Thank you dear subscribers, we are overwhelmed with your response.
Your Turn is a unique section from ThePrint featuring points of view from its subscribers. If you are a subscriber, have a point of view, please send it to us. If not, do subscribe here: https://theprint.in/subscribe/
In the era of social media, fact-check is something which takes a back seat when it comes to discussing and sharing information on burning topics. E-vehicle (EV) is the burning topic of the day. There is no burning of fuel, but it’s fuelling the discussion on shunning ICE (Internal combustion engines) and curtailing the use of petroleum products. Intention in saying so is undoubtedly benevolent. For a moment, let’s keep aside the EV companies and governments. Are the auto-experts and media houses who have become the torchbearers of EVs, aware of the technical aspects behind their manufacturing and running? As per the debates & discussions that I witness on social media, obvious answer is that they just look at the emission coming from tailpipe and declare that an EV is pollution free. But is it pollution-free or it’s just having an virtual exhaust tailpipe which is just transferring the emissions from cities to powerplants?
Level of pollution caused by e-vehicles varies from country to country depending on factors like 1. Source of energy, 2. Policy on battery recycling, 3. Mining process involved in extracting the metals like Cobalt, Lithium etc which are used in manufacturing the batteries. Currently, 60% of the energy produced in India is through non-renewable sources which implies that though there is no direct emission from the vehicle, but the energy that powers it still comes from non-renewable sources which means they generate air, water and noise pollution but far away from city limits. Needless to discuss the negative impact of coal mining on environment.
Countries are now formulating stringent and fool-proof policies on battery recycling process. Tesla like companies are able to recycle a maximum of 70% of the battery parts. Whereas in India, even after years of deliberations, scrappage policy for ICE vehicles itself is still at a nascent stage. Going by the current pace, battery recycling and other related policies might take substantial time. Reuse of certain metals in battery would substantially reduce the ground water pollution.
70% of the Cobalt production happens from DR Congo (Africa). Out of which, 30% of the Cobalt mines have very few or no regulations pertaining to masks, gloves and other safety measures. Many children and miners are putting their lives at stake due to poor regulations around mining of this metal. Some global EV manufacturers prefer sourcing from such unregulated mines as few regulations translate to lower cost of procurement which in turn leads to more damage to environment.
Currently, there are multiple fuel options like CNG, Hydrogen Fuel, Petrol, Diesel, Electric, CNG etc. which are currently existing or are in development stage. With the existing infrastructure, it is highly impractical to provide sufficient infrastructure for all these fuel options. There is a lot of grey area that exists between green and non-green. Hence, EVs have to travel a long way to get a perfect Green Tag.
—Mallikarjuna Sarma Abburi
These pieces are being published as they have been received – they have not been edited/fact-checked by ThePrint.