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Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

nature.com

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Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#11

Post by Reason077 »

The NCM cells most commonly used in electric vehicles have already significantly reduced their cobalt content in recent years. Moving from NCM 333 (33% cobalt cathode), to 622 (20%), to 811 (10%).

Tesla claims to use even less cobalt in their 2170 NCA cells than the best NCM811 chemistry.

As for nickel, a billion tonnes of known commercially-viable reserves ought to be enough for all the world’s vehicles to be electrified several times over. And all these minerals can be recovered and reused from recycled batteries.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#12

Post by xigma »

pyre wrote: post #7
another-one-off wrote: post #3

The Broken Hill Proprietary Company, BHP, comes from Broken Hill, Australia. It is one of the largest mining companies in the world. Now what is interesting about Broken Hill is I have it on reasonable authority that the area as a whole has had "20 years of remaining reserves" for the last 60 years, because the explorers only bother to go out and 'discover' new parts of the deposit when they get below 15-20 years of…

> High prices isn't a signal that we have run out, it is a signal that more mines are needed. It is likely the market will heed the signal. It is a signal that there is a high demand, and not enough supply (whether naturally or artificially -- e.g. diamonds) to meet that demand. That's it. Building more mines can only happen if the resources exist to mine. This idea that "the market" is a magic wand to wave at proble…

>> Building more mines can only happen if the resources exist to mine.

The resources do exist to mine. Only a tiny fraction of rare earth minerals are actually being mined, because it's not economical in most places.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#13

Post by vinceguidry »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #10
vinceguidry wrote: post #4

One of the more interesting aspects of modern global warfare is the fact that, should the world decide to stage another world war, pretty much everyone is going to run out of a lot of these strategic resources within a few months to years. This, plus the fact that nuclear warfare is going to be extremely limited due to lack of available weapons, and the virtual impossibility of invading a country you don't share a la…

The USA has plenty of rare elements to mind as long as the military doesn’t mind paying more. The USA is already a resource powerhouse, but China has undercut it severely in refining because they hadn’t been caring much about their environment. The USA military also really really excels at strategic logistics, I’m pretty sure they have more than just a few months stockpiled.

The military has to compete for these resources with the private sector, you might be surprised at just how much the current logistics toolchain simply buys from private companies off the shelf.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#14

Post by crunchlibrarian »

endymi0n wrote: post #9

As one of my favorite comedians once put it: „Analysts are people who tell you what the world will look like in 15 years if nothing changes. Now do you REALLY want to know how long your toenails get if you don‘t cut them?!“ Movement here will come from a number of factors: - Demand increases, which will: - open up more mines (nicely summarized in the long commentary in this thread) - incentivize better extraction tec…

One of the first things we learned in civics class when I was all of 11 was that you should be very suspicious any time you see a line extrapolated out into the far future. Things never stay the same, especially rates of change.

Now half the media seems to be in the business of extrapolating lines out and trying to stir enough panic to get that click. Maybe we need more civics classes.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#15

Post by mattmanser »

vinceguidry wrote: post #4

One of the more interesting aspects of modern global warfare is the fact that, should the world decide to stage another world war, pretty much everyone is going to run out of a lot of these strategic resources within a few months to years. This, plus the fact that nuclear warfare is going to be extremely limited due to lack of available weapons, and the virtual impossibility of invading a country you don't share a la…

Why is it impossible to invade a country without a land bridge when the US have regularly done it in the last few decades? Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq.

I bet China could, quite easily, invade Japan, The Phillipines or Taiwan if it wanted to. I bet Australia probably could too.

Here's Australia practising amphibious assaults:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3AEd5BmQgU

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#16

Post by ptero »

TL;DR: Battery demand grows. Best current tech uses nickel and cobalt. Their prices grow and at the current growth trends demand outstrips supply within 20 years. We should fund research (in the author's area) to find better alternatives (e.g., using iron and silicon). This is valid but not surprising and hardly catastrophic. This is not "10 years left to find an alternative".

But what turned me off is scaremongering and naive justifications. For example, "In Africa, some mine owners exploit child workers and skimp on protective equipment" (this is true, is a problem, but has no relation to the article; they do not even claim that children mine Ni or Co), etc.

My 2c -- the title is clickbait-y and the content is lacking for nature-caliber writeup (I only read it because it referenced nature.com).

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#17

Post by Reason077 »

joking wrote: post #5

This is supposing that we want big cars with big batteries, In the cities the mobility is moving toward small personal vehicles, and if you have bigger commuter needs, I hope that in the future the highways can be electrified and the cars would only need the battery to get from the highway to your home. There are not enough minerals to make batteries to replace all the current cars with their current autonomy, but a…

”There are not enough minerals to make batteries to replace all the current cars”

More than enough reserves exist, in the ground. Particularly as new cell chemistries are using much less cobalt. It’s just there may not be enough production at current rates.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#19

Post by agumonkey »

endymi0n wrote: post #9

As one of my favorite comedians once put it: „Analysts are people who tell you what the world will look like in 15 years if nothing changes. Now do you REALLY want to know how long your toenails get if you don‘t cut them?!“ Movement here will come from a number of factors: - Demand increases, which will: - open up more mines (nicely summarized in the long commentary in this thread) - incentivize better extraction tec…

I don't like over confidence in any resource access, that's probably what oil digger thought 100 years ago.

Re: Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?

#20

Post by vinceguidry »

mattmanser wrote: post #15
vinceguidry wrote: post #4

One of the more interesting aspects of modern global warfare is the fact that, should the world decide to stage another world war, pretty much everyone is going to run out of a lot of these strategic resources within a few months to years. This, plus the fact that nuclear warfare is going to be extremely limited due to lack of available weapons, and the virtual impossibility of invading a country you don't share a la…

Why is it impossible to invade a country without a land bridge when the US have regularly done it in the last few decades? Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq. I bet China could, quite easily, invade Japan, The Phillipines or Taiwan if it wanted to. I bet Australia probably could too. Here's Australia practising amphibious assaults: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3AEd5BmQgU

Fighting a limited war action is very different from the total war scenario I detailed.

China would have a really tough time invading Japan. The country is extremely mountainous, limiting ship landings to a few easily-defensible locations, and air transport is going to be limited by anti air weaponry that can be hidden pretty much anywhere. I'm not saying it can't be done and I'm by no means an expert, but even if that was all China had to do, meaning they could pour the entire resources of the country into it, they'd find it really hard.

If they had to fend off Russia at the same time? Forget it. Japan is basically Switzerland and the UK rolled into one. China found it easier to expand a thousand miles to the west than to conquer an island 3 hundred miles to the east. China couldn't even conquer Korea, much less Japan. I'd have to ask Rotty to be sure, but I'm fairly sure that 90% of the war plans end with negotiated settlements rather than complete surrender.

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