Recharged using Geothermal, Hydroelectric, Solar, Wind or Nuclear Power, they continue to contribute to CO2 Levels throughout the life of the Vehicle.

The alternate sources of charging via solar and wind sources do contribute to CO2 levels. A lot of CO2 emissions come from creating solar panels, and more from creating the electronics. Coal is used to create the steel for the solar and wind generation infrastructure and creates CO2.

I'm not saying CO2 is bad, just that enviro-weenies are naive. We should stick to traditional energy sources that aren't full of BS costs like solar and wind.

30 posted on 06/21/2017 11:37:03 AM PDT by roadcat
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To: Mr. Douglas

Was it the Economist that predicted in 10 years we will all be driving electric cars? Possibly won’t happen. And the question I never get an answer to, how, who, when, will new power plants be built? How else will we charge these cars? Will we need to double our capacity? Triple? Will we burn more coal? Nuclear? Will liberals who want the electric cars even allow us the permits to build these new plants?


31 posted on 06/21/2017 11:39:04 AM PDT by Sam Gamgee
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To: Kickass Conservative

Hydro is a real curious issue, and very political one. Have you seen the downstream effects say on Washington state damns on rivers that are damned in BC first? I am sure there are age old political agreements that set the stage for that. Will they need to be renegotiated?


32 posted on 06/21/2017 11:42:01 AM PDT by Sam Gamgee
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To: gubamyster
The earth needs more CO2 so in a perverse way the eco-wackos are saving the planet!
33 posted on 06/21/2017 12:58:55 PM PDT by TigersEye (Investigate the Awan brothers and Wasserman Schultz)
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To: gubamyster

Frickin Scam...

there is nothing Green that pencils out.

Solar? Well, you are are gone most of the day. Do you store energy in some battery pack on your property?

In California, PGE is no longer required to purchased your energy and at night you will have to buy it from???? PGE


34 posted on 06/21/2017 1:12:23 PM PDT by Vendome (I've Gotta Be Me - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH-pk2vZG2M)
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To: ifinnegan
Just for consideration a what-if:

An energy technology that takes the hydrogen from water and permanently transforms it to something else, kind of like transmutation only without radiation.

The device possibly would be run continuously at full output, dumping all waste heat into the air, with a best efficiency in smaller units of maybe 30% for generating electricity.

There are no emissions to be detected by commonly used techniques for measuring waste output to air or water as now implemented by the EPA.

40 grams of water per hour, not quite a liter (quart plus some change) of water per day, could deliver 10 kilowatt of electricity and nearly 24 kilowatt of low grade heat (at 70 C or almost 160 F) to a residence on a continuous basis. This would be enough to keep up with domestic use and charge two electric cars within 24 hours if required. Al Gore might need more than one, considering the extent of each of his holdings.

35 posted on 06/21/2017 1:40:08 PM PDT by Ozark Tom
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To: A Voice

Sorry to burst your bubble; but, Thorium 232 is transformed to Thorium 233 by neutron bombardment within a fission reactor (with intervening nuclear decay steps) and eventually into Uranium 233, which then replenishes the fission fuel of the breeder reactor.

Look for Protactinium 233 and the Thorium Fuel cycle.


36 posted on 06/21/2017 2:08:15 PM PDT by Ozark Tom
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To: Army Air Corps

The report does not even try to go after the CO2 emitted in the production of the electricity that will, time after time, be used to recharge the batteries - electricity that is overwhelmingly NOT produced by “renewable” resources, nor for the foreseeable future will it be. The real CO2 calculations from “battery powered” energy, of all uses, should include the CO2 from the electricity production that recharges them.


37 posted on 06/21/2017 2:10:03 PM PDT by Wuli
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To: gubamyster

Shut the plant down!!!
For GOD’s sake save the planet!!


38 posted on 06/21/2017 4:10:54 PM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: gubamyster

This is why the stid capitalists like this carbon calculation stuff... bunch of idiot bean counters who do not see the communist scheme behind it


39 posted on 06/22/2017 7:01:25 AM PDT by lavaroise
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To: Sans-Culotte

These companies are in major BS mode with respect to emissions.

Johnson&Johnson keeps pushing green agenda left and right but making a mere successful disposable contact lens requires probably 10 to 100 thounsand of its own weight in plastic and fuel, it is ridiculous.


40 posted on 06/22/2017 7:04:46 AM PDT by lavaroise
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