6 ms·

The parent comment is a pack of memes straight out of a propaganda machine. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-

by 1053r 6y ago

The parent comment is a pack of memes straight out of a propaganda machine. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electric-vehicles-continue-to-get-cleaner https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electri... Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource. It's an element. It will cost energy to recycle it, but that energy is increasingly sourced by clean energy sources. Let me cite the oil company, BP. https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... Coal is in terminal decline. Solar and wind have been growing exponentially, and are on a path to pass coal within the decade. Projections to the contrary have to explain why decades of industrial economics theory are wrong, where manufactured goods (like solar and wind generators) get cheaper by a fairly consistent % every time you double production. This creates a virtuous cycle that will drive coal and other fossil fuels out of business through profit seeking alone. (We are past the tipping point on costs here.) The burden of proof is on the fossil fuel advocates like yourself at this point. (This article is from 2015, and the IEA and similar keep getting it wrong since then.) https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2015/11/17/why-the-iea-is-consistently-wrong-on-renewables/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2015/11/17/why-the-iea-is-consis...

djsumdog 6y ago
> Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource The article goes into why this is incredibly difficult. The vast majority of lithium batteries are in landfills, compressed between all our other garbage because maybe 2% of people on the planet properly dispose of e-waste. As far as clean energy, have you watched Planet of the Humans (2020)? I want to say, I despise Michael Moore emotional bullshit, but despite his influence on the film's production, the case it makes is solid: the vast majority of "renewables" are actually trees. When you hear "woodchips" .. there is no amount of industrial wood scrap waste that is viable without also cutting down trees. You start burning fast-growing trees (often planted for paper or lumber) for fuel and you get a system of power production that makes no sense over traditional gas or oil. Solar and wind may have been growing exponentially, but they still require oil/gas standby plants. They also take a lot of resources to make. Wind turbines aren't currently recycled. The fact of the matter is, we have one real hope left. The ITER. If real fusion power is possible, we'll find out once it's completed. If ITER fails to produce sustainable and efficient power, it's unlikely anyone else will get the funding to build a bigger reactor. It's not coal that's in terminal decline ... it's everything. No amount of increasing consumption or building "more green" is going to change that. We need to consume less, and let's face it ... that's fucking impossible.
- Accujack 6y ago
  You're ignoring current SMR technology in nuclear. Old style giant, expensive nuclear power plants are a non starter, but small modular reactors have a lot of promise, are zero emissions once running, and can be built using green energy in factories instead of constructed on site. Fission power plants are pretty much the only way to go fully "green"... renewables are great and have a big place in the future, but unless humanity wants to drastically change their consumption of technologies and products requiring large amounts of energy for production (like Aluminum), they don't provide power in the right amounts and time spans.
  - CaptArmchair 6y ago
    A point few proponents of fission power tend to mention is that Uranium supplies are also finite. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium Unless there are major breakthroughs in nuclear technology which become commercially viable in the near future - that is, in this 21st century - nuclear power, as it stands, is running out of time, and it does so faster then most people assume.
    - HPsquared 6y ago
      Molten salt, breeder and Thorium reactors can achieve orders-of-magnitude improvements, and aren't exactly groundbreaking technology. Reprocessing as well. Several examples from decades ago, and new designs in the pipeline. The main problems are politics and lack of funding.
      - CaptArmchair 6y ago
        The Wikipedia page highlights that there's certainly discussion, doubt and controversy surrounding those technologies. The decisive factor of change I can see here is the unproven commercial viability of alternatives at the moment as Uranium is still cheap. Whether or not those alternatives become viable once Uranium prices increase isn't easily predicted. So, I remain highly skeptical towars claims that dismiss the issue as merely a problem of "politics and lack of funding".
h0l0cube 6y ago
> Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource. It's an element. It will cost energy to recycle it ... and human labor, and other chemicals. I'm not sure if you read the article, but it claims that recycling is still a somewhat tenuous economic proposition vs digging more out of the ground. This is especially true given the glut of lithium, while cobalt and other rare minerals are slowly being phased out of battery designs.
- hedora 6y ago
  The second company described in the article claims to recycle using nothing but catalysts, and simply grinds up the used batteries in a giant vat before transportation (rendering them inert, and easier to safely move). It sounds like their main problem at this point is continuing to scale the business to meet supply (they are already the largest lithium recycler in the US), and that the challenges there are logical, not the underlying technology. What human labor and chemicals are you referring to?
  - h0l0cube 6y ago
    Some amount of human labor will be required for operations, say maintenance of the in-situ automated systems, or intervention when things go wrong. These costs can't be eliminated with renewable energy, and won't be fixed with robots for some time yet (decades, minimum). And if a mine can be automated to yield orders of magnitude more material than recycling for the same labor costs, you would need some other financial incentive (government subsidies, backroll by Tesla for marketing purposes) to make it viable.
jeffreyrogers 6y ago
> Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource. It's an element. It will cost energy to recycle it It's not at all obvious to me that recycling is easy/practical. E.g. recycling the alloy from alloy steel is not done because it is too costly to separate. I'm not sure why batteries would be much different.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  > It's not at all obvious to me that recycling is easy/practical. It’s not. Other poster is just ignoring reality that it’s currently cheaper to use new lithium than to recover it.

by 1053r 6y ago

djsumdog 6y ago

> Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource The article goes into why this is incredibly difficult. The vast majority of lithium batteries are in landfills, compressed between all our other garbage because maybe 2% of people on the planet properly dispose of e-waste. As far as clean energy, have you watched Planet of the Humans (2020)? I want to say, I despise Michael Moore emotional bullshit, but despite his influence on the film's production, the case it makes is solid: the vast majority of "renewables" are actually trees. When you hear "woodchips" .. there is no amount of industrial wood scrap waste that is viable without also cutting down trees. You start burning fast-growing trees (often planted for paper or lumber) for fuel and you get a system of power production that makes no sense over traditional gas or oil. Solar and wind may have been growing exponentially, but they still require oil/gas standby plants. They also take a lot of resources to make. Wind turbines aren't currently recycled. The fact of the matter is, we have one real hope left. The ITER. If real fusion power is possible, we'll find out once it's completed. If ITER fails to produce sustainable and efficient power, it's unlikely anyone else will get the funding to build a bigger reactor. It's not coal that's in terminal decline ... it's everything. No amount of increasing consumption or building "more green" is going to change that. We need to consume less, and let's face it ... that's fucking impossible.

Accujack 6y ago
You're ignoring current SMR technology in nuclear. Old style giant, expensive nuclear power plants are a non starter, but small modular reactors have a lot of promise, are zero emissions once running, and can be built using green energy in factories instead of constructed on site. Fission power plants are pretty much the only way to go fully "green"... renewables are great and have a big place in the future, but unless humanity wants to drastically change their consumption of technologies and products requiring large amounts of energy for production (like Aluminum), they don't provide power in the right amounts and time spans.
- CaptArmchair 6y ago
  A point few proponents of fission power tend to mention is that Uranium supplies are also finite. [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_uranium Unless there are major breakthroughs in nuclear technology which become commercially viable in the near future - that is, in this 21st century - nuclear power, as it stands, is running out of time, and it does so faster then most people assume.
  - HPsquared 6y ago
    Molten salt, breeder and Thorium reactors can achieve orders-of-magnitude improvements, and aren't exactly groundbreaking technology. Reprocessing as well. Several examples from decades ago, and new designs in the pipeline. The main problems are politics and lack of funding.
    - CaptArmchair 6y ago
      The Wikipedia page highlights that there's certainly discussion, doubt and controversy surrounding those technologies. The decisive factor of change I can see here is the unproven commercial viability of alternatives at the moment as Uranium is still cheap. Whether or not those alternatives become viable once Uranium prices increase isn't easily predicted. So, I remain highly skeptical towars claims that dismiss the issue as merely a problem of "politics and lack of funding".

h0l0cube 6y ago

> Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource. It's an element. It will cost energy to recycle it ... and human labor, and other chemicals. I'm not sure if you read the article, but it claims that recycling is still a somewhat tenuous economic proposition vs digging more out of the ground. This is especially true given the glut of lithium, while cobalt and other rare minerals are slowly being phased out of battery designs.

hedora 6y ago
The second company described in the article claims to recycle using nothing but catalysts, and simply grinds up the used batteries in a giant vat before transportation (rendering them inert, and easier to safely move). It sounds like their main problem at this point is continuing to scale the business to meet supply (they are already the largest lithium recycler in the US), and that the challenges there are logical, not the underlying technology. What human labor and chemicals are you referring to?
- h0l0cube 6y ago
  Some amount of human labor will be required for operations, say maintenance of the in-situ automated systems, or intervention when things go wrong. These costs can't be eliminated with renewable energy, and won't be fixed with robots for some time yet (decades, minimum). And if a mine can be automated to yield orders of magnitude more material than recycling for the same labor costs, you would need some other financial incentive (government subsidies, backroll by Tesla for marketing purposes) to make it viable.

jeffreyrogers 6y ago

> Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource. It's an element. It will cost energy to recycle it It's not at all obvious to me that recycling is easy/practical. E.g. recycling the alloy from alloy steel is not done because it is too costly to separate. I'm not sure why batteries would be much different.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
> It's not at all obvious to me that recycling is easy/practical. It’s not. Other poster is just ignoring reality that it’s currently cheaper to use new lithium than to recover it.