Title: How do batteries affect the environment? | World Economic Forum
Headings: How do batteries affect the environment?
How do batteries affect the environment?
Beware the industrial option
Beware new problems from new solutions
Subscribe for updates

Content: In this context, the green economy is presented as an inevitable green technological economic wave. But the prospect of this green economic wave needs to be considered within a wider environmental and social context, which makes solving the problems much more complex. Let’s take electric vehicles as an example. The ecological damage of cars, electric or otherwise, is partly due to the fact that the car industry generates more than 3 million tonnes of scrap and waste every year. In 2009, 14 million cars were scrapped in the United States alone. The number of cars operating in the world is expected to climb from the current 896 million to 1.2 billion by 2020. The infrastructure associated with growing vehicle use, particularly roads, also makes a significant contribution to the destruction of ecosystems and arguably has important social costs. Electric vehicles (EVs) offer a substantial greenhouse gas emission improvement from the internal combustion engine. However, this improvement depends on green electricity production. An EV powered by average European electricity production is likely to reduce a vehicle’s global warming potential by about 20% over its life cycle.