Mobility of the future
“Stepping up the speed with the circular economy, slowing down with mobility”
26.05.2021
No more exhaust pipe – e-cars travel emission-free. But what about the energy footprint and sustainability when it comes to producing the high-performance batteries required by electric cars? We ask life cycle assessment expert Roland Hischier.
Roland Hischier, what exactly puts a strain on the life cycle assessment of electric cars or the batteries?
The ecological footprint of a vehicle includes resource consumption and emissions from production, use and disposal of the vehicle as well as all its components, including the battery in the case of an e-car. Energy is used at all of these stages – in the form of electricity, for example. How this energy is produced will impact significantly on the footprint.
“A car’s ecological footprint depends very much on the type of energy production used.” ”
Where does the industry stand today?
If we compare a petrol engine to an electric vehicle, we can see differences at every stage of the lifecycle. Due to the large battery, the production of an e-car certainly involves more energy consumption, so this means the adverse environmental impact is greater than in the case of a car with a petrol engine. The industry has understood this, too. Today, companies are increasingly going their own way to be more ecological and achieve a better footprint. Examples include installing photovoltaic systems directly on the factories or purchasing green electricity to reduce CO2-Reduce the intensity of own production.
How “clean” is Europe in terms of electricity generation?
The CO2-Intensity of the electricity mix in Europe varies greatly from one country to another. It depends on the power plant where the electricity is produced – ranging from 23 grams/kWh in Norway, where electricity is generated almost exclusively using hydropower, to 100 grams/kWh in Switzerland and more than 1,000 grams/kWh in Poland, which generates its electricity almost exclusively by means of coal-fired power plants. The increase in electricity from renewable sources such as wind or solar will lead to a further reduction in CO2-Intensity of the electricity if it replaces electricity from fossil-fuel power plants.
“Only after it has covered 60,000 kilometres is an electric car more carbon-efficient than a car with a petrol engine,” according to the Fraunhofer Institute. The Kassensturz, on the other hand, comes to a figure of around 30,000 kilometres for a mid-range electric car. What do you say?
That’s not a question you can simply answer with a number. Various factors have a role to play here, and clearly the Fraunhofer Institute and Kassensturz are making different assumptions about them. As already mentioned, the production of the e-battery has a negative impact on the environment and thus CO2 Emissions that do not occur in the case of petrol engines. Conversely, a petrol engine causes direct CO when driving2-Emissions, but not the e-vehicle. When the electric car is operated, the indirect CO that is not caused by the vehicle itself depends on2-Emissions based on the power plant mix used to generate the battery electricity. And the situation here is very different if you compare Germany and Switzerland – and this is what accounts for the differing statements we are talking about. The Kassensturz figure is based on data compiled by the Paul Scherrer Institute. This reflects the situation in Switzerland, i.e. battery charging using the average Swiss electricity mix.
“Lithium and cobalt are considered to be the new oil.” ”
How critical is the extraction of the battery raw material lithium?
Lithium is on the European Union’s list of critical raw materials because of its key role in modern technologies. Worldwide, South America with its salt lakes and Australia are currently the primary producers of lithium. In the coming years, the strategy in Europe – and therefore in Switzerland, too – must be to set up efficient recycling processes so as to be able to keep this type of material in use for as long as possible.
And what about cobalt?
Cobalt is also on this list of critical raw materials. Its main production area is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it is extracted under very poor working conditions in some cases. This is why cobalt is one of the so-called conflict minerals. In this case, even more must be done to recycle the material as completely as possible and extend its lifecycle.
“Keeping rare materials in circulation is absolutely imperative for the future.” ”
Are there alternatives to lithium and cobalt in sight?
In the field of batteries, large sums of money are currently being invested worldwide in the development of new systems. In addition to a further increase in energy density per mass, important aspects here are durability and improved recyclability, as well as the price of a battery. Cobalt is one of the expensive materials used in batteries. So every effort is being made here to reduce the quantity further or to replace the raw material with less problematic materials such as nickel, manganese or aluminium.
What is the status of rare earths? And how do you define exactly what these are?
The rare earths, or rather the rare earth metals, are a group of 17 metals in the periodic table – the so-called “third subgroup”, and the lanthanides. Many of these elements are needed for modern technologies, for example neodymium is required for the permanent magnets in electric motors. This makes them extremely important. Their deposits are largely located in China, which is responsible for more than three quarters of the production of this and many metals. This has led to these metals being classified as critical raw materials by the EU, for example. As such, society at large is called upon to ensure these materials are handled much more responsibly and deployed in such a way that they can remain in use for as long as possible or recycled as completely as possible.
What's your bottom-line assessment for the future ? And what do you say to Mobility’s strategy of switching completely to e-cars by 2030 at the latest?
E-vehicles allow us to use less CO per kilometre driven2-impact and thus less environmental impact of being mobile than with a petrol engine. However, we must not only focus on these CO2-Limit intensity per kilometre. Issues such as the limited availability of critical raw materials require us as a society to ask ourselves much more broadly how much mobility we want to allow. This is in two respects: We need to take additional environmental aspects into account in addition to the CO2 and we need to include more than just mobility in this consideration. After all, we ultimately only have one source available to us to cover all our activities – planet Earth.
So Mobility is strategically on the right track because it is implementing the above-mentioned bonus points offered by electrically powered mobility. At the same time, Mobility’s business model is part of the sharing economy, i.e. its approach is to share the use of resources.
Profile
Roland Hischier holds a doctorate in environmental science from the ETH and heads the research group for the further development of lifecycle assessment at Empa’s Department of Technology and Society in St. Gallen.
The Technology and Society department creates and impart knowledge for a transition to a sustainable society, including by analysing new materials and technologies in terms of their environmental and social impact. More information on the activities of this Empa department can be found at https://www.empa.ch/web/s506/overview