BHP - Price Chart, page-728

Of course government funds science studies - it's not a financially profitable activity in its own right, therefore private investment is lacking. To play devil's advocate, if a private company is funding research, then there is far more reason to question the integrity. Why do you think petroleum companies spend so much money lobbying government in this regard? I know a lot of PhD academics, and your first comment is completely incorrect. There definitely are situations where your second sentence plays true - regarding consultancies proving a pre-determined outcome. But that applies to justifying government investment (e.g. infrastructure) rather than research, from my experience.

I agree that clearing an existing vegetated forest to install a utility scale solar farm is not sustainable. But the optimal use case of an EV is for residential rooftop solar to charge cars - reducing the strain on the grid. Outback solar helping power mining projects is a great use case too. So many uninformed people roll out the same "oh but lithium batteries are bad" argument when it comes to EVs. I'd encourage them to actually research a whole-of-life embodied carbon assessment (including all lifecycle stages) before heading to the keyboard.