The two key premises of this article are poppycock.
1) Premise: Electric cars get their electricity from coal plants, which are dirty, therefore the CO2 emissions reduction is limited, therefore we shouldn't transition to electric cars. Response: This is like saying I have 2 prime root causes to high CO2 emissions, the energy source and the energy consumer. In this article's twisted logic, you shouldn't fix the energy consumer because the energy source is dirty. However, any engineer will tell you that if you want to make progress on the whole process, then you shouldn't wait until you fixed an upstream process to fix the downstream process. Fixing the downstream process is still incremental progress. So I reject this premise of the article.
2) Premise: Lithium is a scarce resource found in countries with socialist tendencies. Therefore, we're trading one scarce resource we're dependent on from unstable regions for another one. Therefore, we shouldn't do it. Response: This assumes that lithium will always be the battery of choice and that technology stands still. Betting on technology to stand still is a very bad bet. I remember when NiCad batteries were the greatest thing since sliced bread. Battery tech will continue to change and I'd bet 10 years from now lithium may not be the best metal to put in your batteries. So this is more of a fear mongering to get people to do nothing, rather than pushing boldly forward in a new direction. Therefore, I reject this premise as well. |
