By Mark Keenan
globalresearch.ca

In Sweden, there exists an electrified road for Electric Vehicles (EVs) to charge while driving.¹ The two-kilometre stretch of road is the world’s first of its kind, and an expansion of a further 3,000 km of electric road by 2045 is planned. It all sounds rather cool and futuristic, and I am reminded of a song lyric from the 1980s, the singer Eddie Grant sang “We gonna rock down to Electric Avenue.”

However, let us consider whether these expensive EVs are actually environmentally friendly or are yet another mega-corporate marketing scam.

This article demonstrates that the latter is the case. 

The reality is that the misled environmentalists buying these cars are suckers for mega-corporate advertising, ignorantly proud of their so-called low-carbon eco-cars. Apparently, they are unaware that the manufacture of millions of electric car batteries requires huge mining operations to acquire and refine large quantities of rare earth metals. Lithium, rhodium, and cobalt are metals that have to be mined out of the ground using machinery powered by carbon-emitting vehicles, which are powered by diesel or petrol. Importantly, the mining and refining processes can cause significant and extensive pollution to land, air, and water systems, for example, in rural China and Mongolia.² Unlike the fake climate agenda, these are real environmental problems.

Lithium is extracted from lithium leach fields, which is what your EV batteries are made of. The leach fields are so neuro-toxic that a bird landing on it dies in minutes. Take a guess what it does to your nervous system. Pat yourself on the back for saving the environment.

And the push to end gasoline or diesel transport by 2035 in favour of e-vehicles is based on a lie as the lithium-ion battery-powered vehicles have a total “carbon footprint” when the effects of mining lithium and producing all parts are included, which is worse than diesel autos.

Furthermore, electric cars are still driven by electricity produced from “fossil” fuels and will most likely continue to be. Despite decades of government subsidies, wind power provides less than 5% of the world’s energy, and solar, just 1%. The use of electricity to charge vehicles and devices is also an extremely inefficient use of energy, according to a study by the European Association for Battery Electric Vehicles commissioned by the European Commission (EC): “The ‘Well-to-Tank’ energy efficiency (from the primary energy source to the electrical plug), taking into account the energy consumed by the production and distribution of the electricity, is estimated at around 37%.”

Let us take a look at the deceptive marketing for electric vehicles. The first misleading marketing trick that millions of environmentalists fell for was the “hybrid.” Hybrid cars are actually gasoline-powered cars with a little battery assistance and the little battery has to be charged from the gasoline engine.

If the EPA-certified mileage is 55 mpg, then it is no different from a non-hybrid that achieves 55 mpg. A world 100% full of “hybrid” drivers is still 100% addicted to oil.

Now, consider a cleverly-designed marketing pitch for electric cars by Elon Musk, Co-Founder and CEO of Tesla Motors. In an article published on the Tesla Motors website,³ he states: “The overarching purpose of Tesla Motors … is to help expedite the move from a mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy … I’d like to address two repeated arguments against electric vehicles—battery disposal and power plant emissions … the Tesla Motors Lithium-Ion cells are not classified as hazardous and are landfill safe … the battery pack can be sold to recycling companies (unsubsidized) at the end of its greater than 100,000-mile design life…

“A common rebuttal to electric vehicles as a solution to carbon emissions is that they simply transfer the CO₂ emissions to the power plant. The obvious counter is that one can develop grid electric power from a variety of means, many of which, like hydro, wind, geothermal, nuclear, solar, etc., involve no CO₂ emissions. However, let’s assume for the moment that the electricity is generated from a hydrocarbon source like natural gas… the hands down winner is pure electric: We will be offering a modestly sized and priced solar … This system can be … set up as a carport and will generate about 50 miles per day of electricity. If you travel less than 350 miles per week, you will therefore be ‘energy positive’ with respect to your personal transportation … you will actually be putting more energy back into the system than you consume in transportation!”

However, Elon Musk does not mention the fact that:

• The move from mine-and-burn hydrocarbon economy towards a solar electric economy in itself requires a vast expenditure of “fossil” fuel energy to re-purpose the entire worldwide industrial system, as well as build vast new energy grids for wind and solar energy, etc., simply to reduce CO₂ emissions. A new industrial framework which will still be very polluting to land, air, and water in virtually the same ways as the old framework. It creates more and more “product” to be marketed and sold, such as electric cars, which we are now incorrectly told is okay because its “green product.”
• The Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) for solar and wind energy is too low to be viable, and therefore, to repurpose and rebuild the world energy and industrial system to de-carbonize the economy is a waste of vast amounts of “fossil” fuels (no wonder the sector seeks subsidies).
• The manufacture of potentially hundreds of millions of new electric cars and electric car batteries involves a continuation of widespread mining and processing of rare earth metals, such as lithium, rhodium, and cobalt, which are a limited resource. The mining and processing of rare earth metals has been shown to be polluting to land, air, and water systems, such as rivers.
• If you charge the car with solar energy, you may be putting slightly more energy back into the system than you consume in “driving the car.” However, driving the electric car is only one small part of the entire energy consuming process from mining to manufacture to distribution, not to mention the embedded energy in the manufactured materials of a new worldwide supply-chain industrial infrastructure, including cars, factories, energy grids, wind turbines, photovoltaics (solar panels), etc.
• Vitally, CO₂ emissions are not the cause of climate change. This is evidenced in my books: Transcending the Climate Change Deception Toward Real Sustainability and CO₂ Climate Hoax – How Bankers Hijacked the Real Environment Movement.

As an example of why electric cars are fake environmentalism, let us consider a Tesla model Y battery. It takes up all of the space under the passenger compartment of the car. To manufacture the battery, it is estimated that you will need:

• 12 tons of rock for lithium and 5 tons of cobalt minerals. Most cobalt is made as a byproduct of the processing of copper and nickel ores. It is a very difficult to obtain and is very expensive.
• 3 tons of nickel ore and 12 tons of copper ore. You must move 250 tons of soil to obtain 26.5 pounds of lithium, 30 pounds of nickel, 48.5 pounds of manganese, and 15 pounds of cobalt.
• 441 pounds of aluminum, steel and/or plastic, and 112 pounds of graphite.

A Caterpillar 994A vehicle is commonly used for the earthmoving to obtain the essential minerals. It has been estimated to consume between 250 and 775 gallons of diesel in 12 hours.⁴

Finally, you get a “zero emissions” car.

Presently, the bulk of the necessary minerals for manufacturing the batteries comes from China or Africa; and much of the hard labour for acquiring the minerals in Africa is done by children!

The cost of Tesla batteries for the Tesla car models ranges from $5,000 to $20,000 US.

It takes seven years for an electric car to reach net-zero CO₂. The average life expectancy of the batteries is 10 years. Only in the last three years do you begin to reduce your carbon footprint. Then, the batteries have to be replaced and you lose all the gains you made in those three years.

The reality should be distinguished from the lies we are all being told by the UN (United Nations), the WEF (World Economic Forum), and mega-corporate advertising. The word “sustainable” was hijacked decades ago, and it is now deceptively used to advance the agendas of mega-corporate-communist interests who couldn’t care less about the environment. The aim is to catapult humanity into the “fake-sustainable” totalitarian arms of UN Agenda 2030 and other clever marketing plans entirely designed by the so-called elites of the corporate WEF Davos group.
1. euronews.com/next/2023/05/09/sweden-is-building-the-worlds-first-permanent-electrified-road-for-evs-to-charge-while-dri

2. theguardian.com/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution

3. tesla.com/blog/secret-tesla-motors-master-plan-just-between-you-and-me

4. heavyequipmentforums.com/threads/cat-994-fuel-consumption.94089

Mark Gerard Keenan, is a former scientist at the UK Government Dept. of Energy and Climate Change, and at the United Nations Environment Division. He is also the author of six books, available at mkeenan.ie/published-books

Originally published at globalresearch.ca