Note: A real person wrote this: me. There are no paywalls, pop-ups, surveys, ads, or AI. All photos by me unless otherwise noted.
We Traded In Our Prius For an All-Electric Vehicle
Yeah, I’m one of those. It gives me a good feeling to drive a car that uses no gas and no oil and has zero emissions. I looked into the downsides: mining, battery production, lifecycle analysis, tire erosion, and so on. Can lithium batteries be recycled? The answer is yes, and they should be. The bottom line is that EVs are better for the environment and human health than gas-powered cars. It’s time to move on from our fossil fuel binge.
There is much information, misinformation, and disinformation online about the renewable energy transition we desperately need. After weeding through the firehose of information, the choice was clear for me: Our next car had to be electric.
Exhaust from gas-powered vehicles is the most significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, which include CO2, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur dioxide, and particulate matter.
Think about it. There are more than 2.8 million gas-powered cars in the U.S. All require highly flammable fuel, which is extracted at great environmental and human health risks. Every single trip emits highly toxic fumes.
Tailpipe Emissions From Gasoline Powered Cars is the Largest Contributor of Greenhouse Gases
Passenger cars are by far the largest contributor—60 percent—to greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector, according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. So, if we could get just passenger cars to go electric, it would be a huge benefit to the Earth. We’d reduce greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 70 percent, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
I did a lot of research on which EV to purchase and settled on the Hyundai Ioniq 5. Hyundai is a South Korean car company that has a free trade agreement with the United States. The Ioniq 5 has a state-of-the-art lithium-ion battery that can power the car for up to 350 miles on a single charge.
The Ioniq 5 EV (2023) is plugged in and being charged by the solar panels at Whiskey Creek Regenerative Farming.
We drove our Prius to the Hyundai dealership in Waynesboro, Virginia. We test-drove the EV, loved it, and were eager to purchase it. I asked the salesman if the car qualified for the $7,500 federal tax credit. He said he didn’t know—we’d have to talk to a tax adviser. “Hmm. What’s up with that?” I thought.
The salesman added that Hyundai had reduced the sale price of the EV by $7,500, so the tax credit was a wash. “Uh-huh,” I thought. Something is not right with this.” But we were so pleased with the car that we bought it and drove it home.
Our EV Didn’t Qualify For the Tax Credit
I called our accountant to determine whether the car qualified for the tax credit. She informed me that it did not because the South Korean EV had not been assembled in the United States. Interesting. I dug deeper. In addition, any EV with a lithium battery made in Russia or China does not qualify for the tax credit. These restrictions are in place because the Biden administration is trying to encourage companies to manufacture electric cars and batteries in the United States.
I wanted to know more about lithium. Since the 19th century, people have found a wide variety of uses for it—in pharmaceuticals, fiberglass, glass-ceramic cooktops, and aircraft engine grease, to name a few. I have a can of white lithium grease I apply to the head catch for cattle. It’s a great lubricant that won’t freeze. Lithium is also in practically every rechargeable battery on the planet: in cellphones, laptops, flashlights, and electric vehicles.
Lithium is used in many products including this white lithium grease that we use on the farm to lubricate the cattle head chute.
Renewable Energy Requires Mining
Lithium, by volume, is the largest element used in rechargeable batteries. Its extraction requires large-scale open-pit mining and brine pools. Lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, and other elements necessary for our renewable energy transition require a lot of mining and chemical processing.
This raises questions for a sustainable planet: Can we do all this mining in an environmentally safe way? Will our quest for renewable energy cause more environmental and cultural resource damage than the environmental problem (climate change) we are trying to solve?
Lithium brine pools at a mine in Chile. Photo credit Shutterstock and Feliperodfer
Perhaps the quintessential environmental test case for the United States is unfolding right now in Nevada. The Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine was approved in October 2024 and is planned to be fully operational by 2028.
An Endangered Species in the Path
In the path of the Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron mine is a tiny, endangered, federally listed, globally rare plant: Tiehm’s Buckwheat. It occupies a small 10-acre area within the mine’s 7,000-acre operational area on publicly owned property overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Can we carry out open-pit mining without driving the endangered species to extinction? Our quest for renewable energy will demand the most incredible marriage of industrialists and environmentalists the world has ever known. The government’s role in this marriage should be that of counselor, mediator, and overseer to ensure it’s done right.
Tiehm’s Buckwheat. Photo credit Patrick Donnelly/Center for Biological Diversity.
Tiehm’s Buckwheat is named after Arnold Tiehm who collected it while working to discover new plants for the New York Botanical Garden. The Center for Biological Diversity petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2019 to list the rare species as endangered and in 2021 filed a successful lawsuit that resulted in protected status on December 14, 2022.
USFWS’s Biological Opinion Green Lights the Lithium Mine
Ioneer, an Australian mining company, submitted its plans for mining lithium at Rhyolite Ridge to the BLM in August 2020. The permitting process required the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to issue a biological opinion for the mine’s impact on the endangered buckwheat. It did so on September 4, 2024.
“After reviewing the current status of Eriogonum tiehmii and its critical habitat, the environmental baseline for the action area, the effects of the proposed activities, and the cumulative effects, we have determined that the activities considered in this biological opinion are not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of E. tiehmii or result in the destruction or adverse modification of its critical habitat.”
Ioneer has aggressive plans that assure the endangered buckwheat will not perish, including research, seed storage, plant propagation, and other protection methods.
The Center for Biological Diversity is not pleased with the opinion; nonetheless, the BLM issued a Record of Decision to approve the Rhyolite Ridge lithium-boron project on October 23, 2024.
This came after six years of negotiations between lithium industrialists, environmentalists, and government experts navigating the multiple permit processes.
Can we extract the lithium at Rhyolite Ridge without driving the buckwheat to extinction? We shall see. It is a giant and symbolic test for the future of renewable energy necessary to help end the climate crisis.
Your Next Car Should Be Electric
Do the research yourself. You may find, as I did, that an electric vehicle is far better than a gas-powered one. Here are a few sites to help you decide:
Electric Vehicles 101: Understanding Health and Climate Benefits
“UNLESS someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not,” words of the Lorax, Dr. Seuss, 1971.
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