Equilibrium/Sustainability — Rising prices add fuel to online conspiracies

Today is Thursday. Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. Subscribe here: digital-staging.thehill.com/newsletter-signup.

A blizzard of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter posts are blaming President Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for rising gas prices while claiming the higher prices are part of a conspiracy to force unwilling American drivers into electric cars, The Associated Press reported.

“$6.00 a gallon gas is how you get people to buy electric cars,” one widely shared meme contended.  

Another post argued that “high gas prices will push more people to electric cars that can be frozen just like your bank account.” However, that claim is false, as most electric vehicles (EVs) are charged at home and cannot be shut down at will by the government, the AP noted.

Beyond the social media commentary, rising gas prices highlight a broader fight between the Biden administration and the U.S. oil industry.

Groups like the American Petroleum Institute have been arguing that White House regulations are preventing more drilling, which could bring down the price of oil. The administration, however, has accused the industry of sitting on huge permitted oil reserves, Reuters reported.  

“What permits do they need? I don’t think they need an embroidered invitation to drill,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Wednesday. 

Today we’ll look at the scarcity and rising price of electric cars, much of it driven by the impact of potential sanctions on another strategic, Russian-produced mineral. Then we’ll explore how climate change has become the No. 1 dealbreaker for users on a popular dating app.   

For Equilibrium, we are Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Please send tips or comments to Saul at selbein@digital-staging.thehill.com or Sharon at sudasin@digital-staging.thehill.com. Follow us on Twitter: @saul_elbein and @sharonudasin.    

Let’s get to it.  

Higher nickel prices close off escape to EVs 

Sanctions on Russia’s metals and mining sector threaten to restrict one of the White House’s key escape routes from rising fuel prices: a mass move to electric vehicles (EVs).  

Discussions about possible sanctions to Russia’s nickel mining industry — which began surfacing earlier this week  — is adding to the already considerable roadblocks to bringing the energy transition to America’s highways. Russia is a key supplier of the metal, a main component of EV batteries. 

Such an embargo would also likely add additional momentum to China’s leading position in electric vehicle production — and adoption. 

First words: “Geopolitical issues such as the Russia-Ukraine situation disturb the fine balance of battery metal supply chains,” Daniel Clarke, a battery specialist at research firm Global Data, said in a statement. 

“A skyrocketing nickel price would have major repercussions on the climate ambitions of countries around the world, and will ultimately hamper the adoption of EVs,” he added. 

Behind the lines: Nickel is a key component in electric car batteries, as well as a key Russian export. One company, MMC Norilsk, accounts for 5 percent of all world production of nickel, as well as 40 percent of world palladium, a major component of catalytic converters and semiconductors, The Wall Street Journal reported. 

Nickel is the third-largest component of EV batteries — after graphite and lithium — and the presence of nickel in a battery is directly correlated with how much energy it can store, and therefore how far it can travel, The Telegraph reported.  

Rising concerns drive rising prices: Concern over supply disruptions and sanctions has therefore had the same impact on prices for those metals as it has on oil and gas: a sudden increase in both price and volatility which saw nickel prices on the London Stock Exchange jump 40 percent on Monday, the Journal reported.  

By Tuesday morning, prices had reached $100,000 per metric ton, a price five to 10 times the normal price, and twice the magnitude of the last spike, following the 2008 financial crisis — a rise so high that the London Stock Exchange suspended trading the metal at the time, The Telegraph reported.

How does that translate to EV prices? With about 60 pounds (27.5 kilograms) of nickel in the average EV battery, a component that cost $440 last year today would cost about $2,750, The Telegraph reported. 

HOW THAT TRANSLATES TO CAR PRICES — AND AVAILABILITY

These price surges are making supply difficulties even worse, particularly as more buyers consider switching to electric cars.  

How so? Fueling an electric car costs around 1 percent as much per mile as its gas equivalent, CBS Los Angeles reported.   

But that’s provided you can get your hands on one. U.S. vehicles inventories of all kinds are at record lows — and EVs represent only 2.5 percent of existing supply in any case, with advance buying meaning most sold long before they are even built, CNBC reported.  

Nowhere to go: “Even for people who want to switch to electric, they have nowhere to go,” Jessica Caldwell, of Edmunds.com, told CNBC. “Anything you’re looking to buy, you’re on a waitlist … or even if you’re looking to downsize your purchase, you’re paying top dollar. It just doesn’t make sense to make a move [to electric] right now.” 

Can Russian nickel be replaced? Not quickly. While both Indonesia and the Philippines are major suppliers who could scale up operations, doing so would take both time and inflict serious environmental costs, according to GlobalData.  

And in an age of rising concerns around and reporting of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors, companies would have to price in such ecological consequences of mining, GlobalData reported.  

China stands to gain from any Western sanctions: “Russia has reportedly been looking to reduce the impact of sanctions by turning to Asia for trade. EV and battery companies in China may well step in and buy the commodity at lower prices,” Clarke said. 

That would likely accelerate China’s lead, he added.   

Last words: “China already has a strong position in the battery metal supply chain, and buying Russian nickel on the cheap as a result of sanctions would further strengthen its globally competitive position.” 

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Climate change a ‘dealbreaker’ on dating app  

Opinions surrounding climate change are the biggest “dealbreaker” out of several topics when it comes to finding a match on the popular dating app OkCupid, new data from the company shows.   

Among 250,000 users surveyed worldwide over the past year, OkCupid found that 90 percent of daters said that it’s “important” for their match to care about climate change.   

Meanwhile, among 6 million users surveyed over the past three years, 81 percent of daters said they were “concerned” about climate change — topping other potential dealbreakers like gender equality and gun control. 

A trend: “We have just seen over time, climate change being more and more this huge topic for our millennial daters especially,” Jane Reynolds, director of product marketing at OkCupid, told Equilibrium. 

“People feel that with climate change, it says so much more about you — if that’s something that you believe in and are concerned about,” she said.

DIVING INTO THE DATA

OkCupid’s dating app employs a matchmaking algorithm that asks users a variety of multiple-choice questions on everything from the mundane to current events issues, according to the company.

Data scientists also cross-reference responses to determine how users who react a certain way to one question might answer other questions, according to Reynolds.  

Gender, geographic and age differences: Women were 7 percent more likely than men to say they care about the planet, according to the data. 

Responses were also similar from East to West coasts, with 94 percent of San Francisco daters citing this as a dealbreaker, 90 percent in New York, 90 percent in San Diego, 89 percent in Los Angeles, 88 percent in Washington, D.C., and 85 percent in Miami.

Millennials, who dominate OKCupid’s user base, were the generation most concerned about climate change, with 83 percent of these daters replying in the affirmative to this question, according to the data.   

Other top issues included in the survey were gender equality and gun control. 

To read the full story, click here.

Thursday Threats

Gorillas go thirsty, nuclear war augments climate disaster and prisoners feel climate stress most keenly.

Climate crisis making gorillas thirstier: study 

• Endangered mountain gorillas have been increasing the amount of water they consume as a result of climate-induced warming, according to a new study in Frontiers in Conservation Science. While these rainforest dwelling species typically get most of their water from plants they consume, they have become more reliant on free-standing water to quench their thirst — which is not always available in their home range and also risks exposing them to more parasites and human diseases, the scientists found. 

In addition to everything else, nuclear war would be very bad news for the climate 

• A nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia — a possible outcome of any attempt to impose a “no-fly zone” — would lead to catastrophic climate consequences whose impacts on global weather, wildfires and crop yields would dwarf even that from the tens of millions killed directly in a “limited” exchange, The Atlantic reported. “Solving climate change is a luxury of a planet at peace with itself,” the article concluded.   

Incarcerated individuals may face greater threats from climate change 

• Climate-driven crises “disproportionately affect people who are incarcerated, as they are physically unable to flee” — with 621 correctional facilities located in flood zones and 54 in areas that rank in the 95th percentile for wildfire risk, Ms. Magazine reported. Prisons and jails, according to Ms. Magazine, are “built upon, embedded with, or near environmental toxicity” and often fail to cope with water contamination and heatwaves.  

 

Please visit The Hill’s sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you on Friday.