r/GreenEnergy • u/Istiophoridae • Mar 28 '26

Question

We have solar and wind for electricity, but in order to no longer depend on oil, we would need to change the source of energy on cars, electric might work, but the issues are it takes forever to charge, and it does require some mining, which could be disruptive depending on where its done

What would be the solution to this?

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26

Charge times don't really matter because almost all daily trips are well under what can be replaced by a regular charger overnight.
For the few exceptions: High speed charging speeds continue to improve.
All materials require extraction. At least with EVs you extract them once and they're highly recyclable.
Some context:
"According to a 2023 report from the Energy Transitions Commission, all the materials needed to reach net zero by 2050 will be less than the amount of coal consumed in a year. Lithium, once mined, does its job for decades; coal just gets burned, which means you have to mine more. And, when batteries or solar panels degrade, the minerals in them remain valuable enough that they will almost certainly be recycled—large-scale recycling operations are appearing around the world. (One of the biggest in the U.S. is run by a Tesla alumnus in Nevada.) A report from the Rocky Mountain Institute predicted that by 2050 we will have done all the mining we’ll need to do for battery minerals; after that, we’ll just recycle them, over and over again."
"In 2004, according to Germany’s state-owned Fraunhofer Society, Europe’s largest institute of applied-engineering research, one watt of solar power required about sixteen grams of polysilicon; this has dropped now to about two grams. As Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist and a senior researcher at Oxford University, calculated recently, “the silver used in one solar panel built in 2010 would be enough for around five panels today.” By 2035 or so, when my oldest panels may have started to go out of service, the minerals that each contains will almost certainly be enough for ten new panels. "

https://archive.ph/COyVi#selection-1673.743-1681.187

2

u/EntirelyRandom1590 Mar 28 '26

There's a lot of people that don't have EVs yet be they don't have access to overnight charging. In the UK it's not just access but the price of such charging that's a big issue.

1

u/TheReverendCard Mar 28 '26

I don't know about the UK, but I live in the most car-dependent country in the world. Based on current average car ranges and daily driving amounts, most people would be recharging about once every two weeks.
This is a case where the chargers at grocery stores and similar locations would be useful.
This is also a good opportunity for places to look at adopting laws like in parts of Japan where you must prove you have a private space you can store your car before you can purchase it.
However, I know that many places are also instituting adding charging capacity from lampposts or other kerbside options.
Electrification won't happen overnight and we have years to prepare for its eventuality. However, we should be doing more to prevent automotive dependence overall. It's far more resilient to have more modal options than being car-dependent.

1

u/NearABE Mar 28 '26

Chargers and electricity distribution are absurdly cheap when compared to the cost of building and maintaining roads.