EV minerals, tell me it isn't true
Discussion
Guybrush said:
I think you may be forming your opinion based on an incorrect foundation. Those whom you say "denied climate change" do in fact, agree the climate changes and say it has been changing since the earth was formed. What they disagree with (yes, disagree) is the extent to which humans are making the climate change.
^^^ This is pretty much just as stupid. Yes, the climate has indeed being changing for millions of years, but the important point seemingly missed is that whilst us humans weren't around, there was nobody to care! The Dinosaurs died out because of global climate change (caused by a large asteroid impact, the K–Pg extinction), demoinstrating that significant climate change does indeed have the potential to end life in one form or anther. And now we are around, it indeed matters!
Max_Torque said:
Guybrush said:
I think you may be forming your opinion based on an incorrect foundation. Those whom you say "denied climate change" do in fact, agree the climate changes and say it has been changing since the earth was formed. What they disagree with (yes, disagree) is the extent to which humans are making the climate change.
^^^ This is pretty much just as stupid. Yes, the climate has indeed being changing for millions of years, but the important point seemingly missed is that whilst us humans weren't around, there was nobody to care! The Dinosaurs died out because of global climate change (caused by a large asteroid impact, the K–Pg extinction), demoinstrating that significant climate change does indeed have the potential to end life in one form or anther. And now we are around, it indeed matters!
Some people start to sound like they understand that climate change is normal and that mankind has simply sped it up quite a bit... But then they lament the melting of the polar caps - which just shows how little they understand about our planet despite having formed a rigid opinion about what is wrong and who is to blame.
The ice caps aren't supposed to be there indefinitely. We're still coming out of the most recent ice age, we're coming out of it slightly faster than if man didn't exist - but we do exist, because it's natural we would exist on a planet that can support us, and it's natural we evolved the way we have done to make use of what we can craft from that planet...
It's sad that there is a lot of upset and upheaval as the planet warms or cools, these are huge forces at play. Worrying about us speeding it up a bit is a bit like worrying about insulting a lion that you're trapped in a room with. Sure, you might get eaten a bit sooner than if you tried to ignore it for a while...
Some important points:
1) Few cars in the global fleet are scrapped early. Yes some get crashed and bashed, some fail catastrophically, but most of the fleet goes on to do a fair amount of miles,. In the uk, the average age for a car to be scrapped is 13 years and around 130,000 miles. And for BEVs, being fundamentlly simply and easy to fix (for example a battery repair on a nissian leaf takes just 45min, drive in to drive out!) chances are, they will actually be scrapped later in their life cycles.
2) When a car is scrapped, it can be recycled. For an EV, it means also those minerals in the battery can be reclaimed and reused. We don't need to keep extracting new minerals for new cars. This is the same as the Lead cycle for normal car batteries, where an established chain of recycling means that the same lead goes round and round in circles in new car batteries all the time. And of course, a battery is a valuable comodity for second life uses. Today, the reason very few large BEV batteries are recycled is actually simply because there aren't any (they are proving more durable than expected under real work use cases and are incredibly sort after for things like power banks and re-power projects
3) The exact break even mileage / time is highly dependant upon the exact energy mix used to charge the BEV, and the overhead of the fuel used to er, fuel the ICE. However because an BEV is compeltely agnostic to the source of it's 'lecy, you can, if you so see fit, charge it from incredibly low carbon sources, such as your own roof top panels. For a large number of people who do few miles each day, this is viable, and soon with become the norm, especially when work place charging starts to catch on ( your car is parked for around 96% of it's entire life btw!)
4) Saying "Batteries are dirty to build compared to ICEs" is in fact eroneous. Building a BEV is indeed worse than building an ICE today, but only because
a) BEV production volumes are very low compared to the millions of ICEs built (ie they are not leveraging the same economies of scale)
b) Battery production lines are currently not specific to the manufacturer, and are situated abroad and serve many clients. This is not the same for volume ICE, where the engine plant is generally specific to the manufacturer and generally local to the production line
When you sit down and do a proper analysis, you find that a comparable BEV actually ultimately has around 65 to 75% the total manufacturing footprint of an ICE when manufactured at comparable volumes (which incidentally happens at just 50% market penetration, not 100%). This is because:
a) Batteries are highly parallel. They use a lot of the same identical parts. This means massive economies of scale can be leveraged, not just between models, but between manufacturers too
b) the manufacturing process is mostly a low temperature process (compared to say casting or forging a crankshaft or engine block. That means they need a relaitvely constant feed of energy, which makes them perfect to be renewably powered (wind, solar etc) You simply can't run a aluminium electric arc furnace without a huge MW level grid connection, you can run a machine that sticks battery cells together
c) They are mechanically simpler, with fewer high precision high grade metal parts. Things like electric motors scale incredibly well. Want twice the power? just stick two rotor and stator lamination sets together, the parts don't change you just use more of them to make the higher power. (and of course, there is an easy 1 motor vs 2 motor trick already used by most manufacturers to build cars of different performance with the same parts
d) Much lower development, validation and certification overhead per model. Because BEVs don't have tailpipes, they don't need expensive, time consuming OBD and emissions development and certification. For example, a single catalyst ageing test, can consume 50,000 litres of fuel, and a single model program might need 100 aged cats! And every model needs different cats, and must be individually certified. A typical EOBD program, costs around £100M and takes a couple of hundred people 3 years on todays complex ICE vehicles. Just the footprint of those people driving to work is huge, let alone all the collateral impacts as a result of that work
A study a chaired for a major OE that took nearly 18 months, involved something like 20 people and attempted to take all the data that OE possessed about building its ICE and its BEV came to roughly the following conclusion:
1) Build footprint should ultimately be around 70% of that of the comparitor ICE
2) In use energy consumption should ultimately be around 1/3rd that of the comparitor ICE (using real world driving cycles, not homologation cycles)
3) Lifetime released polulants (NOx, CO and Hc) using UK grid figures for 2018 suggest that the BEV had less than 1% of the real in-use emissions of pollutants as the comparitor ICE, and of course the release point of those pollutants is not generally at areas of high population density
4) A BEV almost certainly gets cleaner as it ages, as the energy used to charge it benefits from grid level increase in renewables. An ICE gets ditry as it ages, especially in respect to pollutants when tailpipe emissions on older cars can be considered catastrphic compared to the incredibly low new tailpipe figures (born out by buy-back fleet emissions testing program carried out by the same OE, that found a 10yo model with 100,000 miles couild in some cases have NOx emissions over 1,000 times greater than when new, due to engine wear and failures in aftertreatment)
Really, the case is very clear cut, and in order of best to worst in terms of impact:
1) Don't own or drive a private car
2) Buy a BEV
3) Buy an ICE
1) Few cars in the global fleet are scrapped early. Yes some get crashed and bashed, some fail catastrophically, but most of the fleet goes on to do a fair amount of miles,. In the uk, the average age for a car to be scrapped is 13 years and around 130,000 miles. And for BEVs, being fundamentlly simply and easy to fix (for example a battery repair on a nissian leaf takes just 45min, drive in to drive out!) chances are, they will actually be scrapped later in their life cycles.
2) When a car is scrapped, it can be recycled. For an EV, it means also those minerals in the battery can be reclaimed and reused. We don't need to keep extracting new minerals for new cars. This is the same as the Lead cycle for normal car batteries, where an established chain of recycling means that the same lead goes round and round in circles in new car batteries all the time. And of course, a battery is a valuable comodity for second life uses. Today, the reason very few large BEV batteries are recycled is actually simply because there aren't any (they are proving more durable than expected under real work use cases and are incredibly sort after for things like power banks and re-power projects
3) The exact break even mileage / time is highly dependant upon the exact energy mix used to charge the BEV, and the overhead of the fuel used to er, fuel the ICE. However because an BEV is compeltely agnostic to the source of it's 'lecy, you can, if you so see fit, charge it from incredibly low carbon sources, such as your own roof top panels. For a large number of people who do few miles each day, this is viable, and soon with become the norm, especially when work place charging starts to catch on ( your car is parked for around 96% of it's entire life btw!)
4) Saying "Batteries are dirty to build compared to ICEs" is in fact eroneous. Building a BEV is indeed worse than building an ICE today, but only because
a) BEV production volumes are very low compared to the millions of ICEs built (ie they are not leveraging the same economies of scale)
b) Battery production lines are currently not specific to the manufacturer, and are situated abroad and serve many clients. This is not the same for volume ICE, where the engine plant is generally specific to the manufacturer and generally local to the production line
When you sit down and do a proper analysis, you find that a comparable BEV actually ultimately has around 65 to 75% the total manufacturing footprint of an ICE when manufactured at comparable volumes (which incidentally happens at just 50% market penetration, not 100%). This is because:
a) Batteries are highly parallel. They use a lot of the same identical parts. This means massive economies of scale can be leveraged, not just between models, but between manufacturers too
b) the manufacturing process is mostly a low temperature process (compared to say casting or forging a crankshaft or engine block. That means they need a relaitvely constant feed of energy, which makes them perfect to be renewably powered (wind, solar etc) You simply can't run a aluminium electric arc furnace without a huge MW level grid connection, you can run a machine that sticks battery cells together
c) They are mechanically simpler, with fewer high precision high grade metal parts. Things like electric motors scale incredibly well. Want twice the power? just stick two rotor and stator lamination sets together, the parts don't change you just use more of them to make the higher power. (and of course, there is an easy 1 motor vs 2 motor trick already used by most manufacturers to build cars of different performance with the same parts
d) Much lower development, validation and certification overhead per model. Because BEVs don't have tailpipes, they don't need expensive, time consuming OBD and emissions development and certification. For example, a single catalyst ageing test, can consume 50,000 litres of fuel, and a single model program might need 100 aged cats! And every model needs different cats, and must be individually certified. A typical EOBD program, costs around £100M and takes a couple of hundred people 3 years on todays complex ICE vehicles. Just the footprint of those people driving to work is huge, let alone all the collateral impacts as a result of that work
A study a chaired for a major OE that took nearly 18 months, involved something like 20 people and attempted to take all the data that OE possessed about building its ICE and its BEV came to roughly the following conclusion:
1) Build footprint should ultimately be around 70% of that of the comparitor ICE
2) In use energy consumption should ultimately be around 1/3rd that of the comparitor ICE (using real world driving cycles, not homologation cycles)
3) Lifetime released polulants (NOx, CO and Hc) using UK grid figures for 2018 suggest that the BEV had less than 1% of the real in-use emissions of pollutants as the comparitor ICE, and of course the release point of those pollutants is not generally at areas of high population density
4) A BEV almost certainly gets cleaner as it ages, as the energy used to charge it benefits from grid level increase in renewables. An ICE gets ditry as it ages, especially in respect to pollutants when tailpipe emissions on older cars can be considered catastrphic compared to the incredibly low new tailpipe figures (born out by buy-back fleet emissions testing program carried out by the same OE, that found a 10yo model with 100,000 miles couild in some cases have NOx emissions over 1,000 times greater than when new, due to engine wear and failures in aftertreatment)
Really, the case is very clear cut, and in order of best to worst in terms of impact:
1) Don't own or drive a private car
2) Buy a BEV
3) Buy an ICE
TheDeuce said:
It's all BS in terms of how people perceive cause and effect and what is nature vs man.
Some people start to sound like they understand that climate change is normal and that mankind has simply sped it up quite a bit... But then they lament the melting of the polar caps - which just shows how little they understand about our planet despite having formed a rigid opinion about what is wrong and who is to blame.
The ice caps aren't supposed to be there indefinitely. We're still coming out of the most recent ice age, we're coming out of it slightly faster than if man didn't exist - but we do exist, because it's natural we would exist on a planet that can support us, and it's natural we evolved the way we have done to make use of what we can craft from that planet...
It's sad that there is a lot of upset and upheaval as the planet warms or cools, these are huge forces at play. Worrying about us speeding it up a bit is a bit like worrying about insulting a lion that you're trapped in a room with. Sure, you might get eaten a bit sooner than if you tried to ignore it for a while...
I don't believe this ^^ is the case, sorry!Some people start to sound like they understand that climate change is normal and that mankind has simply sped it up quite a bit... But then they lament the melting of the polar caps - which just shows how little they understand about our planet despite having formed a rigid opinion about what is wrong and who is to blame.
The ice caps aren't supposed to be there indefinitely. We're still coming out of the most recent ice age, we're coming out of it slightly faster than if man didn't exist - but we do exist, because it's natural we would exist on a planet that can support us, and it's natural we evolved the way we have done to make use of what we can craft from that planet...
It's sad that there is a lot of upset and upheaval as the planet warms or cools, these are huge forces at play. Worrying about us speeding it up a bit is a bit like worrying about insulting a lion that you're trapped in a room with. Sure, you might get eaten a bit sooner than if you tried to ignore it for a while...
The issue with man made climate change is the rate at which we are releasing CO2 into our environment. Oil, gas and coal formed over a period of millions of years. Each years solar energy growing carbon matter, absorbing carbon from the environment, a bit each year, and locking it away for hundreds of thousands of years. Then, around about 200 or so years ago, man found a way to get very cheap energy, to generate high power easily. And in 200 years we have released millions of years worth of stored carbon. Yes, our environment, atmosphere and oceans are indeed huge, but so is our rate of burning those fossil fuel. For example, each and every day we burn 1,536,619,360 litres of oil (that's 15.5 BILLION btw)
So yes, climate change happens, but we are consuming at such a level as to drive that change faster than nature ever could (other than asteroid impact) and as a result the severity of the affects are increasingly understoofd to be likely to be much more significant.
Max_Torque said:
TheDeuce said:
It's all BS in terms of how people perceive cause and effect and what is nature vs man.
Some people start to sound like they understand that climate change is normal and that mankind has simply sped it up quite a bit... But then they lament the melting of the polar caps - which just shows how little they understand about our planet despite having formed a rigid opinion about what is wrong and who is to blame.
The ice caps aren't supposed to be there indefinitely. We're still coming out of the most recent ice age, we're coming out of it slightly faster than if man didn't exist - but we do exist, because it's natural we would exist on a planet that can support us, and it's natural we evolved the way we have done to make use of what we can craft from that planet...
It's sad that there is a lot of upset and upheaval as the planet warms or cools, these are huge forces at play. Worrying about us speeding it up a bit is a bit like worrying about insulting a lion that you're trapped in a room with. Sure, you might get eaten a bit sooner than if you tried to ignore it for a while...
I don't believe this ^^ is the case, sorry!Some people start to sound like they understand that climate change is normal and that mankind has simply sped it up quite a bit... But then they lament the melting of the polar caps - which just shows how little they understand about our planet despite having formed a rigid opinion about what is wrong and who is to blame.
The ice caps aren't supposed to be there indefinitely. We're still coming out of the most recent ice age, we're coming out of it slightly faster than if man didn't exist - but we do exist, because it's natural we would exist on a planet that can support us, and it's natural we evolved the way we have done to make use of what we can craft from that planet...
It's sad that there is a lot of upset and upheaval as the planet warms or cools, these are huge forces at play. Worrying about us speeding it up a bit is a bit like worrying about insulting a lion that you're trapped in a room with. Sure, you might get eaten a bit sooner than if you tried to ignore it for a while...
The issue with man made climate change is the rate at which we are releasing CO2 into our environment. Oil, gas and coal formed over a period of millions of years. Each years solar energy growing carbon matter, absorbing carbon from the environment, a bit each year, and locking it away for hundreds of thousands of years. Then, around about 200 or so years ago, man found a way to get very cheap energy, to generate high power easily. And in 200 years we have released millions of years worth of stored carbon. Yes, our environment, atmosphere and oceans are indeed huge, but so is our rate of burning those fossil fuel. For example, each and every day we burn 1,536,619,360 litres of oil (that's 15.5 BILLION btw)
So yes, climate change happens, but we are consuming at such a level as to drive that change faster than nature ever could (other than asteroid impact) and as a result the severity of the affects are increasingly understoofd to be likely to be much more significant.
Anyway, you haven't disagreed with a single thing I have said. I say the climate changes naturally, you agree. I say man has sped it up, you agree.
Can you put an approx number on how much man has sped things up by? Clearly we have heavily contributed to CO2 but by how much exactly has that sped up climate change? Are we 100 or 1000 years ahead of schedule? Or 15 years, or 3000?
ingenieur said:
... and that paying money to governments and large corporations will fix it...
Any chance we can keep the thread on topic, you know, the thread you started...You've been asked a few questions about your source of information and assumptions you've made, how about having a go at answering those?
I think it would be refreshing for one of the 'go team hydrogen' cheerleaders to be able to enter into a nuanced discussion about batteries, here's hoping.
So let's say that EVs are a red herring.
We got it all wrong.
Hurrah for green hydrogen, riding in from the west to save the day.
OP and his gang whooping and hollering.
What happens next then?
Well first of all we need to find the trillions or so that's going to pay for all the extra materials and energy, over and above what the EV pathway requires.
So let's say we shake the tree and it magically appears.
Excellent, but we are going to need a f
k-ton of green electricity to produce all this hydrogen, at least 2.5 times what we thought we needed.
No problem I hear you say, despite at the same time, of course, voicing your concern that the grid can't cope with the much smaller demand that the EV option requires.
Yeahhh, anyway let's move on.
OK, so we are going to need a fk-ton of additional wind turbines.
We are also going to need a fk-ton of electrolysers.
And a fk-ton of fuel cells.
And we are going to need a fk-ton of hydrogen tanks, both static and mobile.
And guess what, we still need lots of batteries, power converters and electric motors, because you know, a hydrogen fuel cell car is just another hybrid vehicle and all that.
So do we think that your average team hydrogen fan has thought this through?
Do they know what fuel cells are made from?
Do they know what hydrogen tanks are made from?
Do they know what wind turbine blades made from?
Have they done any sort of quantitive analysis to check if there are enough raw materials to produce all of these things?
And do they care that the raw materials to produce carbon fibre for the tanks and blades start life as extracted hydrocarbons?
And do they care that the production process for this carbon fibre is hugely energy intensive with a high CO2 footprint?
Maybe I'm just over-thinking it and they have though this through.
Hopefully someone can put my mind at ease?
We got it all wrong.
Hurrah for green hydrogen, riding in from the west to save the day.
OP and his gang whooping and hollering.
What happens next then?
Well first of all we need to find the trillions or so that's going to pay for all the extra materials and energy, over and above what the EV pathway requires.
So let's say we shake the tree and it magically appears.
Excellent, but we are going to need a f
k-ton of green electricity to produce all this hydrogen, at least 2.5 times what we thought we needed.No problem I hear you say, despite at the same time, of course, voicing your concern that the grid can't cope with the much smaller demand that the EV option requires.
Yeahhh, anyway let's move on.
OK, so we are going to need a f
k-ton of additional wind turbines.We are also going to need a f
k-ton of electrolysers.And a f
k-ton of fuel cells.And we are going to need a f
k-ton of hydrogen tanks, both static and mobile.And guess what, we still need lots of batteries, power converters and electric motors, because you know, a hydrogen fuel cell car is just another hybrid vehicle and all that.
So do we think that your average team hydrogen fan has thought this through?
Do they know what fuel cells are made from?
Do they know what hydrogen tanks are made from?
Do they know what wind turbine blades made from?
Have they done any sort of quantitive analysis to check if there are enough raw materials to produce all of these things?
And do they care that the raw materials to produce carbon fibre for the tanks and blades start life as extracted hydrocarbons?
And do they care that the production process for this carbon fibre is hugely energy intensive with a high CO2 footprint?
Maybe I'm just over-thinking it and they have though this through.
Hopefully someone can put my mind at ease?
TheDeuce said:
But in reality pretty much all heavier commercial vehicles will have to remain ICE or head the hydrogen fuel cell route at least until we get new battery tech - the current batteries (li-ion - the ones which require all the exotic materials that are somewhat limited) simply don't have the energy density for much beyond personal cars and light, local use commercial vehicles.
What utter rubbish.The materials in lithium ion batteries are not exotic. They're not even rare. They are currently supply-constrained, but then isn't that the nature of all supply-demand commodities at some point.
LFP Chemistry is also a prime example of a lithium chemistry which doesn't consume the more in-demand elements, and is widely used in China and wider brands.
And light-duty, local-use?
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-semi-first-custome...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/29/t...
https://www.fleetpoint.org/electric-vehicles-2/ele...
Evanivitch said:
TheDeuce said:
But in reality pretty much all heavier commercial vehicles will have to remain ICE or head the hydrogen fuel cell route at least until we get new battery tech - the current batteries (li-ion - the ones which require all the exotic materials that are somewhat limited) simply don't have the energy density for much beyond personal cars and light, local use commercial vehicles.
What utter rubbish.The materials in lithium ion batteries are not exotic. They're not even rare. They are currently supply-constrained, but then isn't that the nature of all supply-demand commodities at some point.
LFP Chemistry is also a prime example of a lithium chemistry which doesn't consume the more in-demand elements, and is widely used in China and wider brands.
And light-duty, local-use?
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-semi-first-custome...
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/dec/29/t...
https://www.fleetpoint.org/electric-vehicles-2/ele...
As for your examples of EV for HGV... I'm sure you're clever enough to see that those are fringe examples, almost certainly for positive PR. I see the Tesco fleet in particular is destined to make a journey of 30 miles per delivery!
The TP trucks do make good sense actually, building supply trucks generally are bulk load but local trips.
But most bulk loads are bulk loads because they're off on a reasonable length journey and then the truck needs to turn round and return. BEV isn't up to that yet, at least not for the mast majority of heavy logistics scenarios. I'm a massive supporter of EV but also a realist about the current limitations.
TheDeuce said:
Fine 'supply constrained', not technically rare. But the method of extraction is dirty and expensive. The point is that solid state cells are composed of easier to come by elements.
Is there anything we dig out of the ground that's cheap and clean?TheDeuce said:
As for your examples of EV for HGV... I'm sure you're clever enough to see that those are fringe examples, almost certainly for positive PR. I see the Tesco fleet in particular is destined to make a journey of 30 miles per delivery!
You realise that Tesco doesn't base their distribution depots in the middle.of nowhere? From Magor and Avonmouth Tesco can deliver to the majority of the population that resides within Wales and the South West of England. That isn't PR, it's basic fleet management and economics.Tesco also has a policy of using rail to deliver to these depots from ports.
TheDeuce said:
The TP trucks do make good sense actually, building supply trucks generally are bulk load but local trips.
But most bulk loads are bulk loads because they're off on a reasonable length journey and then the truck needs to turn round and return. BEV isn't up to that yet, at least not for the mast majority of heavy logistics scenarios. I'm a massive supporter of EV but also a realist about the current limitations.
It think your understanding of the heavy logistics market is somewhat flawed. Just like the supermarket supply chains, not every HGV is travelling cross-country. There are loads of local journeys that occur though the supply chain, especially out of ports and key industrial hubs.But most bulk loads are bulk loads because they're off on a reasonable length journey and then the truck needs to turn round and return. BEV isn't up to that yet, at least not for the mast majority of heavy logistics scenarios. I'm a massive supporter of EV but also a realist about the current limitations.
Sure, HGV battery Vehicles won't be doing heavy medium and long haul soon, but there are also plenty of low-density delivery jobs too (coaches are already doing this with people...).
Your initial comment is entirely incorrect that they're only doing light and local duties.
Fastdruid said:
Guess what happens when there is more demand for something? The price goes up, more people start making/mining/refining it etc.
Love the idea of someone attempting to look well educated using supply / demand economics to make a point when their fundamental understanding is the complete reverse of the general principles of the theory. GT9 said:
ingenieur said:
... and that paying money to governments and large corporations will fix it...
Any chance we can keep the thread on topic, you know, the thread you started...You've been asked a few questions about your source of information and assumptions you've made, how about having a go at answering those?
I think it would be refreshing for one of the 'go team hydrogen' cheerleaders to be able to enter into a nuanced discussion about batteries, here's hoping.
I only heard this anecdotally but after doing a bit more reading it seems there are at least three major things to consider:
1. Lithium is everywhere... but the easier sources are getting low and the harder sources are very difficult to extract good lithium from.
2. Cobalt, unlike lithium is properly rare. But on the flip side some manufactures are changing battery composition to be less reliant on it.
3. If these elements are rare now with such a small number of the worlds vehicles battery powered the future batteries are going to have to be radically different and they're going to have to be developed and commercialised really really quickly.
There are also other rare elements going into batteries but cobalt and lithium are the ones causing a problem at the moment:
This is a good article on it: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/2...
ingenieur said:
There are also other rare elements going into batteries but cobalt and lithium are the ones causing a problem at the moment:
Looking at manufacturer road-maps LiFePO will be the dominant composition for EV batteries within five years and really the only "rare" thing in it is the Lithium. As you say even Lithium isn't actually rare, it's just not commercially viable to extract most of it. Cobalt based batteries may continue to be used in high-performance and/or ultra long range cars, but I think LiFePO will be 90+% of the market pretty quickly.
It has to pointed out that ICE is not immune from this sort of problem either. The average catalytic convert contains about 5 grams of platinum, 5 grams of palladium and 1 gram of rhodium. Taking platinum, the current global reserves are estimated to be about 70000 tonnes so if we used platinum for nothing except cars, there's enough in the world for 14Bn cars. Which is a lot, but cars are not the only, or even the main, use of platinum. Rhodium is even more of a problem, it's one of the rarest of the rare earth metals.
Realistically there's no way we could fit every car in the world with a catalytic converter using current chemical compositions, yet it's a legal requirement for new cars in most countries.
Edited by kambites on Friday 28th January 11:49
ingenieur said:
...causing a problem at the moment...
Any form of human consumption causes problems.Fossil fuels cause problems.
EVs cause problems.
Green hydrogen causes problems (see my earlier post).
If you are an 'ingenieur' in the true the sense of the word, you will know about first principles.
Any open-minded and objective assessment of the various pathways and the problems they cause, along with the opportunities they present, and the first principles that apply to each, will almost certainly conclude that EV has by far the highest opportunity/problem ratio for passenger cars.
Engineering practice, materials and technology is now advanced enough that almost every engineering challenge can be solved with enough money and people behind it.
Conversely, we cannot, and will probably never be able to change, the laws of the universe.
If a pathway is fundamentally thermodynamically inefficient, it will always be inefficient.
If a pathway bakes in a higher cost, and there are no mechanisms to fundamentally alter the cost drivers, then that cost will be there for the foreseeable future.
If a pathway is fundamentally constrained by material properties that are energy hungry to process and/or cannot be recycled, the opportunities and limitations need to be fully explored and understood.
All of this has already been done to a very large extent for passenger cars and the pathway we are now following is the outcome of tens of millions of hours of time and effort to do all of the above.
I'm not saying that EV batteries do not and will not continue to present challenges, but what I don't understand is why people are so keen to look past the problems elsewhere to single these out as showstoppers nobody else has yet thought of.
What is it about EVs that you dislike? You posted elsewhere that you hope to never buy one but are hoping to buy a hydrogen powered car. This car would almost certainly be an EV with both a battery and a hydrogen fuel cell and tank. Does the presence of the hydrogen allow you to pretend you are not driving an EV?
kambites said:
ingenieur said:
There are also other rare elements going into batteries but cobalt and lithium are the ones causing a problem at the moment:
Looking at manufacturer road-maps LiFePO will be the dominant composition for EV batteries within five years and really the only "rare" thing in it is the Lithium. As you say even Lithium isn't actually rare, it's just not commercially viable to extract most of it. Cobalt based batteries may continue to be used in high-performance and/or ultra long range cars, but I think LiFePO will be 90+% of the market pretty quickly.
It has to pointed out that ICE is not immune from this sort of problem either. The average catalytic convert contains about 5 grams of platinum, 5 grams of palladium and 1 gram of rhodium. Taking platinum, the current global reserves are estimated to be about 70000 tonnes so if we used platinum for nothing except cars, there's enough in the world for 14Bn cars. Which is a lot, but cars are not the only, or even the main, use of platinum. Rhodium is even more of a problem, it's one of the rarest of the rare earth metals.
Realistically there's no way we could fit every car in the world with a catalytic converter using current chemical compositions, yet it's a legal requirement for new cars in most countries.
Edited by kambites on Friday 28th January 11:49
GT9 said:
ingenieur said:
...causing a problem at the moment...
Any form of human consumption causes problems.Fossil fuels cause problems.
EVs cause problems.
Green hydrogen causes problems (see my earlier post).
If you are an 'ingenieur' in the true the sense of the word, you will know about first principles.
Any open-minded and objective assessment of the various pathways and the problems they cause, along with the opportunities they present, and the first principles that apply to each, will almost certainly conclude that EV has by far the highest opportunity/problem ratio for passenger cars.
Engineering practice, materials and technology is now advanced enough that almost every engineering challenge can be solved with enough money and people behind it.
Conversely, we cannot, and will probably never be able to change, the laws of the universe.
If a pathway is fundamentally thermodynamically inefficient, it will always be inefficient.
If a pathway bakes in a higher cost, and there are no mechanisms to fundamentally alter the cost drivers, then that cost will be there for the foreseeable future.
If a pathway is fundamentally constrained by material properties that are energy hungry to process and/or cannot be recycled, the opportunities and limitations need to be fully explored and understood.
All of this has already been done to a very large extent for passenger cars and the pathway we are now following is the outcome of tens of millions of hours of time and effort to do all of the above.
I'm not saying that EV batteries do not and will not continue to present challenges, but what I don't understand is why people are so keen to look past the problems elsewhere to single these out as showstoppers nobody else has yet thought of.
What is it about EVs that you dislike? You posted elsewhere that you hope to never buy one but are hoping to buy a hydrogen powered car. This car would almost certainly be an EV with both a battery and a hydrogen fuel cell and tank. Does the presence of the hydrogen allow you to pretend you are not driving an EV?
The inelegance of the battery solution bothers me. It looks like a bit of a problem that you couldn't really build your own electric car unless you purchased at least the battery from some giant corporation and I see that lack of access being inappropriate in developing nations. This thread has dissolved into the 'why you not like EV' question as is inevitable with any EV related thread but it was started with the question of where will the raw materials come from if they're already in limited supply when only 0.4% of the worlds cars are electric now.
As for poo pooing hydrogen because it's an electric car powered by hydrogen fuel cell.... I don't really like those either. I prefer the hydrogen powered combustion engines which are being developed now.
It's just my opinion but if someone asked me the question or wanted me to put a bet on it one way or the other is the future of transportation battery powered or hydrogen powered I would say emphatically hydrogen, like a 1000 times more likely to be hydrogen. I can't for certain say how long it will take for us to stop thinking only about battery powered cars but when we do I believe it'll be because hydrogen is taking over.
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