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

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

#201

Post by gepi79 » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:21 PM UTC

sametmax wrote: post #187

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…

Still, it's a finite resource and we consume it more and more. Obligatory link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=list_other&list=SP6A1FD1...

IMO Thorium reactors are too late. In some decades, there will be enough solar power, wind power and fusion power anyway.

But there is enough Uranium and Thorium for many centuries, even millennia.

The most important problem to solve is climate change; besides aging as the most important reason for misery and death today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6HyNk5Duvk

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

#202

Post by justinator » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:22 PM UTC

ajross wrote: post #194

justinator wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That’s not very believable. Can you point me to a recycling facility that's doing this?

No, because it's far cheaper to mine it. As mentioned above, you've been fooled by the name of the technology and are looking at the wrong part of the periodic table.

> No, because it's far cheaper to mine it.

OK, question answered.

> As mentioned above, you've been fooled by the name of the technology and are looking at the wrong part of the periodic table.

I asked about lithium recycling. How am I being fooled?

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

#203

Post by ajross » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:25 PM UTC

gok wrote: post #190

magduf wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Batteries might get more expensive, but if that happens then we'll see old batteries having scrap value, just like with aluminum today. People will hold onto their old batteries instead of trashing them or recycling them for free, and will re-sell them to recyclers, and recycling rates will go way up. Just look at the recycling rates today for car batteries (lead acid): it's nearly at 100%, though of course part of t…

> ban the selling of devices with sealed-in batteries altogether in major markets [...] making batteries at least somewhat easily removed to facilitate recycling. The opposite is true; removable batteries almost entirely end up in landfills. Putting batteries non-removably inside devices makes them much more likely to be recycled, along with the rest of the recyclable components of the device.

> The opposite is true; removable batteries almost entirely end up in landfills.

That's because they have near-zero value, the component elements still being much cheaper to produce from ore than from recycling. That flips around once we start running out of ore.

Basically, economics takes care of this for us. At the end of the day, battery reagents are unconsumed resources, so we'll be fine (at some price equilibrium probably higher than their price today) so long as the number of people and their need for power storage remains bounded.

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

#204

Post by ksec » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:29 PM UTC

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…

>Car manufacturers and governments project that 10 million to 20 million electric cars will be produced each year by 2025. If each car battery requires 10 kg of cobalt, by 2025, electric vehicles would need 100,000–200,000 tonnes of cobalt per year — most of the world’s current production. Similarly, 400,000–800,000 tonnes of nickel would be required annually, or 20–40% of all the metal used today. More would be needed when trucks, buses, aeroplanes and ships become battery-powered.

By 2050, producing 50 million to 80 million electric vehicles a year would require 500,000–800,000 tonnes of cobalt. Beyond 2030, this would far exceed current mining capacities. Similarly, 2–3 times more nickel would be needed by 2050. Nickel shortages would be evident by the mid-2030s.

Like Oil, there is enough oil on earth should we need to continue to growth not using any renewable energy for the next 100 years or more. The problem is somewhere down the line it may not be $100 per barrel but likely be $200+.

The same is lithium, there are still huge known reserve. But key here is economically variable reserve. The reason Australia aren't doing much of it is because they cant complete with Congo with when the lithium price is $80 without much profit.

Once the price reach high enough, it is for certain someone else will come and do the dirty work. And I expect lots of investment coming from China.

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

#205

Post by tombert » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:34 PM UTC

hwillis wrote: post #193

tombert wrote: post #84

I know that the popsci media can overblow this, but wasn't there some optimistic results for super-capacitors that wouldn't rely on any of these rare-earth metals? I'm seriously asking, since looking this up tends to bring up links to crap-sites like IFLS and whatnot, so I don't know if the hype is warranted.

There are also optimistic results for batteries, because li-ion batteries do not and never have used rare earth elements. Cobalt and nickel are not rare earth elements and as other people have pointed out the global resources of both are far higher than the article suggests. You probably have difficulty looking up alternatives to batteries with rare earth elements because the only sites that say they have rare earth…

I was specifically interested in the super capacitor part of my question, I apologize for some potentially ambiguous semantics.

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

#206

Post by Retric » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:35 PM UTC

Sir_Cmpwn wrote: post #140

Retric wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think your vastly overestimating the costs of mining stuff on earth and underestimating the costs of mining stuff in space.

On top of that if you bring back say a cubic mile of gold then gold is not going to be worth nearly as much. Which prevents scaling up space mining as we simply don't need that many raw materials to pay for multi trillion dollar space mining enterprises to bring costs down.

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

#207

Post by opportune » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:40 PM UTC

gepi79 wrote: post #201

sametmax wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still, it's a finite resource and we consume it more and more. Obligatory link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=list_other&list=SP6A1FD1...

IMO Thorium reactors are too late. In some decades, there will be enough solar power, wind power and fusion power anyway. But there is enough Uranium and Thorium for many centuries, even millennia. The most important problem to solve is climate change; besides aging as the most important reason for misery and death today. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6HyNk5Duvk

This is probably true, but they should still be researched in case they become useful in other settings, e.g. Mars, or even places on Earth with poor renewable energy potential

A big problem with Mars is that getting fuel there is expensive, they sometimes have large dust storms, and their atmosphere is very thin. Solar power would work fine there 90+% of the time, but outside of fission, there doesn't seem to be any good technology for powering a human habitat over long periods. A rich thorium deposit on Mars could go a long way in creating a self-sustainable habitat. Some thorium reactor designs are notable for their high inherent safety, which is probably a big concern for any human habitat on Mars for morale reasons (think about how much a fatal nuclear disaster on a Martian colony would scare people about space exploration)

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

#208

Post by ajross » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:41 PM UTC

justinator wrote: post #202

ajross wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because it's far cheaper to mine it. As mentioned above, you've been fooled by the name of the technology and are looking at the wrong part of the periodic table.

> No, because it's far cheaper to mine it. OK, question answered. > As mentioned above, you've been fooled by the name of the technology and are looking at the wrong part of the periodic table. I asked about lithium recycling. How am I being fooled?

Because who cares about lithium recycling? We don't need recycled lithium to maintain battery production. Realistically it's one of those resources like iron or aluminum or phosphorous which we can't meaningfully "run out of".

(Though I threw that last one in deliberately: we're pulling P out of rocks and throwing it into the biosphere at an unsustainable rate right now, and are going to have to radically adjust the way we do agriculture fertilization in the coming decades. But even then there's going to be plenty of P around, we just have to change the sources we use to extract it.)

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

#209

Post by erikpukinskis » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:43 PM UTC

With respect to electric cars the actual energy density is only half the story.

Efficiency can be gained with pack efficiency, aerodynamics, weight reduction of the vehicle, including smaller low occupancy vehicles enabled by the Mobility-As-A-Service model, and removing material with the help of better computer simulation and modeling, more efficient energy recapture systems, energy efficient accel/decel algorithms, denser destination charging network, skate systems like Boring Loop, all of which can decrease battery size which itself increases efficiency even further.

Similar to density in chip design, as density hits fundamental limits, other axes of power can help keep improvement at least linear.

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

#210

Post by Theodores » Fri, Jul 27, 2018, 6:44 PM UTC

tombert wrote: post #84

I know that the popsci media can overblow this, but wasn't there some optimistic results for super-capacitors that wouldn't rely on any of these rare-earth metals? I'm seriously asking, since looking this up tends to bring up links to crap-sites like IFLS and whatnot, so I don't know if the hype is warranted.

Glad someone asked.

Supercapacitors are the thing that halves the requirement for these lithium iron batteries that we are supposed to be running out of. The good news is that fantastic work is being done in this area, making those Tesla things rather quaint old technology.

It is all going on in Estonia and you are well advised to watch this recent episode of Fully Charged to see what a wonderful place Estonia is and why it should be where you next go on holiday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ2Eo6wl5r0

So, 'spoiler alert', a supercapacitor in a vehicle compliments the battery and stores the energy from re-gen and gets you away from the lights at super fast speed without having to have some huge Tesla-esque American sized battery providing the oomph. It is win win as the vehicle is lighter.

The other benefit of supercapacitors is that they can also be used to provide smoothing of electricity supply, e.g. when the cup final is on and everyone goes to turn their kettle on at half time.

As mentioned, watch the Fully Charged episode about Estonia and what lovely people there are there, including a few doing great things with supercapacitors.