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The Compass: Green Energy: Some Inconvenient Truths : Green energy: Transport

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Green energy: Transport

10/08/2022 GMT

Green Energy: Some Inconvenient Truths

BBC World Service - The Compass, Green Energy: Some Inconvenient Truths, Green energy: Transport

Allan Little investigates the ‘inconvenient truths’ of transitioning to green energy

Allan Little looks at the challenges we face as we wean ourselves off gas and oil to renewable sources powering our cars, trucks, ships and aeroplanes.  Green transport is crucial to a net zero future, but how transparent are the supply chains bringing the world the components we need? And how green is the electricity we are using to power electric cars anyway?  

Cobalt and Lithium, two essential minerals crucial for electric car batteries are mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Chile - and at great human and environmental cost. Transport accounts for over a third of our Carbon Dioxide emissions worldwide; there is no other option but to switch to electric vehicles. However motorists are often still sceptical about electric cars; they’re perceived to be expensive, difficult to recharge and unable to manage long distances. 

One of the biggest motor companies in the world, Ford, has just launched its first Electric Truck – targeting America’s blue-collar workers with this rugged, powerful, green machine. Will it work? Apart from driving, it is being marketed as offering  independence and freedom from the grid; at the flick of a switch the trucks can send electricity back the other way, and can power a home for days.

Image: A miner collects small chunks of cobalt inside the CDM (Congo DongFang Mining) Kasulo mine in Kolwezi, Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018 (Credit: Sebastian Meyer via Getty Images)

The Compass: Green Energy: Some Inconvenient Truths 

Green Energy: Some Inconvenient Truths 

Few issues are more important globally than our ability to transition to green energy. Yet the path to securing energy from sustainable sources is not an easy one.  In a four-part series for The Compass, Allan Little investigates the ‘inconvenient truths’ of transition in places from Iceland to Chile and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  He reports on factors that hinder the green revolution, including the scramble for essential minerals such as lithium for batteries, the environmental damage that huge wind farms may cause, the vast cost of new infrastructures and, counter-intuitively, when countries have a surplus of green energy, how can they use it best?

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