You said earlier that you worked offshore, so I'm surprised that you're unaware of just how efficient O&G production can be in terms of energy produced v's energy consumed during E&P activities
Mining is considerably less efficient (I've worked in both O&G & Precious minerals E&P), and REM ores are akin to precious metals ores, ie exceedingly low concentrations - parts per billion sort of stuff, plus you have to either move masses of overburden or dig to considerable depths to reach them. All very energy intensive activities and that's just to reach the ores, which aren't useable products at this point, so the emissions have only just kicked off
Then you have to dig them out and get them to the surfce or into one place at least
(Even copper ores to make wiring etc aren't easy to find in extractable quantities or concentrations - but at least copper is reuseale/recyclable)
The ores then have to be bulk transported for processing - more energy useage, and don't forget, they're not energy-dense hydrocarbons, you're talking BULK low concentration ie thousands & thousands of tonnes of ore even at this stage
The extraction & purification processing is again extremely energy intensive and typically outrageously polluting in ways not merely limited to CO2 emissions - even extraction of lithium from brines, often touted as "green" requires mind-bogglingly enormous amounts of electricity = loads more CO2, however that electricity is produced
Thereafter the refined products have to be transported to where they will be processed into batteries, cabling etc etc - again, all very energy intensive and potentially polluting processes
Then you end up with a product which still needs energy to work, and whether that energy derives from hydrocarbons or allegedly green alternatives it still produces CO2 by the gigatonne
Then varoius bits of the the EV aren't recyclable at all, and/or very difficult (ie polluting and/or energy intensive/expensive) to recycle
O&G is simpler and cheaper, higher reward for less effort, that's why we did it for so long
You can find my assertions hard to believe if you wish, but CO2 emisions in FULL life cycle of anything "green" - whether it's EV's, turbines, solar panels, hydrogen cells or whatever - mean that few, if any, of them will ever manage to come close to saving the CO2 emissions that it took to make them
You're clearly a smart guy, working offshore indicates at least some level of smarts, so - go read up on "full cycle" emissions & energy useage of various industrial processes - lots of ideological BS & entrenched positions, vested interests and all such crap ON BOTH SIDES of the "debate" as you would expect in such a contoversial subject, but it's all a horror story
First off I appreciate you’re discussing it without getting heated like some
You’re correct about me having brains, working a full career as an REP offshore then nuclear reactor maintenance and refuelling.
Let’s look at what’s being said.
In my view you’re case is fundamentally flawed in the very first 2 sentences.
Two cars are produced, one diesel, one EV
The production of both , excluding the motive force is pretty much the same. So we can negate both and start looking at them from scratch as built ready to use cars. ( I’ll cover the mining shortly)
Now the EV, it uses batteries, these are produced and mining is included in that. This is where your comparison fails.
Mining produced the raw materials for manufacturing
Oil and gas drilling produced energy sources for fuel. The only fair comparison would be with coal mining if cars ran on coal.
The motive force of the EV is electricity, which in most countries is pretty clean and produced using low carbon means including that nuclear I spoke about.
The other vehicles motive force is diesel, which it burns day in day out for its entire life.
In that regards the EV is vastly cleaner than the diesel car, I’m sure you can see this.
Once the mining is done, it’s done, it does not continue to be comparable to the drilling for oil.
Are EV,s as clean as they make out, nope, are they the answer to our issues, nope, are they part of that solution, yup, are the “ cleaner” than internal combustion engines, yup.
Simple fact is would you rather you were shut in a shed with a circling diesel car or a circling EV.
I’m open to anything offered btw, I’m not closed minded, but I do think you’re looking at it in the wrong way.