Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries? • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by merpnderp » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:08 PM UTC

mikeash wrote: post #40

xigma wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Polluting the environment is damaging someone's property (private or state), for which they will eventually demand restitution. It's part of market forces. Conversely, a certain amount of pollution/environmental destruction is a price people are willing to pay.

What market forces allow them to convert their demands into action?

Aren't all market forces in the end the result of private property and contract law? Without those, people would quickly stop being able to trust any deals they made, and would have to resort to cash, and even then only in cases where they have a high level of social trust in the person they're trading with.

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

#62

Post by Sir_Cmpwn » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

Retric wrote: post #55

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #18

We should invest in space mining as well, there's no practical limit to the natural resources of the solar system at humanity's current scale.

There is over a cubic km of earths crust that can be mined per person on the planet using current technology. There is zero need for space mining as actually rare materials we care about like Oil don't exist in space.

The problem with the Earth's crust is all the stuff on top of it. We can't extract 100% of the earth's crust's value, or anywhere near it, without disrupting huge swaths of wild and human habitats. We're already causing a mass extinction at our current rate of consumption, do you really want to increase that?

We need to move away from oil so that we don't kill ourselves with climate change regardless.

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

#63

Post by jcranmer » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

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

> 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.

The United States invaded Iraq from Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan from Pakistan, Afghanistan (note that Afghanistan was more or less in a frozen civil war), and Uzbekistan.

Amphibious assaults are the most complex and riskiest kinds of military attack. It requires expert command of logistics to keep the landing ships providing supplies and men to the beach, even when the environment may be working against you (such as the tide), and where there is far too much to be crammed into too little space. It requires control of the sea and the skies, because you have masses of ships with masses of people just waiting to be bombed out of existence. Even if you do make it to land, you now have to supply your entire front-lines. If you don't capture a port, or if the port you captured was sabotaged by the defending army, you have to supply your entire assault from a beach that's not really capable of providing the deepwater capabilities to handle cargo ships of serious capacity.

In the event of a war, the South Chinese Sea would likely be a contested zone, where neither China nor the US has sufficient control of the area to effect an amphibious assault. It is far from "quite easily."

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

#64

Post by bloomthrowaway » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:09 PM UTC

> Recycling cannot replenish supplies. Lithium-ion batteries last for 15–20 years, 3 times longer than the 5–7 years for lead-acid batteries

Over 90% of car batteries are already recycled. Assuming this stays constant when batteries get bigger(why wouldn't it), we'll hit steady-state on materials about a decade after electric cars become dominant.

Due to recycling, this whole article is baseless. Eventually we'll only need to mine enough to make up for a the few percent of batteries that aren't recycled. Car batteries are already recycled at extremely high rates, and there's no reason to believe this will change.

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

#65

Post by bluGill » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

3pt14159 wrote: post #36

nutjob2 wrote: post #26

It's peak cobalt! Just like peak oil.

I remember trying to explain basic Econ 101 to a classmate while in third year engineering. Peak Oil was a religion back then. The same isn't true for the environment. Unlike Peak Oil where economic incentives simultaneously would encourage smaller cars with more efficient engines while also directing research into more advanced oil retrieval (or at the very worst biofuels) the environment is not something the market…

Why is biofuels the very worst? Are you an oil shrill? (I'll admit to having an interest in biofules)

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

#66

Post by xigma » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:10 PM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #45

xigma wrote: post #6

The headline is made to sound like: "Oh no, we are running out of cobalt!" Yeah, not really. Just like with "oil reserves", there's a common misconception that we'll "run out" when they are depleted. However, "reserves" are just those resources that can be extracted economically at today's prices . When demand increases, prices rise and reserves "magically" increase. That's exactly what will happen here. "Rare-earth…

> "there's the questionable idea that electric motors will replace combustion engines because we're "running out of oil"" Right. Electric motors will replace combustion engines because they're cheaper to operate, offer better performance, require less maintenance, don't emit toxic pollutants, contribute less CO2 emissions, they're much quieter, and they offer a better driving experience. Sooner or later they'll be ch…

Some questionable assumptions there:

- cheaper to operate

An enormous amount of electricity would be required to actually replace all combustion engines in just regular cars, plus a lot of investment into infrastructure to charge all these cars. Higher demand, higher prices.

- offer better performance

Are the best-selling cars today those with the best performance? No, they're the ones offering acceptable performance at the best price.

- require less maintenance

That's assuming that maintenance cost is a big deciding factor in a car. Cars are assumed to be depreciating assets, when maintenance becomes too expensive they are replaced. There's some argument to be made here for certain vehicles like Taxis with a lot of usage, but the general consumer will not highly value or even accurately estimate maintenance.

- don't emit toxic pollutants

Most consumers don't put a premium on this. Modern combustion engines don't emit a lot of pollutants anymore, but even then it would take government intervention to force people away from them.

- contribute less CO2 emissions

Again, most consumers don't put a premium on this, but government intervention could change that. Synthetic fuels of the future may well be carbon neutral though.

- they offer a better driving experience

...assuming you're not running out of battery.

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

#67

Post by skybrian » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

nickik wrote: post #42

The problem with Rare Earth is that the West collectively acts like 3 year old who are to dumb to solve incredibly simple problems. Rare earth contained lots of Thorium and that has to be handled as nuclear waste and that means you have 1000s of tons of nuclear waste on your hands. This is of course completely idiotic because Thorium not really a big problem as it is not radioactive. The few Rare Earth mines that do…

The article is about the availability of cobalt and nickel, which are not rare earth metals.

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

#68

Post by bluGill » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

agumonkey wrote: post #19

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.

I have seen news archives from the 1880s where they predicted the end of oil in 10 years. A few years ago a town dug up an old time capsule in which they had a new car from the 1950s, they buried it along with 10 gallons of gasoline in case gasoline was obsolete in 2000 (side note, the gas was bad, and the car destroyed by rust). The idea that oil would last forever was never really believed from what I can tell.

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

#69

Post by officialjunk » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

nickik wrote: post #42

The problem with Rare Earth is that the West collectively acts like 3 year old who are to dumb to solve incredibly simple problems. Rare earth contained lots of Thorium and that has to be handled as nuclear waste and that means you have 1000s of tons of nuclear waste on your hands. This is of course completely idiotic because Thorium not really a big problem as it is not radioactive. The few Rare Earth mines that do…

Seems possible to me the US may want to deplete others’ mines while saving their mines to become the last ones remaining.

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

#70

Post by nickik » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

The problem with Rare Earth is that the West collectively acts like 3 year old who are to dumb to solve incredibly simple problems.

Rare earth contained lots of Thorium and that has to be handled as nuclear waste and that means you have 1000s of tons of nuclear waste on your hands. This is of course completely idiotic because Thorium not really a big problem as it is not radioactive.

The few Rare Earth mines that do exist only extract the lower group so you can avoid the Thorium.

Because the US drives policy for the whole West, there is basically no Rare Earth mining in the West.

China on the other hand understands that the more expensive rare earths are outside of China the more likely people will manufacture in China.

There was quite a bit of effort to change this and it got traction in congress because many people are really concerned that all US military equipment depends on rare earths from China.

See:

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7QNZ56j-HM

- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxwF93wnRQo