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As California prepares to revise its zero emissions vehicle standard to press automakers to market more hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, regulators may want to review a recent paper by the investment banking firm Signal Hill, Brother, Can You Spare a Kilo? The genius of the plug-in hybrid electric vehicle is that it has both an onboard electric motor and a gasoline engine. The onboard battery pack can store enough juice from the grid to drive the car using only the electric motor far enough to meet the daily commuting and local errand needs of many drivers. On longer trips, the gasoline-powered engine kicks in to give drivers the same range as any conventional car. Conventional hybrids now on the market cut emissions of both smog-forming and greenhouse gas emissions. California’s zero emissions vehicle standard has been adopted as an alternative to less stringent federal automotive emissions standards by many states in the U.S. that have air pollution problems. In its latest concept paper for revising the zero emissions vehicle rule, the California Air Resources Board this month has floated the idea of requiring automakers to sell up to 45,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles by 2014 and another 50,000 by 2017. In addition, the Air Board is looking to require the sale of hundreds of thousands of hybrid electric vehicles in the coming decade. Other states, and perhaps nations, are expected to follow suit in their efforts to clean up air pollution, cut greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce dependence on limited supplies of petroleum. So far, so good. But wait a minute. Doesn’t any manufactured product use limited resources and have environmental impacts? Sure. In the case of hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, perhaps the most critical of these is lithium, the key element of the battery packs that automakers are banking on for the future because of their superior performance over the alternatives. Toyota plans to equip its Prius hybrid vehicles with lithium ion batteries as soon as possible. Now hear this from Signal Hill, based on its analysis of the world’s reserve and production capacity for lithium, which occurs in nature as a salt that must be refined. “Given what we now know about current reserves and current lithium salt production rates, it appears we might be able to supply batteries to 10 percent--20 percent of the global vehicle fleet if we cease using lithium for all other applications now in use.” Those beneficial uses of lithium, the world’s lightest metal, include high-strength alloys, medicine, nuclear materials, glass, ceramics, space vehicles, and chemicals. All of those uses would have to be eliminated to outfit between about 6 and 13 million vehicles as hybrids or plug-in hybrid vehicles using lithium ion batteries, according to the report. Lithium ion batteries are preferred because they have the highest energy density, which provides vehicles with greater electric range than competing lead acid and nickel metal hydride batteries. As to eliminating dependence on foreign resources by moving to plug-in hybrid vehicles, the Signal Hill report points out that the major producer of lithium in the world is Chile, at 37 percent of annual production. Many other nations outpace U.S. production, which stands at just 5 percent of world output. “The picture is not a pretty one,” concludes Signal Hill.

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