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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?

#131

Post by jessaustin »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #116
bluGill wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most cars today are scraped because the body wears out, not because the engine fails. Of course if you are reading this you probably trade in your car much sooner, and send it on down the line to poorer and poorer people, eventually the car ends up in Mexico/Central America (US/Canada), or Africa (Europe), where they keep it running until it is ~20 years old and the body fails. You probably are more ware of engine fa…

>Of course if you are reading this you probably trade in your car much sooner, and send it on down the line to poorer and poorer people, eventually the car ends up in Mexico/Central America (US/Canada), or Africa (Europe), where they keep it running until it is ~20 years old and the body fails. Which is why the brands of cars less wealthy people buy are over-represented in the 15-25yo age group on US roads compared t…

Is Honda a luxury brand? There are fewer of them sold than Hyundais (I'm not sure that was the case in 2000), but perhaps not because only wealthy people buy them?

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

#132

Post by francisofascii »

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #59
Jweb_Guru wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that we haven't run out of oil yet doesn't really change anything about the fact that oil-based industry is not sustainable. I don't see why this isn't a similar situation.

Is anything truly sustainable when we live on a planet of finite resources?

The sun is our best bet. We will have it for another 5 billion years give or take.

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

#134

Post by jessaustin »

xigma wrote: post #34
simias wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this example go against your point? I've been hearing that we were nearing the end of the oil supply since I've been a kid but the date keeps being pushed back. As the demand for oil grows the price goes up and new methods to extract more oil from the ground become profitable. Now current projections seem to target the 2050s at the earliest.

This is also exactly what is holding back synthetic fuels from becoming profitable. Fossil fuels will eventually lose out over synthetic fuels, but not until prices rise substantially.

How are "synthetic fuels" produced? If it's anything like synthetic lubricants, it's still fossil fuels, just with more energy-intensive processing.

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

#135

Post by _r1np »

woah wrote: post #89
nickik wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah is radioactive but you can build a bed out of it and sleep on it so its not radioactive in any practical sense. And of course Toxic is not a problem because most of the metals a rare earth mine would deal with would be toxic. You can actually find heavily concentrated earth in the US that would basically count as nuclear waste because nuclear policy is so insane.

Where is this earth located?

Quite a few places (around 13), albeit most are abandoned or inactive sites. You can locate most of these by spotting a tailings dam of some kind on Google Maps. There are three active mines, in California and Nevada owned by Molycorp Minerals, Rye Creek LLC, and Columbus SM LLC:

CA: San Bernardino, Shasta, Rancho Cucamonga and Near Primm (35.478098,-115.532034)

MT: Place called Rye Near Ravalli. Could not locate it manually, and the coordinates were listed incorrectly as 46.015278,-114.171389. Directions: "Turn east off of Highway 93 onto Tanner Ave. Follow it until it dead ends and turn right onto dirt road and follow it for approx 1/4 mile into mine site."

NV: Esmeralda, Churchill, Pershing (38.119167,-117.993611)

OR: Coos

UT: Salt Lake (itself?)

WA: Stevens, Grant

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

#136

Post by Retric »

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #118
Retric wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

But this very article is talking about the possibility of running out. Do you disagree with the premise of the article? Nature is a respected publication, if you think they're wrong you should work on a properly sourced and peer reviewed rebuttal.

If you read the article they are not saying that's how much of this element is in the crust. They are making an economic argument which is a secondary issue. Note: People are not making economic arguments in support of space mining just an abundance argument.

In terms of abundance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...

Deepest mines https://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-top-ten-d... Though we have boor holes down to 12,262 meters which means we can extract material to that depth.

Feel free to consider multiplication as original research.

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

#137

Post by mtarnovan »

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…

> The article even says Australian known sources are only utilised at 14%

That is incorrect. The article states that Australia has 14% of the world's cobalt reserves, and does not specify their utilisation.

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

#138

Post by j45 »

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…

Thorium is the unleaded gas to Uranium (if it was leaded gas) for nuclear reactors. Maybe there's some opportunity there :)

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

#139

Post by abakker »

The thing that I always thing about is that there are other uses for rare-earths. Vanadium, for example is used in structural steel as a alloying element that make steel MUCH stronger. Neodymium is used in magnets and lasers. Thorium is used in TIG welding.

We can't just siphon off all the Rare Earths for batteries without impacting other industries.

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

#140

Post by Sir_Cmpwn »

Retric wrote: post #136
Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this very article is talking about the possibility of running out. Do you disagree with the premise of the article? Nature is a respected publication, if you think they're wrong you should work on a properly sourced and peer reviewed rebuttal.

If you read the article they are not saying that's how much of this element is in the crust. They are making an economic argument which is a secondary issue. Note: People are not making economic arguments in support of space mining just an abundance argument. In terms of abundance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... Deepest mines https://www.mining-technology.com/features/feature-top-ten-…

An economic argument for space works too. The profits of space mining outweigh the costs by several orders of magnitude and the abundance of resources far outstrips what's economically accessible on Earth, and as a bonus doesn't ruin the only place in the universe we know can support life.

Also, having a bore hole at a certain depth doesn't mean we can extract material from that depth in useful quantities.

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