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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?

#101

Post by Symmetry »

xigma wrote: post #38
3pt14159 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

In the real world the cost of figuring out who is polluting your property when it comes to acid rain, engine particulates, etc dwarf the cost imposed by this pollution. I'm all for trying to minimize pollution in an economically efficient way but thinking you can do this by suing each of the 10,000 car owners who drove past your house for $.15 each is ridiculous - we really do need government regulation here.

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

#102

Post by krapp »

vinceguidry wrote: post #96
pjc50 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> nuclear warfare is going to be extremely limited due to lack of available weapons There's 15,000, which is easily enough to destroy a lot of cities and kill maybe half the world's population? https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohasw... I'll admit that we don't know what total warfare looks like in the 21st century when jets take a decade to build. I suspect it would look a lot more like Syria.

Nuclear weapons won't target cities, there simply aren't enough weapons to hit all of the military targets, so none would be left over for counter value. It makes little sense to target civilians, who can't directly inflict damage on your nation's military or citizens, when you have available military targets that will further the accomplishment of objectives. So all nuclear warfare in total war is counter force.

>So all nuclear warfare in total war is counter force.

And yet the only real example of nuclear warfare targeted civilians...

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

#103

Post by gok »

nickik wrote: post #70

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…

REs are an interesting situation but not what's being talked about in this article. China has no production of cobalt and a tiny fraction of nickel.

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

#104

Post by ajross »

l_camacho84 wrote: post #50
ggm wrote: post #8

Oh god, another Erlich/Simons bet is needed: what's low is the level of rare earth exploration and exploitation not absolute supply. Is there a supply chain problem? Yes. Are we approaching a mad-max hell war for the last vestiges of humanities wonder mineral? Alas.. no. The ten years meme is based in a false premise. The article even says Australian known sources are only utilised at 14% and yet predicts a long term…

Australia is not utilising only 14% of their resources, they have only 14% of the known world resources. More than 50% is based on Congo were the work is performed in miserable conditions. We are all happy that we still don’t reach peak oil, but if we don’t change the way we think about progress and economic growth, in a world with finite resources will have severe consequences.

Unlike petroleum, batteries are almost 100% recyclable. Our "peak battery" is bounded at the product of "peak population" and per-capita battery need, both of which are fairly constrained. Not really the right analysis.

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

#105

Post by jeffreyrogers »

ryanianian wrote: post #77
l_camacho84 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is not utilising only 14% of their resources, they have only 14% of the known world resources. More than 50% is based on Congo were the work is performed in miserable conditions. We are all happy that we still don’t reach peak oil, but if we don’t change the way we think about progress and economic growth, in a world with finite resources will have severe consequences.

Is your comment to say that cobalt should simply be more expensive to compensate for the negative externalities of obtaining it?

I think he's saying that eventually we will run out of economically viable to extract resources and we should start planning for that now. I'm not quite so sure because there are still tons of people living in awful conditions and they need a lot of this resource extraction to raise their standard of living.

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

#106

Post by sandworm101 »

lawlessone wrote: post #86
pjc50 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thorium is radioactive, just not very much. It's toxic in the way a lot of heavy metals are. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp147.pdf

can't we use thorium to make thorium reactors to charge or shiny new electric cars?

Of all the resources needed for such a reactor, thorium is probably the smallest percentage. Copper, iron, lots of nickle, vanadium in the various alloys, aluminium everywhere, and a tiny blob of thorium in the middle.

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

#107

Post by Retric »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #62
Retric wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's just cost / benefit.

We can keep the top ~5 meters of earth and extract what's beneath it without disrupting ecosystems. However, the current approach of massive mines is cheaper and frankly we have such a vast abundance of resources that's working fine it's not like every person on the planet has any need for 20+ lb of gold. Further, we can always just mine old garbage dumps as elements are not destroyed just shifting chemical bonds.

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

#110

Post by aurizon »

We need to work on super-springs, so you can wind up your car... LOL Right now there is a lot of lithium in the earth, much is not economic, but as lithium prices rise, more mines will become economic. Cobalt, as well as lithium will become far more highly recycled. Battery innards will be improved to reduce Cobalt use. Lithium use can not be reduced very much per KW hour, as the chemical changes oxidation state in a charge/discharge cycle. Lithium is both light in weight and has nearly the highest possible voltage swing of ~~3.7 volts (versus 2 volts for lead and 1.2 volts for Nicads and NiMh which are many time heavier per KWHr in addition))
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