OPINION:
As part of the fairly straightforward propaganda surrounding the White House’s effort to ban gasoline-powered cars, President Biden routinely implies that there will be a relatively seamless exchange where current gasoline-powered cars and trucks are traded for shinier, more hip, better electric cars and trucks.
That’s probably not going to happen.
For context, there are about 300 million cars and trucks in the United States at the moment. Simple geology and math suggest that we are not likely to have 300 million electric vehicles anytime soon or ever.
That seems to be the irreducible if unspoken conclusion of the new and excellent report from the American Energy Alliance. That report includes the following points:
“These new energy technologies (including solar panels and wind turbines) will require a 42-fold increase in lithium demand, a 25-fold increase in graphite demand, a 21-fold increase in cobalt demand, a 19-fold increase in nickel demand, and a 7-fold increase in rare earth demand by 2040.”
The mining industry will probably not be able to meet the increase in demand. For instance, by 2030, “there will only be enough lithium and cobalt for 15.6 million electric vehicles.” Automakers have indicated they intend to build 40 million electric vehicles in 2030.
The supply of copper would have to double in the next 12 years. By comparison, production of copper worldwide has increased about 20% in the last decade.
The report also notes that the increase in demand for these minerals and materials is already putting upward pressure on prices. The materials that constitute lithium-ion batteries — cobalt, magnesium and nickel — have all seen price increases in the last few years.
There is probably not a lot of help on the way. The International Energy Agency has concluded that it typically takes more than 16 years for mines to be permitted and constructed before they begin to produce minerals and finished products.
In other words, if the Biden administration gets its way, all new cars and trucks sold in the United States 12 years from now will require minerals that are unlikely to be available from mines that are unlikely to exist.
All of that would lead an unbiased observer to conclude that the likely — and perhaps intended goal of the whole operation — is not just to ban gasoline-powered cars, but also to reduce the absolute number of vehicles on the road.
That reduction in cars and trucks will happen either because consumers can’t afford a new car (the average price of an electric vehicle is north of $60,000 at the moment) or because there aren’t enough minerals to build enough electric cars and trucks. Such a contraction in the number of cars and trucks will make life poorer and more difficult for most Americans.
This issue is more complicated than most, in large measure because the industry directly affected is already accustomed to being an instrumentality of the federal government. The automakers, having been bailed out by taxpayers before, probably don’t care how many cars they make. They probably care more about regulatory stability and a profit margin guaranteed by the federal government.
The administration is happy to oblige, which is why it is helping California with the state’s plan to ban gasoline-powered cars and trucks, and why their proposed rule on tailpipe emissions would, as a practical matter, require the automobile fleet in the United States be about two-thirds electric by 2030.
Because of the unfortunate alliance between automakers and the Biden administration, it is conceivable and perhaps likely that Republicans could win this issue politically and in the courts of law and still wind up with a de facto ban on internal combustion engines.
To prevent that outcome, those opposed to living smaller, poorer, less mobile lives need to train their fire as much on the automakers, especially Ford and General Motors, as on government officials. No one — especially those who ostensibly serve the car owners of the United States — should willingly follow the White House down the very troubling path of creating a future where there are many fewer and much more expensive cars and trucks in the United States.
• Michael McKenna, a columnist for The Washington Times, co-hosts “The Unregulated Podcast.” He was most recently a deputy assistant to the president and deputy director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the White House.
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