How clean is green?

THE electric drive is gearing up for the fast lane. Carmakers are churning out electric makes and vowing to do away with internal combustion engines. Everyone probably knows someone who wants a Tesla. And policymakers are swinging both sticks and carrots to push more on board the electric vehicle (EV) bandwagon.

The huge driving force behind this is sustainability. But research is pointing to an inconvenient truth - that plug-in vehicles may not be the ultimate answer to fighting climate change after all. Like switching to vegan ice cream or eating ultra-processed fake meat flown in from miles away, driving an EV might not be quite as green as it is made out to be.

Observers tell The Business Times that although battery EVs are likely to be greener than cars running on petrol, their effect on the environment is not solely based on what they consume when driven.

How harmful an electric car can be is a result of several factors: the pollution its manufacturers contribute to during production, the fossil fuels burnt for electricity in cities it is in, the volume of energy-intensive metals mined for production of its batteries, as well as whether batteries are recycled after use.

Consumers should look beyond carbon emissions when comparing EVs and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles, says Benjamin Chiang, EY's Asean government and public sector leader.

Taking a life-cycle approach would be more holistic, he says. "Even then, comparing the lifecycle emissions of the latest, high-efficiency ICE vehicles and EVs can be a fraught exercise, because so much depends on the assumptions made."

Grey areas in the EV race to green

One immediate effect that EVs have on a national ecosystem is ramped-up demand for electricity. EVs could be one of the top energy guzzlers in households.

Assuming that every private car drives 52km per day on average, EVs will need about 10.4 kilowatts per hour (kWh) of electricity each day. This roughly translates to 10 times the power needed to run a refrigerator for a full day, or turning on an air conditioner for seven hours.

Transport Minister Ong Ye Kung said in Parliament on Thursday that in the case that Singapore's entire vehicle population runs on electricity by 2040, the increase in generation demand is estimated to be equivalent of 8 to 16 per cent of the power presently being generated. The situation, he noted, would be manageable if EV drivers do not insist on fast charging, but let their cars charge slowly overnight.

Singapore plans to deploy 60,000 charging points across the city by 2030. Two-thirds of these will be in public carparks while another 20,000 will be in private premises.

The focus would be on building slow chargers (which require about three to 12 hours of charging time), because fast chargers (10 to 30 minutes' charging time) require a major upgrade of almost all power substations and grid infrastructure, said Mr Ong in a previous parliamentary speech.

Like many countries, Singapore is still largely powered through the combustion of fossil fuels. About 95 per cent of energy in Singapore is generated using natural gas, while the rest is produced by coal, oil, municipal waste, and solar energy.

While burning natural gas - a fossil fuel - produces half as much carbon dioxide compared to coal, that does not make it harmless. Without cleaner sources of energy such as solar or wind, the significant draw of energy from Singapore's grid needed to power EVs is likely to hike up carbon emissions.

In effect, EVs merely shift emissions from the car to the power station, says Assistant Professor Soo Han Sen from the Nanyang Technological University's School of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. He adds: "If we want to be more sustainable, then the more fundamental change is that our electricity production should also be from renewable energy, which is still changing slowly."

At Singapore's 2019 International Energy Week, Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing said that the Republic will continue to rely on natural gas for the next 50 years for a substantial part of its energy needs, due to limited access to renewable energy options such as geothermal or wind power. But targets have been set to quadruple solar energy deployment by 2025, which could meet about 4 per cent of Singapore's total electricity demand today.

A crucial element of the potential of EVs is that they can be fuelled by greener alternatives, if carbon-intensive power plants are disconnected from the grid and replaced with renewables.

Singapore is moving towards decarbonising its energy sources by developing the country's solar capabilities and tapping on the energy grid of neighbours, such as Malaysia, which have large sources of hydropower. In the meantime, driving an electric car in Singapore will likely release more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than in a country like Iceland, which runs almost entirely on hydro, geothermal and solar energy.

Nevertheless, converting all of Singapore's light vehicles to electric power would result in a reduction of about 1.5 to two million tonnes in emissions per year, Mr Ong said on Thursday.

"This abatement is about 4 per cent of our total national emissions - not insignificant," he said, adding that that there are carbon savings of 50 per cent by switching to electric vehicles "even if the electricity is generated by fossil fuels".

Charged with battery

To power these vehicles, millions of new battery packs will need to be built and assembled globally to keep up with demand.

Analysts say lithium-ion batteries, which are used in EVs, are expected to dominate the rechargeable battery market in the near future. Besides lithium, nickel, aluminium, graphite and cobalt are some of the other key metals used in the cathode of these batteries.

Nickel has become a vital component in many lithium-ion batteries. It packs more energy in batteries at a lower cost, allowing vehicles to move over long distances.

But the extraction of scarce and expensive metals such as nickel and cobalt often comes at a price to the environment and miners' health.

While analysts project sufficient reserves of rare metals to support the growth trajectory of EVs, there will be an environmental impact associated with mining and extracting these rare earth elements, as well as managing the waste products generated from the process, says EY's Mr Chiang. "This is the main reason for the higher upfront carbon emissions associated with the manufacturing of EVs," he notes.

He adds: "While there is currently a lot of research into alternative battery design allowing for faster recharging, longer battery lives and alternative materials, these are still far away from mass production status and, in many cases, unproven. A major breakthrough on this front would be a game-changer for the industry."

EVs also tend to be more carbon-intensive than ICE vehicles during manufacturing due to the significant energy required for battery production, he explains. "Carbon emissions during this phase will vary depending on the location of the battery manufacturing facility and how green the electricity sources are - and that is before making assumptions about lifespan of the battery and how often it needs to be replaced."

Currently, China accounts for over 60 per cent of the world's battery capacity, said an EV report by global law firm Linklaters, and analysts predict that China will continue to host the majority of battery manufacturing over the next 10 years.

Although China has a coal-heavy grid, new studies show the carbon impact from the production of EV batteries has improved since its infancy. Now, EV batteries are getting cleaner and cleaner, due to greater scale and efficiency in manufacturing.

However, recycling EV batteries after the end of their life cycle might pose another problem for manufacturers. Mr Chiang notes that it is not yet commercially viable to recover these rare earth elements from batteries on a large scale, so a lot of the batteries end up in landfills or get incinerated.

Hope vs hype

All is not lost. Associate Professor Lynette Cheah, who leads the Sustainable Urban Mobility research group at the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), tells BT that the net emissions savings over the long lifetime of a vehicle often make up for the upstream emissions associated with manufacturing and fuel processing.

Any EV sold is likely replacing another petrol or diesel type on the road. What the climate needs is for the proportion of battery-powered vehicles to increase vis-a-vis conventional ones, while battery technology and energy sources advance to become cleaner. Dr Cheah adds that for passenger cars, vehicle electrification is a clear path towards low-carbon, cleaner road transport. "The recent push for EVs is consistent with sustainable transport, meaning cleaner air, quieter roads for all of us in the long run. We should also aim to electrify our light goods vehicles like diesel vans and bus fleets as well."

The timeline is short: Singapore wants petrol and diesel vehicles off roads by 2040.

The SG Green Plan 2030 lays out a comprehensive plan for how Singapore will address the challenges of climate change and resource use. This blueprint will help shape the nation's next generation of transport networks, but industry players note that we should also look at how our buildings and urban infrastructure can play a role to facilitate a greener transition.

While there is some reduction in our carbon footprint in turning to EVs, these vehicles are not yet the panacea for climate change, says Tony Canavan, EY's global transport leader. "As a longer-term solution, we have to reduce how much we commute - such as through city planning and urban redesign - and consider other green alternatives like cycling."

Eddie Lau Siu-Kit, a senior lecturer for architecture at the National University of Singapore's (NUS) School of Design and Environment (SDE), notes that the nation should also focus on constructing and designing greener buildings. He adds: "As renewable resources are limited, reducing the energy consumption of the buildings should be the priority."

Indeed, National Development Minister Desmond Lee outlined plans in Parliament on Thursday to make Singapore's urban environment more green and sustainable, targeting

80 per cent of new buildings to be Super Low Energy buildings from 2030. But collectively, it remains to be seen if this represents a radical shift in the way the country approaches the form of future cities, says Nirmal Kishnani, associate professor and programme director in NUS SDE. To be more fluid, built infrastructure should also have multiple functions, layers and possibilities, he adds. For example, train tracks can also be solar canopies producing electrical power, and EV charging hubs can be lifestyle centres or pocket parks which allow consumers to interact with nature.

Sustainability is not an endgame, but a process, says Dr Kishnani. "While targets are important in giving us a sense of direction, we need to devise a framework for adaptation in case we were wrong in our assumptions, or in case we need to move more quickly.

"The pandemic has taught us this lesson. Change comes at us in waves. And it can be destabilising in ways that we had not foreseen. Buildings and infrastructure may need to be reimagined quickly. How resilient we are will depend on having a built-in capacity to withstand future shocks."

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