
Electric cars emit 50% less greenhouse gas than diesel, study finds - gpresot
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/25/electric-cars-emit-50-less-greenhouse-gas-than-diesel-study-finds
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moocowtruck
I find that the amount of emissions from the production of the batteries is
often glossed over. While I do think it can be lower over time.. today it's
quite high. Just would be nice that it is brought to peoples attention more
when discussing the savings from electric. Not to stop us from moving to
electric but from an awareness factor.

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WorldMaker
Lack of awareness? This argument is brought up _a lot_. Here's one article
debunking one of the complaints about it:

[http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-
electric/news/a2...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/hybrid-
electric/news/a27039/tesla-battery-emissions-study-fake-news/)

It's getting to the point that it's almost silly how recurring a fallacy that
somehow battery production emissions are absurd or battery mining conditions
abhorrent.

Compared to say oil rigs and oil derricks and refineries, it's so very hard
for battery mining and battery production to be any worse.

The two most "exotic" elements in a Lithium Ion battery, both of which are
actually a tiny fraction of the mass, lithium and cobalt, are both still
primarily "brine mined" sorting through easy to access pools rather than the
mine shaft mining that comes to mind for most people (we're roughly still at
the stage of "gold prospecting" and just pulling lithium and cobalt from salts
in water, rather than "gold mining" deep into the earth).

ETA: Not to mention that this very article and its 50% claim is _yet another_
that includes the carbon emissions of battery production but seemingly _none_
of oil production.

