The introduction of e-mobility in Austria from a resource point of view

Abstract

50% of the resources that have ever been consumed by human kind, have been consumed during the last 25 years. A major part of that is made up by the resource consumption related to traffic. This is mainly due to the skyrocketing demand for oil. However, the material consumption of traffic does not only include oil, but also the resources needed to produce a car. In the last couple of months, the issue of electro mobility raises more and more awareness. A lot of research has been done in the area of emission reduction and energy input of electric cars. However, there is hardly any research about the resource consumption of electric cars. This thesis tries to overcome this gap by investigating how material consumption in the model region (Austria) would change if a society switches to electro mobility. In order to reach this target, the following 4 steps are necessary. First of all, two scenarios are created, one reflecting the status quo (assumption 100% gasoline cars), the other one assuming that the whole society drives electric cars. To show this graphically and quantitatively, four "Material Flow Analyses" (MFA) are performed. The next step aims at collecting data in order to quantify the two scenarios. Subsequently, the major differences in material input, output and stock of the two scenarios are indicated. This will finally lead to the answering of the question raised above in the first paragraph. Finally, the following results are obtained: In Austria, a total switch to electric mobility would decrease the material inputs into the system (defined as Austria) from 13.730kg to 58kg per capita and year. The output would shrink from 13.680kg to 0.5 kg per capita and year. In contrast, the stocks would slightly increase from 56,2 kg to 57,2 kg per capita and year. Furthermore, if only the materials for the production of a car are taken into account, the most important materials are ferrous metals (66%), plastics (11%) and non-iron metals (8%) for conventional mobility. This would change for the scenario of electro mobility. In fact, ferrous metals become less important (54%), and plastic (13%) as well as non-iron metals (24%) get more significant. The reason for that is that engineers try to compensate the heavy batteries with lighter material such as plastics and aluminium (non-iron metals).