Elon Musk: "We need more oil and gas, not less"

Musk knows that EVs are actually EEVs: Emissions Elsewhere Vehicles that require massive amounts of fossil fuels and mined minerals

Elon Musk made some earth-shattering statements on August 29, 2022: “I think realistically we do need to use oil and gas in the short term because otherwise, civilization would crumble.”  He went on to say that “at this time, we need more oil and gas, not less,” adding that “he is not someone to demonize fossil fuels.”  Musk also said that “countries should be increasing nuclear power generation” and that “it is insane from a national security standpoint and bad for the environment to shut them down.”

Wow! Spot on straight-up talk from the world’s richest man who isn’t afraid to speak the truth.  Musk has enough respect in the world to be able to say such things and get away with it.

These aren’t offhand remarks.  Musk’s thoughts about the importance of fossil fuels come from the man whose company is the largest manufacturer of EVs in the world (although Tesla might have just been overtaken by the Chinese automaker BYD) and who understands that the raw materials required to build them are all dependent on fossil fuels to be mined, processed, and transported, and to keep their batteries charged. Musk understands that EVs are, in reality, EEVs: emissions elsewhere vehicles.

Mr. Musk’s comments are backed up with facts by Professor Vaclav Smil, a polymath and brilliant writer, in his latest book (of the more than 40 he has written) How the World Really Works: “Electric cars provide perhaps the best example of new, and enormous, material dependencies.  A typical lithium car battery weighing about 450 kilograms contains about 11 kilograms of lithium, nearly 13 kilograms of cobalt, 27 kilograms of nickel, more than 40 kilograms of copper, and 50 kilograms of graphite—as well as about 181 kilograms of steel, aluminum, and plastics.  Supplying these materials for a single vehicle requires processing about 40 tons of ores, and given the low concentration of many elements in their ores it necessitates, extracting and processing about 225 tons of raw materials.  Again, we would have to multiply this by close to 100 million units, which is the annual worldwide production of internal-combustion vehicles that would have to be replaced by electric drive.”  (Chapter 3, “Understanding Our Material World,” page 101).

If I may be so bold as to attempt to summarize Professor Smil, it is this:   The chances that rare earth minerals can ever be mined in sufficient quantities to replace 100 million gasoline-powered cars are slim to none.  (My apologies to Professor Smil for even attempting to restate his words.)

Here are a few other facts about Teslas and EVs.  The chassis of the Tesla Model 3 is aluminum with steel reinforcement.  Mining iron ore and aluminum oxide to produce steel and aluminum require extensive mining using diesel-powered equipment.  Teslas also contain a lot of plastic manufactured from natural gas as the feedstock; glass made from sand which is processed in natural gas-fired ovens; synthetic rubber for tires synthesized from petroleum byproducts; and fabrics manufactured from synthetic fibers.  You see that pattern here.  Fossil fuels are essential components of EVs.

Charging EVs requires electricity, and 60% of electricity in the US is generated by burning fossil fuels, mainly natural gas and coal. If that ever changes, it will be because nuclear power becomes pervasive, not because the globe becomes covered in wind turbines and solar panels, because there is not enough land, and people are increasingly rejecting the expansion of wind farms, as Robert Bryce chronicles so well.

The bottom line is this: More EVs will not necessarily reduce worldwide carbon emissions. Just the sources will change.