The Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark problem of EVs

 

I recently bought my first "EV" from a guy for 25 dollars. The model above lists for over 300, but missing the bagger and charger, I was willing to take a chance. When the charger comes, I'll see if my gamble was worth it. I've balked at purchasing anything bigger than an electric drill because my corded electric mower works fine (and will forever) and larger electric products have a real problem with unrepairability and become waste far too soon without good recycling options. Before we go more electric, we really need to ensure that all these things can be repaired (right to repair legislation) and be deconstructed for recycling (extended producer responsibility legislation).

As the energy crisis ramps up, I've cancelled our scheduled trip to the Philippines since it is hitting harder there. Where normally, we might sit through the normal brownouts every other day, if we went this summer, it would likely be worse, and a jet fuel crisis might well strand us in a place where there are no other travel alternatives. During our 2024 trip to the Philippines, I realized with horror as I struggled to adjust to record heat and humidity, that much of the world's population is just a few degrees away from deadly heat that could kill millions. The coming "Super Super El Nino" as David Wallace Wells calls it is scary to contemplate. My sister-in-law told us yesterday that it was 44 degrees which is 111 degrees Fahrenheit plus high humidity. Since it is common in the Philippines to either not have aircon or just a unit in one room that is only run at night, such heat is on the edge of survivability.

 I filled up our car with the lowest grade fuel today for 4.29 per gallon, an amount that will certainly ramp up by summer unless things change radically. The bill is coming due for a fragile system built upon abundant and cheap fossil fuels. The crisis will certainly speed transition to new energy sources in a way that normal times never could. While I balk at the extra expenses, if it is pain that brings positive change, I welcome it. If we had a more capable leadership right now at the state and national level, we might see this crisis for what it is: an opportunity to do what every smart person has suggested we must do: transition away from fossil fuels. Unfortunately, we don't have that leadership when we need it most.

But a transition away from fossil fuels comes with its own problems since there is no free lunch. There is an idea out there that we can just do the equivalent of a civilizational switch from a gas Chevy Suburban to an electric one and everything will be fine. Switching from a gluttonous high consumption life fueled by gas to one fueled by electricity is just putting lipstick on a pig. Unfortunately, it is a bit like the scene at the beginning of the first Indiana Jones film where he tries to steal a golden statue and not trigger the booby traps by replacing it with a bag of sand of the same weight. He still triggers the trap which leads to the famous scene of him running from a massive rolling stone ball. This is how I think about EV's. While they are better, the number of resources needed to exchange gas cars, trucks, mowers, power tools and everything that supports our civilization mean we will still be taking far too much from a biosphere that is under stress. All those old things become toxic waste products that have limited recycling options since a circular economy only really exists for metals. The rest of the components becoming toxic waste, while the new things require virgin resources since our system doesn't do well recirculating waste products into new things.

I have spent about a month or more of my life in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. They were some of the best days of my life in a place where mining has been banned. Now, the demand for copper for new electric "things" is pushing for mining in one of the few areas to be off limits to such things. I'm not sure how it will end, but there is no free lunch to us switching our individualized gas-powered system to an individualized electric one. A sustainable future is more about the collective instead of the individual. I'm not sure how we get there from the most individualized, suburbanized, car centric and wasteful civilization in history, but we need to try.