Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
economist.com
Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
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Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#2https://archive.is/FVOLK
See also my comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27163590.
Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#318 days ago, I posted https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26952544, "This battery waste problem has an epistemological status similar to that of dowsing and witchcraft." This article seems to vindicate the viewpoint I expressed in the comments there: electric vehicle waste can only pose a significant pollution problem if capitalism is somehow prevented from profiting from it. (There are problems that capitalism makes worse, but this is the kind of problem that capitalism is good at solving.)
However, the reporters have acquired considerably more knowledge of the issues than I had.
At that point I looked a bit into the hydrometallurgical processes that were available, enough to convince myself that there were no showstopper problems that would make recycling battery waste uneconomical. But I didn't know about the pyrometallurgical processes at all, and I found that aspect of the article very interesting. Nor did I know about the current business situation.
Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#4Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#5Pretty much everything is a raw material of the future. Even household waste has much higher concentrations of metals than most ore deposits.
Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#6Pretty much everything is a raw material of the future. Even household waste has much higher concentrations of metals than most ore deposits.
That sandwich you're eating? Made from old recycled half eaten sandwiches.
Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#7Pretty much everything is a raw material of the future. Even household waste has much higher concentrations of metals than most ore deposits.
That sandwich you're eating? Made from old recycled half eaten sandwiches.
Actually your sandwich is made from poop.
The poop fertilized plants, the plants were harvested, some of them were turned into bread, others fed a pig, and that's what you're eating. Some of the poop decayed and was released as gases into the air, which were then recaptured by the plants, by bacteria in the roots of soybeans, and by Haber-Bosch factories (confusingly also called plants) which made synthetic fertilizer to fertilize the plants further.
You are recycling your sandwich, made from poop, into more poop.
This is the reflection on the disgusting nature of food and its link to the interdependent arising of all things. Your existence is inextricably linked to the existence of the pig and the poop. They are not separate processes; they are different focuses in the same process.
Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sandwich you're eating? Made from old recycled half eaten sandwiches.
Actually your sandwich is made from poop. The poop fertilized plants, the plants were harvested, some of them were turned into bread, others fed a pig, and that's what you're eating. Some of the poop decayed and was released as gases into the air, which were then recaptured by the plants, by bacteria in the roots of soybeans, and by Haber-Bosch factories (confusingly also called plants) which made synthetic fertilize…
"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff."
—Carl Sagan
Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
That sandwich you're eating? Made from old recycled half eaten sandwiches.
Actually your sandwich is made from poop. The poop fertilized plants, the plants were harvested, some of them were turned into bread, others fed a pig, and that's what you're eating. Some of the poop decayed and was released as gases into the air, which were then recaptured by the plants, by bacteria in the roots of soybeans, and by Haber-Bosch factories (confusingly also called plants) which made synthetic fertilize…
This is the same as the endless recycling of water.
Re: Old electric cars are a raw material of the future
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually your sandwich is made from poop. The poop fertilized plants, the plants were harvested, some of them were turned into bread, others fed a pig, and that's what you're eating. Some of the poop decayed and was released as gases into the air, which were then recaptured by the plants, by bacteria in the roots of soybeans, and by Haber-Bosch factories (confusingly also called plants) which made synthetic fertilize…
"The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff." —Carl Sagan
Yes. Also poop.
(Though the atomic nuclei didn't originate in the poop; they were just passing through. But cobalamin molecules, for example, do originate in poop pretty often.)