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> just transporting completed battery cells from South Korea to Michigan adds a 4.1 kg CO2e/kWh footprint Some Googling says my phone has a storage capacity of

> just transporting completed battery cells from South Korea to Michigan adds a 4.1 kg CO2e/kWh footprint Some Googling says my phone has a storage capacity of 2800mAh, at 3.8V, or 10.64 Wh. Scaling the footprint, that's 43 grams CO₂e, for a device I replace every several years? A quick Google says a car is 411 grams CO₂ … per mile. The phone seems insignificant? The EV usage is probably worse, though it'd be nice if the article didn't suddenly switch to pounds. Presuming the 10k phones number is accurate, we're up to 430kg. But that's 1046 miles of travel for a normal car. If it can make that up in terms of cleaner energy usage over the life of the battery, that seems better than the current state?

jojobas 6y ago
They are made in SK because Koreans work for less. It's directly related to the CO2 question because lower wages translate to (almost 2-fold) lower emissions per person, despite their more industrial economy.
- jeofken 6y ago
  Is the process of making batteries easy to move to low cost countries? I’d wager it’s in Korea because of their amazingly developed electronics industry, but it’s also true that the average American makes more. If it’s easy to move to low wage countries, there are countries in Europe with lower wages, and surely American states as well.
  - jojobas 6y ago
    Battery manufacturing is somewhat different from other electronics, but that's beside the point. They built new plants for batteries in SK and are building more because it's cheaper overall. "Cheaper" is not an abstract economic coincidence, it directly translates to "less emissions".
jiggawatts 6y ago
> 411 grams CO₂ … per mile At first glance I thought that that can't possibly be right. Some quick calculations for my Toyota Camry (non-hybrid): It gets about 7.8L/100 km, which is 62 miles, which is 126 mL per mile. A litre of petrol produces 2.3 kg of CO2, so that's 290 grams per mile. Shit. Cars are worse than I thought!
- maxerickson 6y ago
  The mass per volume of gasoline is another way to reason about how much petroleum is consumed (~0.75 kg/L or ~6.3 pounds/gallon)
- caymanjim 6y ago
  I was going to call BS on your claim that a litre of petrol produces 2.3kg of CO2, but the Internets confirm it. It's a surprising amount, even knowing that the O2 comes from the atmosphere and weighs a lot more.
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    Makes a lot of sense tbh. C and O have roughly the same atomic weight, and CO2 is about a third C (from the fuel). The fuel of course has a bunch of H but by mass that's only a small fraction. So a given mass of fuel turns into roughly three times as much CO2. With petrol being a bit lighter than water (which is 1 kg/l) the 2.3 kg CO2 per liter is right around the "factor 3" estimate.
- nutshell89 6y ago
  Wouldn't electrifying the manufacturing process (perhaps with solar and / or nuclear) and shipping process eventually reduce total emissions?
- ppf 6y ago
  300 kg CO2e per kWh, for a lithium battery pack. Shit. EVs are worse than I thought!
  - ajfjrbfbf 6y ago
    Now account for recycling that battery after the few thousands charge cycles have been exhausted. EVs are not a panacea. Instead, we should look more into collective transport, better urban planning, more bike lanes, etc. Cars are a cultural issue, and more cars won't solve the problem, whether electric or not.
fulafel 6y ago
This 4.1 number seems kind of iffy in origin. They cite a document that cites the number from another document that cites the number from a fourth paywall-hidden document[1] that seems to be a case study of one car based on information provided by the maufacturer, where the transport is covered only in a side sentence. Also there's a graph that shows the transport being a tiny slice of the overall lifetime GHG footprint. A much better way would be to just take the weight and use widely available ghg per km-ton numbers. [1] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b00830 https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b00830
ppf 6y ago
According to this paper[1] (and using an online calculator to roughly convert GJ to CO2e), manufacturing and assembly of a Li-ion pack adds around 300Kg CO2e/kWh. That's already a problem for your phone, before you even start counting the embedded energy of all of its other compnents (semiconductor manufacturing is very energy-intensive). But, multiply that by 100 to get a Tesla battery pack, and you're in real trouble. 300Kg * 100 / 0.4Kg/mile = 75,000 miles before you've broken even, compared to a petrol car. This number is actaully a little high, compared to other ways I've calculated it, but is definitely in the right ballpark. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0007850617301099 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00078...
- deathanatos 6y ago
  Ah, thank you for finding that & pointing it out. One of the things I didn't get & wanted from the original post was the full CO₂ cost of the manufacture, and I figured it was probably going to be much higher. (I didn't include it since the article was focused on moving manufacturing, so the manufacturing CO₂ cost would remain the same either way.) (But, presumably the ICE car also has its own manufacturing cost, which should offset that of the Tesla? Though, I'm not sure what the equivalent here is; the manufacturing CO₂ of the gas? The CO₂ of the ICE's battery?) I know not everyone does keep their vehicles as long as I do, but I better get at least 75k mi out of it! (My current — and first — car is at ~130k mi, and still going fairly strong, though it is definitely showing some wear. Alas, it burns gas.)

jojobas 6y ago

They are made in SK because Koreans work for less. It's directly related to the CO2 question because lower wages translate to (almost 2-fold) lower emissions per person, despite their more industrial economy.

jeofken 6y ago
Is the process of making batteries easy to move to low cost countries? I’d wager it’s in Korea because of their amazingly developed electronics industry, but it’s also true that the average American makes more. If it’s easy to move to low wage countries, there are countries in Europe with lower wages, and surely American states as well.
- jojobas 6y ago
  Battery manufacturing is somewhat different from other electronics, but that's beside the point. They built new plants for batteries in SK and are building more because it's cheaper overall. "Cheaper" is not an abstract economic coincidence, it directly translates to "less emissions".

jiggawatts 6y ago

> 411 grams CO₂ … per mile At first glance I thought that that can't possibly be right. Some quick calculations for my Toyota Camry (non-hybrid): It gets about 7.8L/100 km, which is 62 miles, which is 126 mL per mile. A litre of petrol produces 2.3 kg of CO2, so that's 290 grams per mile. Shit. Cars are worse than I thought!

maxerickson 6y ago
The mass per volume of gasoline is another way to reason about how much petroleum is consumed (~0.75 kg/L or ~6.3 pounds/gallon)
caymanjim 6y ago
I was going to call BS on your claim that a litre of petrol produces 2.3kg of CO2, but the Internets confirm it. It's a surprising amount, even knowing that the O2 comes from the atmosphere and weighs a lot more.
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  Makes a lot of sense tbh. C and O have roughly the same atomic weight, and CO2 is about a third C (from the fuel). The fuel of course has a bunch of H but by mass that's only a small fraction. So a given mass of fuel turns into roughly three times as much CO2. With petrol being a bit lighter than water (which is 1 kg/l) the 2.3 kg CO2 per liter is right around the "factor 3" estimate.
nutshell89 6y ago
Wouldn't electrifying the manufacturing process (perhaps with solar and / or nuclear) and shipping process eventually reduce total emissions?
ppf 6y ago
300 kg CO2e per kWh, for a lithium battery pack. Shit. EVs are worse than I thought!
- ajfjrbfbf 6y ago
  Now account for recycling that battery after the few thousands charge cycles have been exhausted. EVs are not a panacea. Instead, we should look more into collective transport, better urban planning, more bike lanes, etc. Cars are a cultural issue, and more cars won't solve the problem, whether electric or not.

fulafel 6y ago

This 4.1 number seems kind of iffy in origin. They cite a document that cites the number from another document that cites the number from a fourth paywall-hidden document[1] that seems to be a case study of one car based on information provided by the maufacturer, where the transport is covered only in a side sentence. Also there's a graph that shows the transport being a tiny slice of the overall lifetime GHG footprint. A much better way would be to just take the weight and use widely available ghg per km-ton numbers. [1] https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b00830 https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.6b00830

ppf 6y ago

According to this paper[1] (and using an online calculator to roughly convert GJ to CO2e), manufacturing and assembly of a Li-ion pack adds around 300Kg CO2e/kWh. That's already a problem for your phone, before you even start counting the embedded energy of all of its other compnents (semiconductor manufacturing is very energy-intensive). But, multiply that by 100 to get a Tesla battery pack, and you're in real trouble. 300Kg * 100 / 0.4Kg/mile = 75,000 miles before you've broken even, compared to a petrol car. This number is actaully a little high, compared to other ways I've calculated it, but is definitely in the right ballpark. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0007850617301099 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00078...

deathanatos 6y ago
Ah, thank you for finding that & pointing it out. One of the things I didn't get & wanted from the original post was the full CO₂ cost of the manufacture, and I figured it was probably going to be much higher. (I didn't include it since the article was focused on moving manufacturing, so the manufacturing CO₂ cost would remain the same either way.) (But, presumably the ICE car also has its own manufacturing cost, which should offset that of the Tesla? Though, I'm not sure what the equivalent here is; the manufacturing CO₂ of the gas? The CO₂ of the ICE's battery?) I know not everyone does keep their vehicles as long as I do, but I better get at least 75k mi out of it! (My current — and first — car is at ~130k mi, and still going fairly strong, though it is definitely showing some wear. Alas, it burns gas.)