Range-challenged electric vehicles could face further sales disincentives with a proposal from Britain’s top engineers that battery sizes be reduced by one third. In a just-published report on the supply of critical materials for Net Zero projects, the U.K.-based National Engineering Policy Centre (NEPC) points to an obvious fact – there isn’t anything like the amount of raw materials available to transition to Net Zero and most of the extraction processes required are an ecological disaster. The report sets out in terrifying black and white what is coming down the future political rationing track. The lack of resources to replace cheap and plentiful hydrocarbons is also noted in a new McKinsey report, which states that critical minerals face a supply shortage “as demand soars for raw materials to fuel [the] clean energy drive”. Current mineral supply could be as low as 10% of projected 2050 requirements, McKinsey suggests.
