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"It has since waned as people spend less time staring at their screens: as demand for consumer electronics fell, so did that for cobalt." Stop me if I'm wrong,
by cocoggu 4y ago
"It has since waned as people spend less time staring at their screens: as demand for consumer electronics fell, so did that for cobalt."
Stop me if I'm wrong, but the article totally missed the fact that new car battery technologies are mostly cobalt free.
I feel it better explains the lack of demand than the article explanation.
- zaroth 4y agoOk… > Even a boom in electric vehicles has not been sufficient to counteract this, since manufacturers have done their best to reduce use of the formerly super-expensive metal.
- cocoggu 4y agoOops indeed not totally awake yet
- joak 4y agoWhen a resource is scarce we can either dig for more or replace by something equivalent. It was a time when there wasn't enough whales to light everyone. We killed (almost) all the whales before coming up with something else (oil)
- pfdietz 4y agoBiological resources like that are exceptionally vulnerable because harvesting them reduces the rate of creation of replacement whales, in a vicious cycle.
- adrianN 4y agoMost nonbiological resources don't get any replacement at all.
- pfdietz 4y agoBut they have enormous stockpiles, compared to the biological resources. The upper 1 kilometer of the Earth's continental crust contains about 10^19 tonnes of cobalt. There is no similar stockpile of whales.
- fwungy 4y agoThe abiotic oil theory says that oil is produced as an intrinsic result of deep earth geothermal processes. Peak oil theory may have been right about the peak, but wrong about the steepness of the right tail. Russia has had success with drilling for oil based on the abiotic theory.
- BlueTemplar 4y agoSomewhat fascinatinagly, being renewable doesn't actually change the dynamics : https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2011/05/peak-oil-thermodynamics-and-stoic.html?m=1 https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2011/05/peak-oil-thermo... (With the exception that whales, if left alone, might eventually bounce back.)
- photochemsyn 4y agoYes, was going to say just this. E.g. https://borates.today/lifepo4-batteries-vehicles/ https://borates.today/lifepo4-batteries-vehicles/ >"These days, LiFePO4 batteries are found everywhere and have various applications, including use in boats, solar systems, and vehicles. LiFePO4 batteries are cobalt-free and less expensive than most alternatives. It is non-toxic and has a longer shelf life."
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- erikpukinskis 4y agoRight, and cobalt is a conflict mineral, which is partly why battery designers and researchers have been designing it out of batteries.