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Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

forbes.com

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Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#41

Post by emptybits »

I have questions about the environmental impact of EV batteries when it comes time to replace or dispose of them. I've read a few things, including an old statement by Tesla on the topic.[1]

> Tesla: "our lithium ion cells contain no heavy metals, nor any toxic materials. In fact, our cells and Energy Storage System, by law, could be disposed of by putting them in a landfill. However, we have no intention of landfilling our ESS." They go on to say a recycling plan is being implemented. Cool.

From an RoHS POV, sure, no heavy metals. But "no toxic materials" and "ready for landfill" blows my mind. Am I naive?

I'll assume Tesla is one of the Good Guys, but I predict worse players in the industry will take advantage of loose disposal regulations if there is short term benefit.

[1] https://www.tesla.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling-our-...

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#42

Post by HeWhoLurksLate »

HALtheWise wrote: post #33
ccsnags wrote: post #25

Lithium batteries aren’t green at all. Going to EVs just changes the impact on the environment. If we can’t solve the end of life issues with lithium batteries, we need to look at them as a technology adjacent to petroleum when it pertains to environmental impact. A true step forward would be an innovation of power storage itself, rather than the mechanisms around it. Build a better gas tank.

It seems likely that the end of life for vehicle lithium ion batteries will look roughly similar to end of life for vehicle lead acid batteries today. Namely, lead acid batteries are recycled at a rate of 99.3% in the US, making them the most recycled consumer good. The demand obviously doesn't exist right now because so few electric cars have reached end of life, but it seems like the transitioning the world to batt…

Some family members of mine work for a company that makes lead-acid batteries- and that same company also just happens to be the largest lead-recycling company in the world as well- because mining it costs more than recycling it.

I look forward to the future here- it doesn't seem like an unsolvable problem for the engineers at ${battery recycler} to go from lead-acid to NiMH or LiFePo4 or LiPo or whatever it is.

Awesome username, by the way.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#43

Post by presidentscroob »

luckydata wrote: post #35
mises wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transport != store. I can transmit, assuming there's a sink on the other end (though loss is an issue over distance). Considering there is neither enough lithium nor enough cobalt to make a Tesla for every American, battery tech will be a huge bottleneck.

Who says that we don't have enough lithium?

There's likely plenty:

https://www.quora.com/Is-there-enough-lithium-in-the-world-t...

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#44

Post by Iv »

klwejchkwejrhc wrote: post #16

>renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero, is cleaner environmentally, much easier to transport and could readily replace up to 40% of global oil demand Hmm, not sure about that "much easier to transport" part. A cube 3 meters on a side can contain enough gasoline to power the average car for its entire lifespan. The gasoline is a liquid, it is relatively easy to move it between containers. Any tec…

That's a nice image, but you are making a case for storage, not transport.

Transportation of (flammable) liquids require either vehicles (and hence roads or rails if you go inland) down to the last mile. Electricity requires a wire, which is far less costly to build.

Also if you consider the logistics of bringing energy to different places of a building, wires are much easier to lay down than pipes.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#45

Post by Iv »

arbuge wrote: post #23

> renewable electricity has a short-run marginal cost of zero This seems to be the crux of the argument. It certainly doesn't make sense to me. Obviously oil would find it hard to compete with electricity if it was free, but amortizing the cost of renewable power plants means that is unlikely any time soon.

Marginal cost = cost of producing one more unit of something (energy in that case) once your capital has been spent.

It just says that if you have a solar panel, you don't need to spend additional money to make it produce electricity. Unlike, say, a diesel generator. It is purely capital spending, zero marginal cost.

Another way of counting would be to say that _not_ producing costs you money as you are losing capital over the panels' lifetime.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#46

Post by Animats »

Bloomberg has a study.[1] But they see electric vehicles hitting 50% of new sales about 20 years out.

The battery Ford F150 is two years out.. At that point, most consumer vehicles can potentially be electric, but the electrics will not be lower in initial cost yet. Bloomberg sees that happening in 2024.

Conversion may happen faster in China. Already, there are heavy incentives to go electric in Beijing. As in, you can get a car license much more easily.

[1] https://about.bnef.com/electric-vehicle-outlook/

[2] https://thinkprogress.org/electric-vehicles-cheaper-gasoline...

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#47

Post by Iv »

There is also another strong incentive for EVs in a renewable electricity scenario: smoothing the intermittence.

Nowadays, electricity grids try to incentivize consumers to use electricity at night more, as they try to smoothen the consumption baseline. With solar and wind, you have huge spikes of production and some gaps as well. Expect electricity to be very expensive at some time and very cheap (even free or negative price) at some other time. In such a context, storage capacity becomes very quickly a good investment.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#48

Post by Iv »

ccsnags wrote: post #25

Lithium batteries aren’t green at all. Going to EVs just changes the impact on the environment. If we can’t solve the end of life issues with lithium batteries, we need to look at them as a technology adjacent to petroleum when it pertains to environmental impact. A true step forward would be an innovation of power storage itself, rather than the mechanisms around it. Build a better gas tank.

I am starting to think that the lithium-scare is funded by oil companies. They manage to make these "common wisdom" without ever sourcing it.

"EVs changes the impact on the environment". Yes, by lowering it by an order of magnitude. It does not emit CO2 (and far less overall even including CO2 emission during production, which personally I think is fraudulent reasoning) it emits far less particles, no gases.

Its recycling indusrty is new because, guess what, there are far less discarded EV than regular ones nowadays, but batteries are notorious for being recyclable in a lot of ways. And with the increasing demands for renewable energy, the demand for intermittence smoothing will rise a lot. I can see old batteries that can only run at 40% capacity being reused to make powerwalls.

Re: Economics of Electric Vehicles Mean Oil's Days as a Transport Fuel Are Numbered

#49

Post by Iv »

Animats wrote: post #46

Bloomberg has a study.[1] But they see electric vehicles hitting 50% of new sales about 20 years out. The battery Ford F150 is two years out.. At that point, most consumer vehicles can potentially be electric, but the electrics will not be lower in initial cost yet. Bloomberg sees that happening in 2024. Conversion may happen faster in China. Already, there are heavy incentives to go electric in Beijing. As in, you c…

FYI we are at about 5% yearly now. More than half the EVs produced last year were produced in China, where the government strong subsidizes electric vehicles and taxes fuel vehicles.
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