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Vansh Patel on Why Electric Cars Aren’t Truly Green Energy

Why Electric Cars Aren’t Truly Green Energy

Claims and stances

0:00 Vansh Patel strongly supports: Electric cars should be classified as alternative energy rather than green energy because the environmental and societal harms of lithium extraction outweigh the minimal energy savings they provide.

Transcript

0:00 Electric cars are too early for their time and should be considered alternative energy rather than green energy.
0:07 My name is Von Spatel.
0:08 I'm a second-year Georgia Tech student and I'm here to talk about why electric cars are far too early for their time.
0:16 Right now that the main component of an electric car battery is lithium, which is a heavy metal that has to be extracted from the earth.
0:25 So there are several environmental implications right now to extract lithium that make electric cars negligible in their energy savings.
0:36 They severely displace land, and because lithium is found underground, they must excavate that dirt, and it disrupts many ecosystems.
0:48 And not just that, the water around it is severely disturbed and can even be introduced to chemicals.
0:58 So many people around the area can be introduced to harmful chemicals in their water.
1:03 But not just environmental implications, there's also societal implications.
1:09 Several indigenous tribes in Chile have been disrupted and moved from their land because of access to lithium.
1:20 And I think right now the harm of lithium extraction far outweighs the minimal energy savings that these cars possess.