Reader's Response - Draft 1

In the article, “Five years since Paris Agreement, world must get ambitious on climate action”, Sharma (2020) addressed the world’s efforts to reduce the existing effects on climate change at the global Climate Ambition Summit. 

As of the fifth year of the Paris Agreement, Sharma noted that a total of 75 leaders is committed to include net-zero energy, nationally determined contributions (NDCs), adaptations and resilience in their plans. Amongst the submitted revised plans for climate action, he highlighted that the UK government will stop providing new support to the overseas fossil fuel energy sector. He also mentioned that Singapore intends to invest in environment centric projects whilst Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong encourages globally to work together. In addition, Sharma emphasizes that a significant change in ambition is necessary to tackle climate change. Thus, improvements must be made by world leaders: increased international resolve and partnership.

Sharma (2020) concluded that the progress on vaccine has proven that nothing is impossible if everyone works together to combat climate change.

In my opinion, UK should not stop providing new support to the overseas fossil fuel energy sector because despite the call for its obsoletion, fossil fuel are still required initially to generate electricity and fuel.

Firstly, fossil fuels are used for many things such as electricity and fuel. In order for petrol and diesel vehicles to be replaced by electric vehicles, electric vehicles require battery to operate. Tesla being one of the biggest electric car makers uses lithium-ion batteries for its vehicles. Tesla built a manufacturing factory that called Gigafactory in order to produce lithium-ion batteries. According to Andrews (2018), a Gigafactory tour handout mentioned that the factory will be powered by sustainable solar energy instead of fossil fuels. However, before electric vehicle makers can produce their electric cars with lithium-ion batteries, lithium has got to be sourced from somewhere.

Lithium is mined in many countries such as Australia, Chile and Argentina. Chile and Argentina get their lithium from salt deserts while Australia gets their lithium from mineral ore. Most lithium extraction requires some mining to reach underground deposits of lithium-rich minerals or brines and sometimes sent to China for processing in a more energy intensive cycle after extraction. Hard rock mining requires lots of electricity which are generated from coal. According to Early (2020), new method of extracting lithium from geothermal waters has lesser environment impact than conventional method, but till then, fossil fuels are still required during the transition.

Next thing to consider is that when a battery cannot be used anymore, recycling and disposal posts another issue. More than 90% of the lead-acid batteries used in petrol vehicles are recycled, compared to only 5% of the lithium-ion batteries used. The remaining will either be thrown into landfills or incinerated (Goncalves 2018). The only way this batteries can be recycled is to be transported around the world, for example, from Australia to Europe recycling facilities for extraction and stripping of parts. In order for such transportation, petrol trucks are required which means more fossil fuels are burnt, thus another reason why fossil fuels are still very important.

Lastly, large battery packs compared to conventional petrol vehicle battery contains many more cells grouped in modules, thus require more cost and energy to recycle. According to Jacoby (2019), these batteries gets recycled by undergoing “high temperature melting-and-extraction, or smelting” which are similar to the ones used in the mining industry. These huge recycling facilities globally are energy consuming, which require lots of fossil fuels.

In conclusion, fossil fuels should still be supported overseas as many sectors as mentioned, lithium mining for batteries in electric vehicles, global transportation and energy recycling plants for lithium-ion batteries still require fossil fuels in our transition phase to a more sustainable world.

 

 

 

References

Andrews, R. (2018, December 12). Powering the Tesla Gigafactory. Energy Matters. https://euanmearns.com/powering-the-tesla-gigafactory/

Early, C. (2020, November 25). The new ‘gold rush’ for green lithium. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20201124-how-geothermal-lithium-could-revolutionise-green-energy

Goncalves, A. (2018, September 25). Are electric cars really greener? Youmatter. https://youmatter.world/en/are-electric-cars-eco-friendly-and-zero-emission-vehicles-26440/

Jacoby, M. (2019, July 14). It’s time to get serious about recycling lithium-ion batteries. Chemical & Engineering News. https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28

Sharma, A. (2020, December 20). Commentary: Five years since Paris Agreement, word must get ambitious on climate action. Channel News Asia. https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/uncop26-climate-change-commitment-net-zero-clean-energy-uk-13798700