Flying battery powered planes, and cargo ships. For sure. Unlimited resource availability and zero environmental impact. Zero recycling or end of life analysis. Zero fossil fuel used for manufacturing them. What a techno hopium thing i have just read
Battery costs have declined 99% since 1991? I didn't see that the last time I bought a new battery for my car. Or AA batteries. Oh, wait - this must apply only to one specific type of battery, right? Is this only for Lithium Ion batteries? But lithium ion batteries are still more expensive per kWh than lead batteries.
Demand is growing faster than the projections? But why? Could it be caused by political mandates that car makers sell, and drivers buy, electric vehicles? This adoption is boosted by generous subsidies for the few people who buy electric cars, but we can't really subsidize everyone. What happens to demand when the subsidies stop? Will voters be willing to pay more to buy electric vehicles, more to maintain them, with shorter life than conventional cars? Or will the political settlement fall apart?
Does the Rocky Mountain Institute do any serious analysis, or are they just the booster club for the hoped-for zero carbon revolution?
Too bad the rise of battery technology doesn't tell the whole story. The amount of land solar arrays require is gargantuan, and mining is a filthy business. In the case of lithium, it takes 500,000 gallons of water to produce one metric ton of battery grade ore in places where it competes with agriculture and drinking water. This while groundwater is being pumped faster than it can be replenished. The world is in historic drought. Consider some of the stunning statistics of the Thacker Pass lithium mine underway. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/showdown-at-thacker-pass
Now how about the graph of the environmental and social destruction caused by mining, the declining ore concentrations, the rock to metal ratio of each of the minerals rising ... This industry funded tosh is very harmful because people lose the impetus to make the real change needed
Not really. To completely face out fossil fuels. We have to add 30,000 terra watt of energy power per hour. And to a shift that we have to extract a lot of minerals that aren’t there or will be too expensive to extract in the future.
I want to add a comment: I think fossil backup will be with us for the foreseeable future, but it will be less and less used. That idle capacity for natural gas backup production will be a permanent feature, and at some point it will probably be nationalized. Renewable is everyday more competitive, but it is hard to believe that will ever be reliable enough to get rid of the gas backup.
Flying battery powered planes, and cargo ships. For sure. Unlimited resource availability and zero environmental impact. Zero recycling or end of life analysis. Zero fossil fuel used for manufacturing them. What a techno hopium thing i have just read
Battery costs have declined 99% since 1991? I didn't see that the last time I bought a new battery for my car. Or AA batteries. Oh, wait - this must apply only to one specific type of battery, right? Is this only for Lithium Ion batteries? But lithium ion batteries are still more expensive per kWh than lead batteries.
Demand is growing faster than the projections? But why? Could it be caused by political mandates that car makers sell, and drivers buy, electric vehicles? This adoption is boosted by generous subsidies for the few people who buy electric cars, but we can't really subsidize everyone. What happens to demand when the subsidies stop? Will voters be willing to pay more to buy electric vehicles, more to maintain them, with shorter life than conventional cars? Or will the political settlement fall apart?
Does the Rocky Mountain Institute do any serious analysis, or are they just the booster club for the hoped-for zero carbon revolution?
Too bad the rise of battery technology doesn't tell the whole story. The amount of land solar arrays require is gargantuan, and mining is a filthy business. In the case of lithium, it takes 500,000 gallons of water to produce one metric ton of battery grade ore in places where it competes with agriculture and drinking water. This while groundwater is being pumped faster than it can be replenished. The world is in historic drought. Consider some of the stunning statistics of the Thacker Pass lithium mine underway. https://geoffreydeihl.substack.com/p/showdown-at-thacker-pass
Now how about the graph of the environmental and social destruction caused by mining, the declining ore concentrations, the rock to metal ratio of each of the minerals rising ... This industry funded tosh is very harmful because people lose the impetus to make the real change needed
Appreciate the analysis! And a question: what are the resource constraints? Do we have enough of the key minerals?
I hope somebody is exploring ways to do efficient recycling of all these batteries we will soon be using!
killer report....
Not really. To completely face out fossil fuels. We have to add 30,000 terra watt of energy power per hour. And to a shift that we have to extract a lot of minerals that aren’t there or will be too expensive to extract in the future.
I want to add a comment: I think fossil backup will be with us for the foreseeable future, but it will be less and less used. That idle capacity for natural gas backup production will be a permanent feature, and at some point it will probably be nationalized. Renewable is everyday more competitive, but it is hard to believe that will ever be reliable enough to get rid of the gas backup.
But you need the batteries, either big and small to be intelligent and recharge in the times of maximum “excess generation”
https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/jJap6KhzFe3mgh32M/electric-vehicles-and-renewable-electricity
Absolutely spectacular article!