“Green” Cars Still Affecting the Earth
By Tyler Pendleton
The Tesla Model S won the award for Car of the Year from Motor Trend last year for its speed and agility, while still being run almost completely electrically. It is claimed to be very efficient in its energy use, and help keep the planet “green” in comparison to other gas-guzzling cars, but is it truly helping the planet? The trick that the car pulls off to keep up their speed while not having all the power of using fuel is the material the car is made out of. The aluminum body helps boost speed while keeping energy consumption low, due to the fact that it is 40% lighter than steel. But aluminum isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. The way it is mined takes eight times more energy than steel mining, and then even more energy to extract the aluminum from the raw material. Aluminum cannot be found by itself, it is too reactive. So when mined, from a source called bauxite, more energy is needed to mine and extract the aluminum from the ore. This uses enough energy to make up about 1% percent of all global greenhouses released into the atmosphere. That is a lot more than it sounds, as natural greenhouse gases take up most of the amount of greenhouse gasses, and the amount that humans let out is the right amount. Leaving a very small percentage that human’s produce that is excessive. (fossil fuel burning, energy consumption, etc.) Through all of this, Tesla’s are still better to the environment than their gas using counter parts, but it’s still not perfect.
The Tesla Model S won the award for Car of the Year from Motor Trend last year for its speed and agility, while still being run almost completely electrically. It is claimed to be very efficient in its energy use, and help keep the planet “green” in comparison to other gas-guzzling cars, but is it truly helping the planet? The trick that the car pulls off to keep up their speed while not having all the power of using fuel is the material the car is made out of. The aluminum body helps boost speed while keeping energy consumption low, due to the fact that it is 40% lighter than steel. But aluminum isn’t all rainbows and sunshine. The way it is mined takes eight times more energy than steel mining, and then even more energy to extract the aluminum from the raw material. Aluminum cannot be found by itself, it is too reactive. So when mined, from a source called bauxite, more energy is needed to mine and extract the aluminum from the ore. This uses enough energy to make up about 1% percent of all global greenhouses released into the atmosphere. That is a lot more than it sounds, as natural greenhouse gases take up most of the amount of greenhouse gasses, and the amount that humans let out is the right amount. Leaving a very small percentage that human’s produce that is excessive. (fossil fuel burning, energy consumption, etc.) Through all of this, Tesla’s are still better to the environment than their gas using counter parts, but it’s still not perfect.
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