Author: Prof. Damien Ernst, University of Liège
Very recently, the RTBF, a Belgian media outlet, published an article titled « Electric car: 697.612 km to become green! » I had given an interview to the journalist Gérald Wéry about this article, and I made some calculations. So yes, under certain hypotheses, I found that when we took into account the CO2 emitted for the manufacture of the battery of an electric vehicle, it was only after that car had travelled 697612 km that we could consider that the electric vehicle emitted less CO2 than a petrol-driven car. Here we are talking about an electric vehicle with an 80 kWh battery. Note that some high-end electric vehicles can come with even larger batteries. As examples, the Audi E-Tron has a 95 kWh battery. And the new Tesla Roadster a 200 kWh battery. Gérald Wéry and I were lambasted following the publication of this article which was badly misunderstood. I tweeted about it to explain, quite directly, what was the basis for my coming up with this number during the interview: https://twitter.com/DamienERNST1/status/1104060419897991168 (Sorry for those who do not understand French. You can still use the translation service of Twitter).
To avoid any controversy and attacks on social media, the RTBF decided to remove it from its website. It should be noted that apart from its provocative title, the article did not attack the electric vehicle industry in any way. The article mentioned, for example, that electric vehicles, unlike current petrol-driven vehicles, do not emit NOx and emit significantly fewer fine particles, which has a very beneficial effect on human health.
The methodology used to calculate this number of kilometres has been heavily attacked on social media by, let’s say somewhat ironically, that group of people who think that buying a huge electric car weighing more than two tons – like the Jaguar I-Pace (2200 kg) for example – makes them fine examples in the fight against global warming. The attacks on Twitter were often demonstrating a lack of class. We will skip over the details. Nevertheless, some of these attacks were also instructive and, as I am a scientist, I never hesitate to question anything I had asserted when presented with new information. Such an attitude is at the very core of scientific thought. So, I have redone my calculations below, but integrating the information collected from these ‘attacks’ to expand upon the hypotheses that I used to make my calculations, and even to change one that needs to be changed. I have no problem recognizing this fact. To calculate the number of kilometres covered whereby an electric car with an 80 kWh battery became « green », it was assumed that the total energy required for its manufacture was 296 GJ. This figure comes from the article « Manufacturing energy analysis of lithium ion battery pack for electric vehicles ». The article is available here: https://bit.ly/2VMa4hA
Since this figure of 296 GJ refers to a small manufacturing facility, it is reasonable to expect that economies of scale can be achieved with industrial battery manufacturing facilities, which the article mentions. It even proposes a figure of a 72% energy saving, but without citing any source behind it. I did not take it into account in my previous calculations. It was a mistake. So, we will now take this into account. It should be noted that this reduction of 72% in energy used on the manufacturing side does not mean a 72% reduction in the 296 GJ of energy necessary to manufacture the battery which I had taken into account during my calculations made for the RTBF. Indeed, to manufacture a battery there are two major stages that consume considerable energy: the manufacture of raw materials (about 100 GJ according to the article) and the manufacture of the battery from these raw materials (196 GJ according to the article). This reduction of 72% applies only to the 196 GJ, which gives the total energy needed to manufacture the battery of 80 kWh equal to 100 + 54.88 = 154.88 GJ, instead of the 296 GJ on which the original calculation was based. Subsequently, we will no longer use the GJ as a unit of energy, but the kWh, a unit of energy that seems to me to be more user-friendly. Expressed in kWh, this amount of energy equals 43022 kWh. In comparison, an average household in Belgium consumes around 3500 kWh of electricity per year.
Our first working hypothesis will therefore be the following:
Hypothesis 1 [energy to make a battery]. The amount of energy required to make a battery of 80 kWh is equal to 43022 kWh.
Note that this is the only hypothesis that I have changed when compared to the article published by the RTBF. I will come back with a new set of hypotheses later on.
The following are calculations and associated assumptions. These hypotheses are also discussed.
Hypothesis 2 [CO2 emitted per kWh of battery manufactured]. 1 kWh of energy used to manufacture a battery emits the same amount of CO2 as the combustion of 1 kWh of gasoline.
Remember that with 1 litre of gasoline, there is 9.63 kWh of energy, and that the combustion of a litre of gasoline produces 2.28 kg of CO2. The kWh of energy consumed in manufacturing our battery is equivalent to 0.236 kg of emitted CO2.
The manufacture of the battery therefore emits 0.236 [kg / kWh] x 43022 [kWh] = 10153 kg of CO2, a little more than ten tons.
Discussion Hypothesis 2: Assuming that only 236 gr of CO2 are emitted per kWh of energy used to manufacture the battery is, in fact, very little. Take, for example, the stage of manufacturing the battery from raw materials. This stage mainly consumes electrical energy. In the US, producing 1 kWh of electricity leads to the production of about 500 grams of CO2. In China, it’s even more, there we are closer to 1kg of CO2. One third of the energy used to make our battery is related to the manufacturing part. This manufacturing part could therefore be associated with four-times greater CO2 emissions than previously considered. This would double the number of tons of CO2 emitted for the manufacture of the battery. It is therefore likely that the manufacture of an 80 kWh battery in China will actually lead to the production of 20 tons of CO2 if we adapt Hypothesis 2, taking into account the specificities of the Chinese electricity mix. Long live ‘Made in China’! It should be noted that greenhouse gas emissions in Belgium are of the order of 8.5 tons of CO2 per person, per year.
Hypothesis 3 [energy consumption of vehicles]. The electric vehicle consumes 20 kWh per 100 km and a petrol-driven car consumes 6 litres of fuel per 100 kilometres.
Discussion Hypothesis 3: For a Tesla S, 20 kWh per 100 km seems to be more or less valid even if, on social media, the biggest defenders of the electric car put forward a figure of 23 kWh per 100 km. A friend who has a Tesla X tells me that he gets around 26-27 kWh per 100 km through having an energy-conscious driving style. A small electric vehicle of the Nissan Leaf type will consume 15 kWh per 100km. For a Jaguar I-Pace, the figure would be above 30 kWh per 100 km. The journalist Gerald Wery informed me that during his tests, he obtained a value of 28 kWh for the Audi E-Tron without the air conditioning on, and 34 kWh for the Jaguar I-Pace with the air conditioned on. He also told me that these values were obtained by opting for the « efficiency » mode of the cars, with, I quote, “a very light foot”. The 6 litres per 100 km is probably low for a high-end car such as the Tesla S or Jaguar I-Pace. We could be around 8 litres per 100 kilometres for a high-end car. For my car, a Citroën C1, I consume roughly 5.5 litres per 100 km. Note also that a diesel-driven car emits about 10% less CO2 than a petrol-driven car of the same size. We must not forget to mention that for cars running on compressed natural gas (CNG), there is talk of a more-than-10% reduction in CO2 emissions compared to diesel when considering also the “production and transport part” of the fossil fuel. And perhaps even better in terms of CO2 emissions: the hybrid car running on natural gas! With small batteries of less than 5 kWh, hybrid cars manage to show impressive performances. The first generation of Toyota Prius was for example fitted with a small battery of 4.4 kWh and had a consumption below 5 litres per 100 km. We also note that a person who wants to be able to travel 400 km with his electric vehicle is obliged to opt for one with a battery of the order of 80 kWh, which we only currently find in the premium models. It’s a safe bet that in two to three years, a more modest car with an 80 kWh battery will also be available. In this respect, it is worth noting that the Nissan Leaf e + coming out in June 2019 will have a 62 kWh battery.
Hypothesis 4 [grams of CO2 per kWh electric]. Every kWh stored in the battery – and therefore usable by the electric vehicle – is associated with 550 grams of emitted CO2.
With this new hypothesis, we can calculate that driving 100 km with our electric vehicle produces 20 x 0.55 = 11 kg of CO2.
Discussion Hypothesis 4: The figure of 550 grams is the CO2 weight associated with the production of 1 kWh of electricity with the German electricity mix. At the European level, the average is around 300 gr per kWh, or perhaps a little more. At the beginning of the 2000s, it was around 400 gr per kWh in Europe. It should be noted that these figures are sometimes controversial, in particular because it is difficult to exactly quantify the CO2 emissions of a power-generation system over its entire life cycle. We often tend to underestimate these emissions. For the nuclear industry, estimates can vary from 15 to … 140 grams of CO2 emitted per kWh produced. For renewable sectors such as solar, wind and hydro, we often talk about values ranging between 10 and 40 grams of CO2 emitted per kWh over their life cycle. Note that for a photovoltaic panel installed in northern Europe, this could be significantly more than 40 grams. It should also be noticed that there are energy losses associated with recharging the battery of an electric vehicle. Here we are talking about 5% and it depends on the speed of charging. The higher the speed, the greater the losses are. There are also losses in the battery during the discharge and these are higher when the power withdrawn from the batteries is large. This is the reason why the « energy performance” of a battery drops when you drive at high speeds. There are also losses in the electricity grid to get this electricity from its source of production to the car. They are of the order of 10% in France when routing the current to a user connected to the low-voltage network. By taking these losses into account, every kWh of electricity stored into a car powered by the German electricity mix would therefore lead to the production of more than 630 grams of CO2.
Hypothesis 5 [grams of CO2 per litre of gasoline consumed by the car]. One litre of gasoline consumed by a car corresponds to the emission of 2.28 kg of CO2
With this hypothesis, our gasoline-driven vehicle will emit 6 x 2.28 kg = 13.68 kg of CO2 per 100 km traveled.
Hypothesis 5 (and a little bit of 4): 2.28 kg is the amount of CO2 produced by the combustion of 1 litre of gasoline. However, oil extraction, transportation and refining also emit CO2. A number was given to me several times: burning a litre of gasoline in your car would actually in terms of CO2 emissions equate to the combustion of 1.4 litres of gasoline. Our figure should therefore be 1.4 x 13.68 = 19.15 kg of CO2 per 100 km traveled. It should be noted that the gas used to produce electricity must also be extracted and transported. In addition, the extraction of gas, especially shale gas, also emits CH4 into the atmosphere, a powerful greenhouse gas. This has not been taken into account in assessing the greenhouse gas emissions of our electric car. Nor has it been taken into account that building and maintaining an electricity grid has a significant CO2 cost.
Hypothesis 6 [CO2 emitted by car manufacturing]. The manufacturing of an electric car emits a quantity of CO2 equal to the amount of CO2 used to produce a petrol-driven car, plus the volume of CO2 emitted to manufacture the battery.
Hypothesis 6: It would fair to consider that with this hypothesis, an electric car is at a disadvantage, in particular due to the fact that an electric motor is simpler than a petrol engine and therefore that the manufacture of the latter emits less CO2. It is very difficult to see all this clearly; it lacks numbers. We will, however, emphasize that the bigger the car (petrol, diesel or electric), the greater the associated CO2 emission levels will be with their manufacture.
And now the calculation!
Based on the above assumptions, we calculate the number of kilometres traveled from which an electric car starts to emit less CO2 than a petrol-driven car.
Per 100 km traveled, our electric vehicle will produce 13.68 [kg CO2 / 100 km] – 11 [kg CO2 / 100 km] = 2.68 kg of CO2 less than a petrol-driven vehicle. We remind that the manufacturing of the battery was producing 10153 kg of CO2. The vehicle will therefore have to travel 10153 [kg CO2] /2.68 [kg CO2] x 100 [km] = 378843 km to reach parity. That’s less than the originally announced 697612 km.
A new set of hypotheses
Let’s arrive at a new set of hypotheses that I find very interesting, and which are more favorable to electric vehicles. I will first revisit Hypothesis 3, which now becomes:
Hypothesis 3 [consumption of vehicles]. An electric vehicle consumes 23 kWh per 100 km and a gasoline-driven car 6 litres per 100 km
The 20 kWh per 100 km was much too optimistic for a big electric car. It is probably closer to 30 kWh than 23 kWh in reality.
I am also revisiting Hypothesis 4. The new Hypothesis 4 is as follows:
Hypothesis 4 [grams of CO2 per electric kWh]. Every kWh stored in the battery – and therefore usable by the electric vehicle – is associated with 317 grams of emitted CO2.
To arrive at this new figure of 317 grams per kWh, I am actually making two sub-hypotheses. First, I have chosen an electricity mix with a carbon intensity of 275 grams per kWh, which is half the carbon intensity of the current German electricity mix. I believe that the average carbon intensity of the European electricity mix over the next ten years, a period of time compatible with the lifetime of an electric car, could revolve around this value. The renewable energy sector is growing well, but we will also lose a lot of nuclear capacity in Europe in the next 7-8 years, about 15 GW. In my opinion, it will be quite difficult to get below this carbon intensity of 275 grams of CO2 per kWh generated for the European electricity mix before 2025. Secondly, I consider that for 1 kWh stored in the battery, it is necessary to generate 1.15 kWh of electricity to take into account the losses in the electricity network and the losses during recharging of the battery. Once again, this sub-hypothesis seems to me to be quite optimistic for the electricity industry.
The last hypothesis I will change is Hypothesis 5. The new Hypothesis 5 is:
Hypothesis 5 [grams of CO2 per litre of gasoline consumed by the car]. One litre of petrol consumed by a car corresponds to the emission of 3.2 kg of CO2.
I consider with this new hypothesis that consuming 1 litre of gasoline equals, in terms of CO2 emissions, to actually burning 1.4 litres of gasoline. This makes it possible to take into account the CO2 emissions associated with the extraction, refining and transport of petroleum products. Note that I should probably also be fair to the gasoline sector and consider that there is a hidden CO2 cost behind the construction, maintenance and operation of electricity networks, but which I have not.
With this new set of assumptions, we can see that per 100 km traveled, our electric vehicle will now produce 6 x 3.2 – 23 x 0.317 = 19.2 – 7.291 = 11.90 kg less CO2 than a petrol-driven vehicle. It will have to travel 10153/11.90 x 100 = 85319 km to become greener than a petrol-driven vehicle. It should be noted that if I had taken a consumption of 28 kWh per 100 km travelled for the electric vehicle, as Gérald Wery observed during his tests with the Audi E-Tron, I would have obtained a value equal to 10153/ (6 x3.2 – 28 x 0.317) = 98343 km.
Let’s try to discuss Hypothesis 1 and Hypothesis 2 again. These two hypotheses lead us to CO2 emissions of the order of 10,153 kg for the manufacture of an 80 kWh battery. As discussed previously, the CO2 emissions associated with battery manufacture can vary quite a bit, depending on where the battery is manufactured. It’s very difficult to get an entirely clear picture of this. I have the impression that, in 2019, we must be somewhere in the range of 8000 kg – 18000 kg of CO2 emitted for the manufacture of 80 kWh batteries. With our new set of assumptions, an electric vehicle with a battery of 80 kWh would begin to have a lower carbon footprint than a petrol-driven vehicle somewhere between 67226 km and 151259 km traveled. With the old set of assumptions, this would be in the range of 298507 km – 671641 km.
What can we conclude from these figures?
I’ll let you conclude what you want from these numbers, but there is certainly a lot to say. As the assumptions are perfectly detailed and the calculations well explained, you will be able to generate different results by varying the assumptions. Note that an interesting case to study is the hybrid car running on natural gas or on hydrogen. It implies probably a “revisit” of Hypothesis 6.
I just want to finish this article by discussing the rise of EVs in China. China is witnessing a massive development of its electric vehicle sector, mainly for reasons of public health. The air quality is appalling major Chinese cities. Replacing old petrol-driven vehicles with electric vehicles means reducing NOx and fine particulate emissions that are toxic, thus improving air quality. In China, with an electricity mix that is close to 1 kg of CO2 emitted per kWh produced and which, in my opinion, will remain well above 600 grams per kWh for the next 10 years, even the substitution of the petrol-driven vehicles with electric vehicles with a modest battery size of about 40 kWh, may be accompanied by an increase in CO2 emissions. Given the size of the Chinese market, this is not reassuring when we bear in mind that the IPCC tells us that it is imperative we rapidly reduce our CO2 emissions to avoid a global catastrophe.
Another important point about China: Chinese companies that manufacture batteries are not subject to a CO2 tax in the way European companies that enter the ETS system are. From the point of view of the fight against global warming, this is ridiculous, because it is an incentive to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles in China where the carbon intensity is higher than in Europe. It is crucial that Europe introduces a carbon tax on imports as soon as is feasibly possible. I’m not the only one saying this, but nothing seems to be happening.
Epilogue
A great friend of mine, who could be described as a radical ecologist, told me, with a touch of ironic humour: « It is totally outrageous that the title of this article published on the RTBF website suggests that an electric vehicle can be green! » It’s a sobering thought.
Of course, the radical ecologist claims an electric vehicle cannot be green. No motorized vehicle can (and we might even want to remove ‘motorized’ from this sentence).
But if he/she has the choice between an electric car or a petrol car, I hope the choice is clear. Yes, even for >2T vehicles, due to ‘moving the exhaust’ and being able to do proper filtering at the central location.
One point I’m missing in your article is the production of CO2 when producing petrol/diesel. You assume that there is no CO2 generation, but that is simply wrong.
He does mention the CO2-cost for production of fossil fuels in Hypothesis 5. He takes them into account by calculating each litre burned as 1.4 litre.
« However, oil extraction, transportation and refining also emit CO2. A number was given to me several times: burning a litre of gasoline in your car would actually in terms of CO2 emissions equate to the combustion of 1.4 litres of gasoline. »
Wkr,
There is also a high cost of C02 associated with mining rare earth metals and elements required for EVs that is not mentioned. Add that to the high volume of rare earth metals required to produce the batteries and it would safe to assume that consumption of those metals and minerals makes an EV even more detrimental that his conclusion.
Message du Vice-Président du GIEC:
https://twitter.com/JPvanYpersele/status/1104272987669307392
La parità di emissioni tra auto elettriche e benzina a 697.612 km: sui social? No TV belga.
https://www.auto21.net/2019/03/11/bufala-parita-di-emissioni-tra-auto-elettriche-e-benzina-a-697-612-km-su-tv-belga/
Message from Brian Vad Mathiesen:
https://twitter.com/BrianVad/status/1104337354867781633
Brian Vad Mathiesen is a Danish engineer and professor at Aalborg University. He was listed among ISI Highly Cited researchers in 2015 and 2016 making him one of the leading engineers in the world.
Attention aux chiffres notamment dans le titre.S’agit-il d’une virgule ou d’un point?
Merci pour ce travail de calculs précis. Que je relirai et relirai:je ne suis pas une scientifique….
Je partage.
Bonne jrnée.
C’est en anglais, donc la virgule n’est pas là pour séparer des nombres décimaux.
Que d’imprécisions dans ce calcul ! Vous changez une hypothèse et votre résultat arrive à la moitié de ce qu’il était. Je n’ose imaginer le résultat en affinant toutes les autres hypothèses aussi maladroitement étudiées. Par exemple, ce qui a été oublié, en intégrant le CO2 émis pour l’extraction, le transport, le raffinage, le stockage, le re-transport et enfin la distribution du gas-oil ….
Je pense que tu devrais vraiment lire l’article jusqu’au bout. Ce cas est traiter.
i call that into question mainly for the fact that u said u cant take the infrastructure into account for electric vehicles that have to be build. then i cant assume that the battery is 100% without change for the time the car becomes green. the chance that an petrol car has a motorchange in lifetime is unlikier than a electric car has to get new 10t co2 battery. there is much more to take into account. what happens when a green car doesnt drive till it becomes green? cause the battery + car is preproduced. and then hwat happens to the old petrol cars volkswagen has acres and i assume millions anused petrol cars factory new staying around and now they are outdated and there is a big push for new cars that arent sold yet. main focus is the infrastructure in the future i live in a city so i have no garage i need to charge my electric car but where there has to be a big plug in park in night time and daytime with enough electronic load to charge these cars and likly only a few meters away from u home that isnt achivable in town only in a new build one . maybe with induction pads. many things more. can be the future or will be but not yet the world isnt prepared enough to challenge global warming and to solve this with more electrical solutions
Parfait Damien !!! C’est de ce type de démarche que je suggérais. Je voulais réaliser un petit simulateur en ligne avec à gauche un véhicule pétrole et à droite un EV, dont on peut entrer (en plus de ses caractéristiques propres) l’endroit ou il est fabriqué et l’endroit ou il est utilisé. On verrait les 2 droites (y=CO2 émis / x=distance) se croiser à la distance ou l’EV devient « green » par rapport au thermique, en espérant que ça intercepte avant la fin de l’espérance de vie de la batterie (160000 km ?)
La batterie ne dure pas que 160,000 km. Encore une erreur. Le pack est garanti par le fabricant 160,000 km. Mais les premières batteries sont rendues à 600,000km + sans perte significative. (Au delà de 20%)
Vous jetez votre conjointe aux ordure quand elle ne veut plus d’enfants vous? Pourtant elle a dépassé sa garantie? Ah ben non. Elle sert encore à quelque chose.
Envoyer sa voiture à la casse alors qu’elle n’a pas 200,000 km est une monumentale stupidité.
Tesla factories run on 100% solar energy and the Belgian and Hungarian factories producing the Audi e-tron are carboneutral. Even Tesla’s Chinese factories will be 100% solar (10g of co2 per kwh) si using gasoline to generate electricity in your calculations that emit 10x more co2 than is currently the case is a huge error.
Not all electric vehicles have or need more than 60kwh batteries and you have chosen the worst cases to demonstrate vehicle consumption (more than 23 kwh/100km) as at least half of all electric vehicles on the road at this time have smaller than 30kwh battery packs and only consume 16-20 kwh per 100km. Another “mistake” ???
Also you take into account the energy production to fill the battery usin specifically the Belgian electricity mix with, along with Germany, uses coal and gas, which aren’t Europe’s cleanest. Next door, France uses nuclear and emits 1/8 of co2 needed for the same distance. Many other electricity markets use even less, such as hydro electric which only emits 4-6g of co2 per kwh produced. Another selective mistake?
Your article is flawed because it is based on a premise that you wish to convey ; big electric cars and huge batteries aren’t as clean as people think. Good call. It’s true. But to make absolutely wild claim without rigorous research and comparative hypotheses based in reality, makes your entire process look flawed. And it is vehemently critiqued because it lacks rigorous method.
Don’t take it personal, it’s your work that is being criticized and your assumptions that are being challenged. Not your person.
whatever about fuel production? Drilling, refining and transport, hoe Michael CO2 Does that’s costs?
Man, for a person claiming to do research in the field of energy and to be a scientist, your articles containt little science and don’t really follow the scientific method. I think you need to ask yourself some hard questions about why people ‘attack’ you on your previous article.
You still don’t take into account several factors, like production of fuel, production of ICE car vs EV car (catalyst convertors, etc)
If this is the state of research in Belgium, I’m really ashamed to be a Belgian. Your methods are flawed, that’s why people attack you.
Why the emotional argumentation?
Don’t attack the person, If you disagree, explain why and correct the assumptions and the logic where necessary.
You should be able to trust the outcome of research from a professor or scientist. When a professor or scientist makes such bad assumptions and does this level of research, you might wonder if you could call him a professor or scientist. It is even worse if such a person is teaching students at a University. They should learn that research must be backed by trustable sources and verified numbers.
You know what’s really funny about that number? 697.612 km? It’s exactly the distance you should keep from any university, « professor ».
We already had that completely bogus article from Transport & Mobility Leuven about electric vehicles supposedly emitting the same amount of particulate matter as gasoline cars while in reality, emissions from electric cars were 4x lower.
Is it a coincidence that Belgian institutions are always off by a factor of 400%, or: what’s your agenda here?
Very good article Damien.
Like some have mentioned above, there is still some work on the assumptions on the carbon consumption during battery production. We do indeed have carbo-neutral manufacturing plants which probably lead to less CO2 for battery production.
Some other assumptions you could add (I added arguments that can work in favour or against the EV case):
1) There is a lot of aluminum used in electric cars to make their weight acceptable. I hear it is very resource (and carbon) intensive to manufacture. I am not sure how badly it compares to steel.
2) One additional factor is the maintenance problem of electic cars vs. fossil fuel cars.
Badly mainained fossil cars or cars that are modified on purpose by removal of catalyzer or disabling of adblue injection system will cause toxic emissions (not limited to CO2).
Fossil fuel cars have more moving parts and will require new parts and maintenance more often. People maintaining the cars also have a CO2 footprint so this is an indirect CO2 footprint of a fossil fuel car.
3) Due to wear, fossil fuel cars become less efficient when they age. This effect is non-existent for EVs.
Fossil fuiel cars also have no way to improve over time: they are destined to burn fossil fuel until they are scrapped.
It is not reasonable to consider only the current energy mix to predict the lifetime CO2 production of an EV. Electric vehicles lose little to no efficiency and become more CO2 efficient as the grid (hopefully) transforms to renewable.
4) On the other hand, battery EVs suffer charging losses and vampire drain. EVs have losses to heat & AC->DC conversion during charging and batteries slowly lose charge when not used. The bigger the battery, the greater the drain. Even if a model S can average 200Wh per km on the road, it will pull maybe 230Wh from the net to charge the battery.
4) Don’t compare a big Model S with a car that consumes 6 liters of petrol. 7 liters of diesel (which produces more CO2 per liter) or 9 liters of petrol would be more appropriate for a comparably spacious car with comparable performance. Smaller sized cars using 6 liters of petrol should be compared to the likes of a Nissan Leaf which also consume way less kWh per km.
5) This is a bit out-of-the box but still. EVs are becoming a platform for car sharing and are the ideal platform for self-driving cars. This is not this easily done with petrol cars. Car sharing is a way to reduce the « fleet » of vehicles and to reduce the need to actually own a vehicle. So instead of every household owning a car, EVs enable households to own « a part of » a car.
6) When an EV is scrapped, it is probably safe to assume its battery can still get a second life as a grid power storage device.With a fossil fuel car, scrapping means reducing to raw materials. EV batteries can be repurposed.
That said, I agree with the extremist conclusion that it is best to avoid 1) owning a car and 2) driving it. EVs are not going to solve all problems we have. For people that want to own a car regardless, buying an EV instead of a comparable petrol car is a huge improvement.
Hi Kim, I think you forget that the charge of the battery has a performance that is not constant, even when the battery is new it takes more than kWh that the battery contains.
For example I have an electric scooter it takes 7kWh to charge two batteries of 60V35Ah (so 4.2kWh in total)!!! After 500 recharge cycles it will be worse.
Even in static use it is not great to use 10kWh to recover 5kWh.
That is exactly what I intended to say in my 4th point.
We do indeed have carbo-neutral manufacturing plants which probably lead to less CO2 for battery production
True but that is also possible for producing fossil fuels en transporting them. also using solar energy is not 100% neutral these pv panels also used energy to make them.
2) true, but in most countries all cars need a checkup every year. also more maintenance yes, but not a lot. only 5-6l oil, filter and air filter every year. 2l tranmission oil every 6 year, fuel filter and 6 l coolant. brake pads rotors only twice what an ev uses. (its only the drive train that changes)
3) some more moving parts maybe but most problems are electrical these days. diesel engines can run 100% on synthetic diesel fuel (with less pollution)
4) its better to compare a model 3 to civic 1.5T, but the model 3 has not the same range. the civic is usable as a family car and only uses 6l petrol/100Km, real road use. also in EU if you drive enough(long range) you use a diesel, less a petrol car. if you drive less than 10000km a year you will be always better of with a petrol car. also a battery ages even if you don’t drive the car, thats also a loss of energy because the battery has already used that energy in production. if you have a petrol car, you can avoid driving it and gain less pollution.
an 100% comparison isn’t possible numbers can stretch in both ways. use case also change by driver profile. But if you buy less than 1000l of petrol a year its hard to beat that footprint with an electric car.
Your calculation omits at least 3 important factors:
1. A car with an official test value of 5 l/100km is using at least 40% more fuel than this on the road.
2. You are comparing a tank to wheel CO2 emission from a conventional car with a life cycle emission from the electric model. Conventional cars also need to be made and these emissions and correspond to about 15-20% of the in use emissions.
3. You are ignoring the upstream emissions in extracting, refining and distributing the liquid fuel – this also raises the emissions for oil driven cars by about 15%.
If you go into depth on the battery calculation please do so for the conventional technology also.
Read the article. He took all of those into account in his assumptions.
Read it, really!
Your calculation omits at least 3 important factors:
1. A car with an official test value of 5 l/100km is using at least 40% more fuel than this on the road.
2. You are comparing a tank to wheel CO2 emission from a conventional car with a life cycle emission from the electric model. Conventional cars also need to be made and these emissions and correspond to about 15-20% of the in use emissions.
3. You are ignoring the upstream emissions in extracting, refining and distributing the liquid fuel – this also raises the emissions for oil driven cars by about 15%.
If you go into depth on the battery calculation please do so for the conventional technology also.
No he doesn’t ignore the upstream emissions for fossil fuels – he raises the theoretical CO2 emissions from 1 to 1.4 to take account of this.
I think the wording of hypotesis 6 is messed up — could you look into this?
It seems you’re saying electric has a small advantage because the electrical motor is so simple. But in that sentence you’re using the word ‘disadvantage’.
The mean energy consumption of my Tesla S 75 is 200 Wh/km during 2 year and 3 months and 141.000 km.
Maybe this value could be helpfull for your calculations.
Bonjour Damien et merci pour cette tranche de social network science! On est ici d’ailleur plus dans les sciences éco que dans la physique ce qui explique sans doute la variabilité des chiffres et des interprétations.
Je roule depuis plusieurs années en Leaf et suis donc disciple EV 🙂 Le titre de m’article m’avais, moi aussi, fait pleurer tant je sais comment un simple titre peut suffire à construire un avis chez trop de personne.
J’ai encore quelques problèmes avec les hypothèses, même revues. Voici mes réflexions:
Hypothèse 1:
Il faut a mon sens prendre en compte que les batteries seront recyclées. On peut raisonablement s’attendre à ce que le recyclage soit nettement moins energivore que le premier cycle. Il faut, au moins, décompter l’extration. Si on fait une hypothèse de 5 cycles ce recyclage, l’extraction ne devrait être comptée qu’à 20%.
Side effect sur Hypothèse 2: le recyclage se fera probablement en europe avec une énergie moins carbonnée qu’en Chine. https://bit.ly/2NWywKk
Il me semble qu’il serait intéressant de projeter l’énergie nécessaire à la production sur les chiffres de coût de production. On parlait de 700€/kWh il y a qques années, maintenant de 100-150. De même le prix de location des batteries chez Renault par exemple n’augmentent pas alors que la capacité augmente.
Hypothesis 4 [grams of CO2 per kWh electric]:
Je trouve cette hypothèse hyper discutable. Suis-je Européen car de toutes façons connecté au travers du réseau? Belge? car c’est à ce niveau que l’équilibre est réalisé par Elia? Ou suis-je moi qui ai associé l’utilisation d’un VE à l’installation de PV et ai selectionné un producteur qui m’annonce du 100% energie verte? (Je prends également soins de mettre ma voiture en charge hors des pics de conso)
J’ai tendance à choisir cette dernière, non seulement parceque que je veux me rassurer, mais parceque que c’est de cette manière que l’augmentation des moyens de production renouvelable va de paire avec l’augmenttation de VE. Les VE sont les meilleurs aliés des ER grace à leur capacité de stockage dont le coût n’est pas associé à leur fonction de stockage mais à leur fonction de mobilité.
Pour ma part je referai donc le calcul en comptant 30 gCO2/kWh.
Avec une réflexion similaire, je pense que l’essort des VE en Chine va avec l’essort de leur augmentation de production PV et éolien plutôt qu’avec leur mix actuel.
En tous cas, merci pour cette réflexion ou chacun y trouvera un modèle et y ajustera ses paramètres; les un n’étant pas plus faux que les autres.
How is it possible to have so different results between studies. Check this out : https://youtu.be/6RhtiPefVzM
There have been numerous studies with similar outcomes compared to your video. Because the extreme opposite outcome of this ‘research’ it was very ‘news worthy’. Then it turned out to be not so scientific as you would have suspected.
One thing which I don’t think has been sufficiently taken into account is that (as a consequence of the large distance an electric car has to travel before it ‘catches up’ with a fossil-fuelled one) this confers a considerable advantage on small-engined gasoline cars (like your Citroën C1), because very few of their emissions are ‘up front’. As an irreversible ‘tipping point’ for the climate is thought to be close, it is surely beneficial to reduce CURRENT emissions immediately, rather than producing extra short-term CO2 in order to invest in a low-CO2 future that is less likely to arrive because of the extra short-term CO2 that we have just emitted. Surely, less is more, and we are better to invest in small, light, frugal vehicles with very little initial emissions, than 2-ton behemoths which demand a lot of up-front CO2 emissions.
There is no large distance to catch up. A real scientist in the Netherlands made correct calculations that an electric car catches up in 30.000 to 50.000 km. Average drivers of the mentioned models of electric cars have reached this mileage between 1 to 2 years. And with the growing request for green energy and growing privately owned solar panels, this number will only go down.
Stop acting like you’re a professor and ULG is a university. You’re disgracing the actual decent institutes in Belgium.
You seem frustrated.
Do you think this kind of « argumentation » is helpful? What does it contribute? I assume you have left nursery school so you should know better.
There are ways to disagree with someone politely. Please use proper arguments and indicate where assumptions seem off. Correct using more accurate data. Tha might actually help the discussion.
If you are interested in scientific sound, peer reviewed, articles on the life cycle assessment of vehicle technology, I recommend you read following papers:
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/7/3/1467
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352146517305513
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11367-014-0788-0
Prof. Dr. ir. Joeri van Mierlo, VUB-MOBI
http://mobi.vub.ac.be/
You totally missed the point that you were trying to make; « electric cars are not always green in comparison to fossil fuel cars. » As a scientist you make some very bad assumptions and even errors. The fact that after criticism you adjust your outcome by almost half, shows you did bad research in the first place. And still you do some very odd assumptions.
As said above, Tesla is using almost only green energy to produce their batteries. Your illustration of the Tesla factory with the smoking chimney and transport from the mining company is not misleading, it is just wrong.
Comparing your own Citroen C1 statistics with the statistics of the Tesla X from a friend? Or a Jaguar i-Pace? That is not scientific. Your article is based on opinion, which is fine. Just don’t act as if you prove something that is factually wrong.
I can tell you that your Citroen C1 is 700.000 times less green than my bike. That comparison is not much different from your comparison. There is enough motivation to be sceptical about electric cars. As a scientist you should be careful with twisting facts.
Dear Damien, the least intresting part of your article is the outcome. By calculating a precise number it seems to be a thorough scientific statement. Whereas by changing the assumptions the outcome will become very different. So any conclusions are a misrepresentation at best.
The assumptions however are the most intresting part to discuss. For me it sheds light on the whole issue for which I am grateful.
A last point to bear in mind is the impression one gets reading your argument is that your base hypothesis you want to prove upfront is that the EV industry produces more CO2 than the ICE industry. By trying to reach a conclusion based on debatable assumptions your paper seems to me more ideologically driven instead of scientifically driven.
As Just a Guy my conclusion after reading is that you just don t know. My hope is that we will leave the fossil era and will enter a better era with regard to energy.
hI Sir, i think you forget severla point also in the real use. As mentionned here upper, energy is ometimes comming fron non fuel/coal/atomic source that change a bit th emodel (what about energy for building and maintain those source) and some other point like the transformation of electric part (mainly battery) after trhe use of the car that cannot be scratched the same way as thermal version. What about energy lost by non use of car and that need to be regenerate with a worst ratio of energy storage (people having electrical toys have all experienced dead battery after some month of non use). You maybe also compare car of same category (i-pace with bmw X5 for exemple where consuption of fuel is officially 6 but more than 10 practically for most of the « green » driver of such a tank on road). It could be also helpfull to create a kind of web page or excel like sheet where people can put there asumption of value and see consequence so anybody can use it for it’s own usage.
Anyway, thanks for this article
Thank you for your apologies, your scientific research and action-taking. Indeed, I’m looking forward to dig deeper in this research and I’m sorry you had to face negative feedbacks over internet.
Moreover, I think it would be interesting to add the problematic of all raw materials used for an electric vs conventional car. These raw materials include those coming from African countries like the DRC where raw materials are being extracted from the ground with devastating effects on the environment and local populations. This aspect is indeed a more indirect pollution to us but the impact on earth is quite as negative as other pollutions.
Finally an other problem is the recycling of electric cars. Even if we have the methods to recycle some of the components it takes a lot of energy and pollution to do so.
Kind regards
Battery will need replacing after 7 ish years adding to the problem, however fossil fuel is a finite resource and will run out so we have little long term choice. Once all electricity is renewably produced, electric cars become very green and attract. The way to go.
When Someone wants to prove something he uses statistics. A scientist uses real data. If you buy an electric car in France, why should it be saddled by coal electricity produced in Poland or Germany? Look at where EVs are sold and use the corresponding county mix. Same for batteries. Tesla batteries are not built in China, and Tesla is using renewables anyway, so your argument is baseless there. Also. This is a problem which is easily solvable, can you please explain how the other cars are going to solve it , I.e. how do they defossilise oil? Same for electricity, every year the electric mix is greening so an EV will become less GW contributing by the year. Oil on the contrary gets dirtier by the year, so your calculations are becoming better and better by the year for EVs. And about impacts, how do you value zero particles and NOx versus 10E11 particles per kilometer or more for each combustion car???? Aren’t 8 million deaths a year a good reason to start converting to EVs while electricity becomes greener?
Thank you for opening up for comments.
I used some other numbers than you and checked with the Tesla Model 3 data (and the 10g/kWh CO2 production from solar panels as given by Jean-Marc above), and I get 1920km to get to a lower carbon footprint than the ICE car you use as a comparison above.
My data for the Model 3, long range (~500km range):
* battery capacity: 75kWh
* energy to produce 1kWh battery: 430.22kWh (I’m considering a 20% efficiency gain from the mass production in the Gigafactory 1, considering it is producing more than anyone else on the planet already – I’m trying to get better info on this)
* C02 per kWh for production of the battery: 10g/kWh (solar panels, as given by Jean-Marc above, although this is not yet the case and it doesn’t include the energy cost of mining)
* total CO2 for the production of the battery: 302kg
* consumption per km: 15kWh/100km (that comes from Wikipedia)
* C02/kWh to charge: 160g/kWh (I’m assuming a 50-50 mix of home charging from solar + public charging)
That gives me 1800km before it has a lower carbon footprint (one-way trip from Belgium to Spain, or ~15 x ~80km return trips from Brussels to Liège).
Being a bit more pessimistic:
* battery capacity: 75kWh
* energy to produce 1kWh battery: 403.33kWh
* C02 per kWh for production of the battery: 240g/kWh (your number)
* total CO2 for the production of the battery: 7260kg
* consumption per km: 15kWh/100km
* C02/kWh to charge: 160g/kWh (still reasonable if we think 10 years ahead as you did, if we include home charging with photovoltaïc at 10g/kWh)
That gives me 43203km, or roughly 2 years of use for me. That’s still ~15 times less than what you mentioned with your first hypothesis.
Now it would be nice to actually know how much CO2 the building of a car takes, just to see how many kilometers it would take for this EV model in particular to completely compensate the production of the ICE car.
YannickW : your calculation is in line with mine that I did before purchasing the Tesla Model 3. General rule of tumb, and I think it is a conservative one when reading the recently published Tesla Impact Report, is that the CO2 footprint of an Battery Electrical Vehicle (BEV) equals that of an Internal Combustion Engine plus the battery from the BEV. So with that your calculation is spot on … I came with 100% renewable energy (as I use own solar + 100% Dutch Windenergy) to 1.97 years needed to become CO2 neutral with a Tesla Model 3 compared to a BMW 320i. And in this calculation I had used older information regarding the amount of CO2 to produce its battery pack which is more on the conservative side with 9.6 tons of CO2.
One thing you need to correct in your calculation and that is the capacity of the battery pack of the Tesla Model 3 LR; it is around 80kWh of which 75kWh is released for use. This also enables to go for the recommended 90% day to day charge.
I see I missed out on the yearly average milage used in my calculation. In my specific family case it is 21,000 km/year.
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I may have missed it but will one battery last long enough to complete the required ‘gren milage’? If not the energy/co2 cost needs to be factored in.
That’s a good point. I think maintaining an already existing diesel car is the likely to be the least co2 polluting
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I wonder how far off to use your numbers of ebikes vs fuel motor bikes. I have both types and observe that:
– 1 litre of gas can get a good motorbike (100kg heavy + my 50kg weight) go 40km
– My 150Wh li-ion battery can get my ebike (25kg heavy + my 50kg weight) can do 30km.
Your numbers:
– 1 litre of gas produces 9.6kwh ==> so it has to be 48 times my battery ==> so it should go at least 32 times further than my ebike (considering it’s twice the weight)
Or
– 1kwh of battery produces 550g of CO2, while 1 litre produces 2.8kg CO2. If you trust my numbers, then my 150wh battery costs 82.5g CO2 to do 30km. While the motorbike needs 1050g to go the same distance, if it has the same weight as ebike ==> operationally the fuel bike costs 13 times more CO2 to operate, compared to ebike.
Another wrong assumption in the above article :
Electric vehicles with 80Kwh or more have 500-700 hp motors. They make 0-100km/h in 3-5 seconds. How much petrol takes a car with similar performances ? 12-15 liters/100 km average ? ..so not 6 l/100 km. That’s 2-2.5 times more than he calculated.
6 l / 100 Km average petrol consumption is achieved by cars with less than 100 hp, which are similar with cars with 30Kwh batteries (80/30 = 2.66 times less than calculated).
Then, there is the problem of all other toxic gasses that a petrol car emits. How much CO2 is consumed by hospitals and medical care for all of us affected by these emissions?
Conclusion :
The fact is that we should use fossil fuels as low as possible and only where there is no other way to avoid it (aviation or in remote/isolated places). Electricity must be re-think and produced mostly by hydro, atomic, wind or solar. As wind, solar and hydro are not reliable all the time,the hero of the day must be the atomic energy … at least with today’s technology.
Excellent correction on this article in the link below: realistic number is 19k of driving today, 7k of driving in the near future, with some reasonable assumptions around the energy mix of the grid getting cleaner.
https://innovationorigins.com/correcting-misinformation-about-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-electric-vehicles-auke-hoekstras-response-to-damien-ernsts-calculations/
Post Scriptum
I’m really flabbergasted by all these people freaking out over the extraction and transportation of fuels.
Lithium, nickel and cobalt also have to be extracted and transported.
I get that ressource extraction is a big deal as it accounts for more than half of our green house emissions but here’s the thing people… most of those emissions are from extracting metals and minerals!
That is to say 27%, more than the logging and fossil fuels industries put together.
Also noteworthy is the grids used where Lithium Cobalt and Nickel are mined. Most of those are coal based. Except for Cobalt, The Democratic Republic of Congo uses mostly hydroelectricity… and child labor.
If you don’t think extraction of metals is as bad as extracting oil, just think about the Tar Sands and imagine what that would be like in a developing country with no regulation or renewable energy sources. Add in brutal repression and you might get the idea.
From the research in the comments and the worst case scenario stated, the neutral distance is somewhere between 30,000 and 700,000 km. A lot of points are more based on trivia rather that statistics so its hard to take them seriously. If you dig you can find more statistics on this stuff to give yourself a stronger argument.
Something else to consider is electric cars can potentially outlast petrol/diesel cars (last a longer distance) and this should be factored into the C02 costs during manufacture.
Another point to make is that the break even distance will only reduce over time as the worlds energy production becomes more green.
Another thing to consider is its not just about C02, traditional cars pollute lots of other chemicals.
Another thing is C02 from a car is not the same as C02 from a power plant. Lots of C02 from power plants are carbon captured and are outside populated areas.
On the negative side the energy cost of extracting and processing some materials used for batteries may increase as the world turns to sub-sea mineral deposits.
Personally I haven’t changed my mind about an electric car. I will still buy one to last for 20 years (possibly replacement battery in that time) and this might be the last car I own as I expect car sharing and temporary hiring might be available then
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I am very impressed – it certainly helped me put some figures to some thoughts I had regarding the whole life cycle environmental costs of modern diesels versus modern electric cars.
The calculations presented omit an essential element that defines the CO2 emissions of classic vehicles (also point 3 of the remarks made by Aline Goosens):
– The amount of CO2 emitted during the tehnological process of fuel obtaining.
As long as for the calculations presented for EV are considered CO2 emissions for obtaining a kWh, it would be correct also to consider the CO2 emissions for obtaining of the fuel.
For example. to obtain a liter of gasoline is emitted into the atmosphere approx. 3100gCO2. (https://innovationorigins.com/producing-gasoline-and-diesel-emits-more-co2-than-we-thought/)
This is equivalent to an additional emissions for classic vehicles of approx: 18.6kgCO2 / 100km.
If we redo the calculations now, the result is a « greening » distance of approx. 50000km.
On the Ilse of Lewis, where I live, the cable to the mainland is broken and who knows when it will be repaired. Our electricity is largely produced by a diesel power plant. So due to power conversion all the electric cars running on the island produce more co2 than diesel cars. We have lots of wind but the politicians here don’t seem to be able to get wind power going. We could be self sufficient if that was their and the industry’s real interest.Then electric cars would make sense. And if electric cars were cheaper than fuel powered cars and electricity was cheaper than fuel (currently 0,19p/kWh) we could be successful.
The vast majority of the population cannot even afford to pay for a reasonable used petrol or diesel car, how then should they buy an electric car for 25000+? To make this work there are many, many things that have to change.
not a scientist as the author proclaims he is, but i am curious how you can produce 3.4 kilograms of co2 from 1 litre of petrol, which would weigh in at about 850grams?
do those rules of thermodynamics not apply to green arguments?
850 implies diesel. Petrol is more like 750.
Petrol are hydrocarbon chains mostly existing of CH2 (f.e. C8H18). Add in the O2 and you get the 2 Os for every C.
Atomic mass H = 1, C = 12, O = 16. C8H18 = 112, 8*C02 = 352. 352/112= 3.1428
diesel at 0.850*3.15 = 2.67 kg, petrol at 0.750*3.15 = 2.35 kg, in line with google query top result.
So 3.4 is indeed an overstatement.
I drive an old VW diesel made in 1995. I often wonder how strong the argument is for maintaining older vehicles like mine versus scrapping them and getting an electric car. It seems to me that the lifetime of the batteries in new ev vehicles is not well understood, yet we already know that my vehicle has lasted 26 years with minimal CO2 involved in he maintenance. For very year that the vehicle continues in the road that is another year that the replacement ev vehicle did not need to be manufactured. Without any scientific analysis it seems likely to me that it would be better to keep he old vehicle going until I am too old to drive to rather than buy a replacement ev.
Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
What an utterly stupid and biased image at the bottom of the article. Luckily we have good scientists like Mr. Hoekstra who have completely destroyed your assumptions!
whoah this weblog is excellent i really like reading your articles.
It seems to me that owners of electric cars will always passionately argue that they are greener and opponents of electric cars will always argue that they are not!
I do wish the we could get some none biased opinion and facts on this matter! Tesla car owners can argue that their batteries are produced using green energy (wind or solar) but Tesla’s are very expensive cars. Most prospective electric car owners will purchase cars which have batteries that have been produced using coal/gas/wind/solar energy sources. It will be at least 30 years till countries (notably China, India, Russia and perhaps even Poland) move completely away from fossil fuels. As China is likely to become a major if not the major producer of batteries it is not realistic to assume that car batteries will be produced using only « green » energy.
Of course, oil and coal have to be extracted (and refined) and transported but so does the raw materials for battery production. Today are large proportion of the materials needed for batteries comes from the from DR of Congo and is largely produced using cheap and unfair labour practices and energy sources that are definitely not green! Should we just ignore this in the 21st century! If Sainsburys or Tesco were to start importing fruit produced by what is virtually slave labour they would be heavily censored and loose a great number of customers and good will. However, when it comes to electric car production, it seems that the same rules and conventions do not apply and anything goes! Of course, in the future perhaps new sources and new material types might be found but right now in 2022 most batteries are produced using materials sourced in a very dubious and non-sustainable way.
In the UK at least, the mass introduction of electric cars is going to be hugely disruptive. For millions of house-holds that live in flats or a house without a drive or garage it is going to be virtually impossible to recharge their electric vehicle. Hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of charging points are going to have to be installed, probably requiring additional car parks and a massive upgrade to the electricity network. To date we have seen very little progress towards this even though the sale of petrol and diesel cars is going to be phased out in just seven and a half years! Today I went to my local Esso fuel station. I had to sit in a queue for 5 minutes to get to a pump even though it only takes about five minutes to re fuel a car. How long will the queue be if it takes one hour to re charge a car!
Combustion cars could be made much greener than they are now but manufactures have no incentive anymore to do this. Surely it is time for this matter to be looked at properly and in a practical way without prejudice one way or the other.
Interesting article, cars are getting bigger and bigger, we should be shrinking the size, power and specification of all vehicles but that won’t happen. Also we should be driving our cars in to the ground literally, in order to be as sustainable as possible, my mazda has 280,000 miles on the clock and I won’t be replacing it until the engine fails. Problem of co2 cannot be solved and we are wasting our time trying, the only thing that will reduce c02 is nuclear war and wiping out the majority of the world’s population. Sad but true