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Comment by hilyen | Hacker News Reader

It is too bad electric vehicles still require strip mining, the equipment that does that all run on oil, as well as tires actually producing more pollution than what comes out of the pipe. I fear this is the next greenwashed "recycle and it will all be ok bs". And by that I mean most recycled material, excluding paper, only actually gets recycled in the sub 10% success rate.(you can view that on EPA's website) source: https://www.transportdive.com/news/tire-emissions-exhaust-st...

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Lithium does not have to come from strip mining: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201124-how-geothermal-l...

(And batteries can be recycled. Try recycling gasoline.)

Mining does not necessarily burn oil: https://web.mit.edu/12.000/www/m2016/finalwebsite/solutions/...

Tires polluting more than exhaust is a myth. It's honestly surprising anyone believes this one: https://www.dcbel.energy/2021/08/24/myth-busted-lifetime-ele...

(This one is doubly surprising, because gas cars have tires too. Even if tires were single-handedly melting glaciers, an EV would still be avoiding tailpipe emissions.)

EVs are not perfect, but they are better - considerably better - which is why there's so much misinformation about them. The oil industry has enormously effective PR.

Another thing to consider is how gasoline is transported around. Gas pipelines are possible but last mile delivery is inevitably a huge inefficient truck.

Moving electricity is a solved problem - power lines have no emissions.

“ Tires polluting more than exhaust is a myth. ” Did you even read the blog post you just linked? I did and it clearly said a non tailpipe emissions were 4/5ths of the emissions. Also debel.energy is literally an energy company that has incentive to combat anything that’d hurt their potential profit.

Let's assume that you're right, and that tires are the majority of automobile pollution. EVs still pollute less. I hope that's obvious.

Not sure if commenting here will alert the parent as well, but I believe that myth stems from the fact that tires create more PM (Particulate Matter) than exhaust. Exhaust of course emits much more CO2. The article discusses them separately and even mentions regenerative braking could help reduce PM, which would mean EV's could reduce both types of pollution.

>Try recycling gasoline.

Hydrocarbons can come from wood and other biomass, too. Woodgas is not unheard of. Plants feed on the bulk of emissions, if you need the cycle completed for you.

the fact that people think tires matter in a comparison between EV and combustion engines is hilarious. 'these things both have tires, clearly EV is worse as a result.' facepalm

I also share this concern; can someone downvoting this offer some context I may be missing here?

I didn't downvote but it doesn't seem like a stretch to imagine that industrial mining vehicles will go electric in the near future.

Tires are definitely an issue but producing gas involves a lot of trucks as well. Between all the work in oil pumping/refining/distribution there must be quite a bit of rubber burnt!

Edit - I think the tire issue definitely needs to be solved, but theres no reason it has to keep us using gas vehicles over electric

> I didn't downvote but it doesn't seem like a stretch to imagine that industrial mining vehicles will go electric in the near future.

Ah, I may have miscommunicated my concern, which is that the resources involved/required in the acquisition, sequestration, production, and recycling of batteries may ultimately be more damaging than conventional fuels [in the long run]. It is possible that I am wrong, however, it remains a personal point of concern.

this video compares co2 emissions of a tesla vs hybrid vs regular ice car. I think it is an interesting exploration of the topic although I think the presenter had a hard time getting correct data and his data on the EV is more conservative than Tesla's numbers.

I would definitely be interested in exploring this further. It seems probable to me that we won't have a better grasp on this for years yet as EVs are still pretty new and not widely adopted. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEqxaH47DTs

It's not remotely a stretch. The biggest mining machines in the world (open pit coal shovels in Europe) are already electric and have been for ages. In the rest of the mining industry most big manufacturers like CAT and Sandvik are releasing battery powered scoops, haul-trucks, etc. It's on its way but industrial adoption will surely follow consumer adoption. We do need better batteries, faster charging, and more experience before they can take over, but thankfully that consumer demand is paving the way (i.e. paying for the research).

The people who tend to make that argument are people who will eventually hand-wave away all efforts at electrifying society and transportation, minimize climate change and the efforts to stop it, and so on.

Yes, there are up-front environmental costs to electric cars, but I wager it's worth it.

Scenario: We could churn out 50,000,000 electric cars next year, with all the strip mining and oil-burning required. But somehow, we had nuclear/solar energy and a grid in the US capable of supporting the power draw. The outcome would be a much healthier country, on the whole.

The goal long term is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. Transport is the most obvious "hard" problem - nuclear/solar/wind are clearly going to take over coal and gas. It would be beneficial to move transport over to electric now, to "centralize" the fossil fuel problem to power plants.

> The people who tend to make that argument are people who will eventually hand-wave away all efforts at electrifying society and transportation, minimize climate change and the efforts to stop it, and so on

This is not being fair or charitable. Some people are genuinely curious, like myself, but are treated as if some type of malice was intended just for asking.

Interesting to look up Underground mining. Could try CIM. most underground mines have been using electrically powered machines for years. Some Decades. Air quality underground is big concern.

You asked for context. Experience is experience. I didn't say you were like that, and I answered the question assuming you in particular were asking in good faith.

just for clarity, i am a leftist. i just call bs when i see it.

Same here.

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