EV Makers Confront the 'Nickel Pickle'

[Zorro]

Large amounts of the mineral are needed for electric car batteries, but getting it out of the ground and refining it often requires clearing rainforests and generating large amounts of carbon

In the electric-vehicle business, the quandary is known as the nickel pickle.

To make batteries for EVs, companies need to mine and refine large amounts of nickel. The process of getting the mineral out of the ground and turning it into battery-ready substances, though, is particularly environmentally unfriendly. Reaching the nickel means cutting down swaths of rainforest. Refining it is a carbon-intensive process that involves extreme heat and high pressure, producing waste slurry that’s hard to dispose of.

The nickel issue reflects a larger contradiction within the EV industry: Though electric vehicles are designed to be less damaging to the environment in the long term than conventional cars, the process of building them carries substantial environmental harm.

The challenge is playing out across Indonesia’s mineral-rich islands, by far the world’s largest source of nickel. These deposits aren’t deep underground but lie close to the surface, under stretches of overlapping forests. Getting to the nickel is easy and inexpensive, but only after the forests are cleared.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/electric-vehicles-batteries-nickel-pickle-indonesia-9152b1f?st=6xs7iapo2xdyjtc&reflink=share_mobilewebshare

[bucolic_frolic]

1. There are those of us who doubted Green Consumption as a strategy all along

[WalkerinSC]

3. We could have reduced pollution

And had a larger adoption if hybrids had been pushed harder with the credits extended to full EVs. Hybrids provided the clean battery operation for many trips and the ICE engine gave the range and payload and weight towing that many desire. It was an elegant solution in a capitalist system. Perfect has been made the enemy of advancement. Nuclear has been so demonized by many won't consider it and we can not solar and wind our way to power a modern society. It's going to take a New Deal level amount of investment and it has to be done right the first time or there may not be a next time for a few generations.

[brush]

2. EVs may not be the future then if they require stripping forests to get nickel.

Last edited Sun Jun 4, 2023, 04:41 PM - Edit history (1)

Where are we in hydrogen car development?

[Mopar151]

4. Nickel is not specific to EV or storage battery technology. Its pretty handy stuff!

And we already use a lot! Maybe we should work on the land raping nickel miners to pick up their game!

[brush]

6. What do you mean pick up their game? Clear cutting forests for...

the additional nickel needed for EV batteries? Are you kidding?

Climate change is already heating up the planet, we don't need to accelerate it.

[Mopar151]

7. You're deliberately misinterpreting what I said.

The miners will do major damage to ecology, mine workers, and decent governments. Happens over and over, unless there is a compelling government, union, or international authority to shorten their chain.

[brush]

8. You explained it better here. This post clears it up somewhat.

[jgo]

5. "I love electric vehicles-and was an early adopter. But increasingly I feel duped" by Rowan Atkinson

"
As an environmentalist once said to me, if you really need a car, buy an old one and use it as little as possible.
"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/03/electric-vehicles-early-adopter-petrol-car-ev-environment-rowan-atkinson

[Cheezoholic]

9. Ive been leary of CHIPS all along

Are there environmental safeguards built into this huge subsidized package? One of the reasons much of the IC manufacturing has been located in Asia is because its a dirty toxic business. Besides the length of time it takes to bring one of these plants online, up to 5 years after they are built, it could take even longer if they follow current or, hopefully, even more stringent environmental regulations that would be needed to bring these plants stateside. Microchip "factories" aren't like auto assembly lines. They're a whole different animal. I really haven't read that much about the act but I would hope those factors were being addressed.