What's your thoughts? What will be the state of cars in 10 years?

[jeffreylyon]

My point being is how do you replace every method of transportation with batteries 20, 30, 40 years from now? How much material would you have to mine out of the earth to make billions of batteries for vehicles?

I don’t think you can; jets and ships will still need the energy density of a hydrocarbon. That doesn’t mean that they must use a petroleum-based hydrocarbon, but I don’t think that we’ve got batteries in the R&D pipeline that’ll work.

For personal transportation, electronics, and the such there are batteries in the pipeline that use more common and benign components than lithium and cobalt.

 

[gtx3076]

I was watching the news this evening while eating dinner and there was a story about people dying mining the minerals necessary for electrical batteries.
This is the problem people walk around with a superiority complex who drive electric vehicles acting like they're saving the polar bears who are drinking a Coca-Cola in a commercial, when some poor small child is basically acting as a slave to mine the garbage to make the battery.

Not against electric vehicles by the way I'm just saying let's acknowledge that there is some environmental harm from them as well.

I've read some of the electrical vehicle websites and some of these guys are just nuts they have a severe superiority complex riding high horse.

The people who park in front of electrical charging ports in their gas vehicles are also jackasses.


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Thanks to science and education we know of the hazards and have the technologies to extract something from the ground and mitigate the impact on the workers and the environment. It's why we generally have better regulations than other countries, unions are technically legal to form (however difficult that may be) to help raise the minimum standards set by law.

I just spoke to a millworker/carpenter that said his doctor told him he has wood dust embedded in his lungs, it's incurable, and he'll cough and hack the rest of his life until he dies. Never smoked a day in his life. This conversation came up because I brought up his dust mitigation while cutting manufactured stone counter tops. Silicosis is the new mesothelioma (asbestos disease).

Gas and oil extraction have their own death count and tolls on our air and water. In the construction industry we believe that any accident that happens is inherently preventable. Most cases where injury or death occur a rule was broken, bypassing engineered systems/controls, and personal protective equipment.

I can tell you if American citizens were tasked with extracting lithium or whatever other heavy metals, we would probably do it better and safer. The Fair Labor Standards Act should be mandatory to learn in highschool, and every middle schooler should have an OSHA 10 card by the time they're of employment age at about 16.

 

[Ford ST]

I don’t think you can; jets and ships will still need the energy density of a hydrocarbon. That doesn’t mean that they must use a petroleum-based hydrocarbon, but I don’t think that we’ve got batteries in the R&D pipeline that’ll work.

For personal transportation, electronics, and the such there are batteries in the pipeline that use more common and benign components than lithium and cobalt.

I can agree with you on that.
I want a green world too trust me.

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[Ford ST]

Thanks to science and education we know of the hazards and have the technologies to extract something from the ground and mitigate the impact on the workers and the environment. It's why we generally have better regulations than other countries, unions are technically legal to form (however difficult that may be) to help raise the minimum standards set by law.

I just spoke to a millworker/carpenter that said his doctor told him he has wood dust embedded in his lungs, it's incurable, and he'll cough and hack the rest of his life until he dies. Never smoked a day in his life. This conversation came up because I brought up his dust mitigation while cutting manufactured stone counter tops. Silicosis is the new mesothelioma (asbestos disease).

Gas and oil extraction have their own death count and tolls on our air and water. In the construction industry we believe that any accident that happens is inherently preventable. Most cases where injury or death occur a rule was broken, bypassing engineered systems/controls, and personal protective equipment.

I can tell you if American citizens were tasked with extracting lithium or whatever other heavy metals, we would probably do it better and safer. The Fair Labor Standards Act should be mandatory to learn in highschool, and every middle schooler should have an OSHA 10 card by the time they're of employment age at about 16.

Agree agree agree.

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[PunkST]

Algea based fuels, and engines optimized for essentially burning alchohol.

 

[TyphoonFiST]

I think we all just need to go back to walking...Especially Greta.

 

[D1JL]

There is another grim alternative.

 

[Hypergram]

There is another grim alternative.

View attachment 26247

 

[PunkST]

There is another grim alternative.

View attachment 26247

Scenes from constantine dont count lol

 

[TyphoonFiST]

Scenes from constantine dont count lol

That's what I was thinking also! Great movie!

 

[PunkST]

Sometimes being non neurotypical works out, like remembering dumb shot like that 😅😅😅

 

[EKFiestaST]

This has been thoroughly entertaining seeing where everyone thinks we will be in ten years. I hope we see a battery improvement soon so cars can be cheap and lightweight again. That'd be very cool.

 

[EKFiestaST]

I found a lot of hope in this one. Sounds great if true.
https://cleantechnica.com/2019/10/20/uk-man-invents-aluminum-air-battery-in-his-garage/

Unfortunately, many times these claims are grossly overstated.

 

[jeffreylyon]

Algea based fuels, and engines optimized for essentially burning alchohol.

Even better, biodiesel - squeeze the oil out of the algae, ferment the remains, and bond the oil and alcohol together. Too bad the Germans cocked-up the viability of diesel for personal transportation. Good future for air travel and, perhaps, shipping.

 

[HBEcoBeaST]

Thanks to science and education we know of the hazards and have the technologies to extract something from the ground and mitigate the impact on the workers and the environment. It's why we generally have better regulations than other countries, unions are technically legal to form (however difficult that may be) to help raise the minimum standards set by law.

I just spoke to a millworker/carpenter that said his doctor told him he has wood dust embedded in his lungs, it's incurable, and he'll cough and hack the rest of his life until he dies. Never smoked a day in his life. This conversation came up because I brought up his dust mitigation while cutting manufactured stone counter tops. Silicosis is the new mesothelioma (asbestos disease).

Gas and oil extraction have their own death count and tolls on our air and water. In the construction industry we believe that any accident that happens is inherently preventable. Most cases where injury or death occur a rule was broken, bypassing engineered systems/controls, and personal protective equipment.

I can tell you if American citizens were tasked with extracting lithium or whatever other heavy metals, we would probably do it better and safer. The Fair Labor Standards Act should be mandatory to learn in highschool, and every middle schooler should have an OSHA 10 card by the time they're of employment age at about 16.

We don't mine large quantities of lithium or any rare earth metals in the USA because the EPA will not approve. Meaning it's so harmful for the environment it's illegal in the USA and most 'first world' countries.

'renewable energy' is a media tagline. The pollution caused by mining and manufacturing the rare earth metals for wind farms, solar panels and batteries is not renewable. We can scrub carbon from the air relatively easily. We can't replace a coastline destroyed by lithium mining or replace the mountainside that was strip-mined with arsenic and cyanide. Cobalt and nickel mining are not clean either.

Until batteries are carbon based (graphene) we are just replacing one problem with another.

I will echo my statement, if we stop carbon pollution 100% today, climate change will not stop or slow. Lowering carbon emissions is not a solution. It's not even a band-aid. So why spend billions on something that won't change the outcome?

Notice how the focus is on buying an EV, ditching single use plastics for other options and making tax payers subsidize 'clean energy'? These are all ways to make you spend money.

The real solutions are planting trees, implementing carbon scrubbing technology, clean nuclear and eventually fusion. But those dont make anyone money and require individuals to take action. The media will cover a protest, but schedule a trash pick up or tree-planting and barely anyone participates or notices.




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[kivnul]

I will echo my statement, if we stop carbon pollution 100% today, climate change will not stop or slow. Lowering carbon emissions is not a solution. It's not even a band-aid. So why spend billions on something that won't change the outcome?

With the cravat that I am not a climate science expert: from what I have read&heard, the degree and rate of climate change is very dependent on the amount of carbon and other emissions. IF as a species we can slow the rate of emissions increase (or even decrease them) it will slow down the rate of global temperature change. My thought process tells me that this gives us more time to develop the technologies that will actually halt or reverse the process (Carbon capture/neutralization, low environmental cost batteries, the holy grail of nuclear fusion etc.) I do not think planting trees will ever help due to the fact that somebody is going to want to cut down and use said trees: at most trees are carbon neutral. In order to be a carbon sink, said trees must be harvested and buried so that they never rot.

 

[thecman02]

I will say I'm fairly impressed with everyone's discussions and points. As far as vehicle mix, I see electric and/or hybrid as 1/3 of commuter cars on the road by the end of next decade. Solid state lithium glass batteries are currently working their way into production. Supposedly energy density just in the lab reports from a little over a year ago show 2x better than some of the best Lipo cobalt batteries. Also saw substantial gains in charge rate at 50% better. Biggest hurdle I see is still offsetting the energy of displacing an extra 30ish% percent of gasoline. Hybrid drives will help with the regenerative braking. Smart grids with cars that can back feed into the grid should help stabilize fluctuations in solar/wind farms. I think solar farms of the collector/boiler version will become more popular since you can avoid worrying about costly solar cell break down. Those things do tend to be tough on flying insects/animals though. It would be nice to see some molten salt reactor (MSR) nuclear plants commissioned. They can help us use up the nuclear waste that is currently being stored.

As far as the political climate on climate change I too am beyond annoyed with the shit that constantly gets spouted out. We should have a carbon tax on people running their mouths. My take is that it is possible the sky is falling, but F'ing do something useful like get involved in STEM and find solutions to these problems. Graphene battery will definitely be a game changer, as well as Fusion.

 

[HBEcoBeaST]

With the cravat that I am not a climate science expert: from what I have read&heard, the degree and rate of climate change is very dependent on the amount of carbon and other emissions. IF as a species we can slow the rate of emissions increase (or even decrease them) it will slow down the rate of global temperature change. My thought process tells me that this gives us more time to develop the technologies that will actually halt or reverse the process (Carbon capture/neutralization, low environmental cost batteries, the holy grail of nuclear fusion etc.) I do not think planting trees will ever help due to the fact that somebody is going to want to cut down and use said trees: at most trees are carbon neutral. In order to be a carbon sink, said trees must be harvested and buried so that they never rot.

You should look up the science on greenhouse gasses. Once they are in the atmosphere, they stay until removed through natural or artificial process. They create a blanket effect trapping more heat. The 'blanket' is already here trapping heat. Stopping carbon pollution does not eliminate the 'blanket'.

Eliminating carbon pollution will decrease the rate climate change SPEEDS UP but it won't slow it's current rate.

Planting trees does help offset climate change. Mangroves are being planted in the tropics to help combat erosion, rising sea levels and they use a lot of co2 to grow. Millions of trees planted in burn areas is also cheap and effective. If the Philippines can afford to do it, we can too.

I am all for reducing pollution and a cleaner planet, but until we start actively cleaning carbon from the atmosphere, no new 'clean tech' will slow down climate change. Instead of subsidizing EVs, wind farms and solar we should be giving out carbon negative tax credits to incentivize carbon pollution removal and developing clean nuclear and fusion for cheap and affordable energy.

Unfortunately, facts, science and math like this offend too many of the social media educated public.

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[D1JL]

This topic is starting to proceed down a political path.
These have never done well on our forum.
Please be mindful of this.

 

[Intuit]

We don't mine large quantities of lithium or any rare earth metals in the USA because the EPA will not approve. Meaning it's so harmful for the environment it's illegal in the USA and most 'first world' countries.

In a globally competitive market the economics of cleaning it up are simply more expensive... which are the same kinds of challenges that are presented when mining/drilling for oil; such as shale oil and fracking. For many decades we've all but completely ignored the shale oil, even when we developed better ways of processing it. As oil prices have risen, (and harvesting technologies improved,) it became more economically feasible to extract this oil... and so we're doing a lot more of it now. People literally setting their water on fire are among the examples of doing it wrong. Mini-quakes are among the examples in doing it wrong. But we're still doing it. Like oil recovery, there are careless ways to mine. Strip mining is merely among the most careless way to mine. But it isn't required. As is known, these elements are used in a lot more than just batteries. Virtually all of our modern semiconductors (including generators and electric motors) have created demand for these materials.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molycorp
https://www.neomaterials.com/about-neo/our-locations/
https://e360.yale.edu/features/boom_in_mining_rare_earths_poses_mounting_toxic_risks
<< ................... Contrary to their name, the 17 rare earth elements are relatively common — their rarity comes from the labor involved in separating them from surrounding rock. The process requires a cocktail of chemical compounds and produces a “tremendous amount” of solid waste, according to the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. China’s rare earths mines have used only a fraction of the world’s total supply, and substantial untapped reserves are found in Australia, the United States, parts of the former Soviet Union, and other countries. Global demand for rare earths dipped last year on the heels of a speculative bubble, but the EPA said in December there is a “high likelihood” that some of the elements will be in short supply by 2014......................>>
https://www.greatmining.com/mining.php
<< Mining Strategies (categories)
Surface Mining
Underground Mining
Shaft Mining
Contour Mining
Drift Mining

Types of surface mining (sub-categories)
Strip mining: ............
Open-pit mining: ..........
Mountaintop Removal: ...........
Dredging: ...........
High Wall: ............ >>

................... The real solutions are planting trees, implementing carbon scrubbing technology, clean nuclear and eventually fusion. But those dont make anyone money and require individuals to take action. The media will cover a protest, but schedule a trash pick up or tree-planting and barely anyone participates or notices.

Thumbs up... people are scared of nuclear though. (as we know, it's not without reason)

'renewable energy' is a media tagline. The pollution caused by mining and manufacturing the rare earth metals for wind farms, solar panels and batteries is not renewable. We can scrub carbon from the air relatively easily. We can't replace a coastline destroyed by lithium mining or replace the mountainside that was strip-mined with arsenic and cyanide. Cobalt and nickel mining are not clean either.

Until batteries are carbon based (graphene) we are just replacing one problem with another.

I will echo my statement, if we stop carbon pollution 100% today, climate change will not stop or slow. Lowering carbon emissions is not a solution. It's not even a band-aid. So why spend billions on something that won't change the outcome?

Notice how the focus is on buying an EV, ditching single use plastics for other options and making tax payers subsidize 'clean energy'? These are all ways to make you spend money. ....................