carbonates

How PHEVs and EVs Will Sabotage America's Drive for Energy Independence

Having just returned from a field expedition related to carbon sequestration research, in which my 4WD was the only thing that kept us alive in the 130 degree desert heat, I can seriously relate to the comments by Iowa Corn. I can never imagine the day I will give up internal combustion engines for my truck (much less my marine research vessel). My truck can carry enough fuel to last me a week and travel 500 miles or more- just enough to make one trip. I can't imagine driving through a river or operating in rugged terrain in an EV. As far as I am concerned I am already burning organically grown biofuel- it's called gasoline and it was made by phytoplankton so I feel no moral anguish.

That said, the market will sort this out. I believe you answered your own question when you compared the cost of a Prius to the Volt. Unless Washington manages to interfere with the market enough to cut the cost of the Volt by 50%, the Prius and its clones will continue to dominate in the market that it can satisfy. It will never satisfy the market that requires vehicles to do more than transport a single person over a relatively short distance. It's not going to replace 18-wheelers, airplanes, tractors, or trains, and so is going to remain a minor solution to transportation fuel usage. As for carbon output, the EV is hands down the largest emitter of carbon as long as coal-fired electricity is the source of its power.

As a geologist who has worked in the Atacama Desert looking at lithium deposits, I do still disagree that the ECONOMIC supply of lithium is unlimited, especially when its afficionados see it replacing millions of cars (and still acting as the major supply for electronics, computers, commercial power back-ups, and other device batteries). At current lithium prices, the supply is not large enough to build large numbers of EV's. The market may also solve this problem, as a tenfold increase in lithium prices will significantly increase the economic supply- but seriously damage the economics of EV's. That, influenced by a political trend among lithium producers leaning toward an "OPEC" of lithium exporting countries, is what I see coming as EV's hit the market.

Full disclosure: I own stock in lithium mining companies and oil companies. I don't own stock in GM or Toyota, and none in any battery manufacturers.