Professors Lawrence M. Cathles and Adam C. Simon have released a report claiming the expected and mandated expanding Electric Vehicle (EV) market will soon outstrip the available supply of copper. The solution the report offers is to lower the EV benchmarks and replace that EV production with hybrid car production.
The report claims “Hybrid electric vehicles could have almost as large an impact on reducing CO2 emissions and city pollution, and the likelihood of the copper required for their manufacture being available is much greater. This is not a perfect solution, but it is a much more resource-realistic one.”
Go to Article
Excerpt from www.roadandtrack.com
Penning a report called Copper Mining and Vehicle Electrification, Professors Lawrence M. Cathles and Adam C. Simon claim that a key mineral in EV production, copper, isn’t being mined at a strong enough rate to support long-term EV sales goals.
Cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and nickel are all essential to electrification in their own ways, but copper fulfills a particularly important responsibility in the production of EVs. Found in everything from the electric motors, batteries, inverters, and the wiring of an electric car as well as in the charging stations themselves, copper is attractive for electrification due to its ability to conduct heat, resist corrosion, and relatively low cost of production.
The Copper Development Association says that each electric vehicle can have up to a mile of copper inside of it. Similarly, the report notes that the manufacturing process of an EV uses around 132 pounds of copper, as compared to 52 pounds of copper used to produce an equivalent gasoline-powered vehicle.
About The Author
