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Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

hannahritchie.substack.com

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Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#101

Post by [deleted] »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #96
rootusrootus wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There isn't any reason people in America couldn't choose such things. They just don't. If the selling of the idea is failing, maybe the idea is the problem and not the people you're selling it to.

To be sure many Americans will worry about the danger of being in the smallest vehicle on the road — having to contend with SUVs, full-size pickup trucks. But just as the Japanese found a foothold in the U.S. auto market in the 70's, if there were an electric car for under $10K I suspect a lot of people would find that their fears could be somewhat tempered.

[deleted]

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#102

Post by bertil »

jgilias wrote: post #86
bertil wrote: post #10

This article and the IEA sources that they rely on assumes that an EV is a car. That’s not a good assumption: electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport. At that size, you can rely on smaller batteries and solar panels for many journeys (it isn’t fully sufficient for an Aptera but an e-bicycle with a small roof can ride as long as the Sun shine…

In theory. In practice the market has spoken as to what kind of a form-factor people find the most useful for personal transportation in different climates and economic development scenarios. There’s no reason why ICEs couldn’t have supported the kind of vehicles some people imagine other people need. The market has spoken, EVs only started gaining traction when they started resembling actual cars in form and functio…

“The market” spoke twice, during the oil crisis of 1975. It was made very clear to said market that if oil was priced at competitive levels, people who made that decisions would be bombed out of existence and the memory of men. Horrors are committed every day, including today, in Yemen, in your name. Starvation, genocide, rapes…

There is nothing more shockingly unethical and disgusting to pretend that killing millions of people every year and destroying entire countries is somehow moral because of “the market”.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#103

Post by powerbroker »

bertil wrote: post #92
TeeMassive wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I like to point out in most of these threads, not everyone live in a Californian-like climate.

Bicycles are the most common form of transport where I live in Umeå, and in the two nearest cities, Oulu and Vaasa. I’ll let you check what the weather is like today. I’m not advocating bicycles to transport wood (the most common industry here) to the train.

Hah! I've been to Oulu. These people are hardy. Riding bikes in winter near the Arctic Circle is tough work. Yet the bike racks were full in January when I visited a few years ago.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#104

Post by amelius »

Communitivity wrote: post #38
snarfy wrote: post #8

Sodium ion batteries work just as well and should be arriving this year [1]. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-top-ev-battery-mak...

Sodium ion batteries are even better in one respect, they are not as easy to catch on fire, they do not produce the kind of fires lithium batteries do, or give off the same poisonous (and sometimes explosive) gases. It can take over 3000 gallons of water to put out a Li ion car fire (and that fire can re-ignite weeks after due to the chemicals and stored energy) [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-Mq1Uqpw

Here they discuss what would happen if you dump a ton of sodium in a large pool of water:

https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-you-were-to-dump-... into-the-middle-of-an-ocean-sized-pool-of-water

And here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#105

Post by DLwdTxdU6smHQA »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #99
DLwdTxdU6smHQA wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sodium ion batteries are less dense than lithium have a third of the range Got a source for the "one third" part? According to [1] and [2] lithium ion is up to 265 Wh/kg and sodium ion has 160 Wh/kg. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery [2] https://cleantechnica.com/2021/07/30/catl-reveals-sodium-ion... edited for clarity

> lithium ion is up to 265 Wh/kg and sodium ion has 160 Wh/kg This is what less dense means.

sure. but it seems one third of the range seems too pessimistic according to those numbers.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#106

Post by Communitivity »

amelius wrote: post #104
Communitivity wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sodium ion batteries are even better in one respect, they are not as easy to catch on fire, they do not produce the kind of fires lithium batteries do, or give off the same poisonous (and sometimes explosive) gases. It can take over 3000 gallons of water to put out a Li ion car fire (and that fire can re-ignite weeks after due to the chemicals and stored energy) [1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-Mq1Uqpw

Here they discuss what would happen if you dump a ton of sodium in a large pool of water: https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-you-were-to-dump-... into-the-middle-of-an-ocean-sized-pool-of-water And here is a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNWTpfHovHM

I said they were safer, not completely safe. If a fire happened with a Sodium EV I suspect they'd treat it as a grease fire and try to put it out with chemicals not water, but I am not a firefighter.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#107

Post by malfist »

matsemann wrote: post #46
YPCrumble wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it hard to believe that pulling electricity from the grid would increase carbon emissions vs. a vehicle burning gas in its own engine. How is that possible?

An EV is much heavier, thus you need more energy to move it. But I think in total it should still be a net win for EVs. But the real problem is that we move 2000+ kgs around to move a human of 80 kgs around. EVs don't fix that. EVs are mostly to save the car industry, the solution is to drive less by creating a society where people don't need to own a car and drive everywhere.

> But the real problem is that we move 2000+ kgs around to move a human of 80 kgs around.

Why is that a problem? If I want to visit my friend who lives 200 miles away, I'm not going to hop on a bike, or walk, or find a horse and buggie to take me there. Vehicles are not inherently evil. In fact they're a great enabler. Even if we take your example at face value and assume nobody travels beyond their city. How is that person who needs a wheelchair to get from point A to point B going to go a mile or two to the grocery store and get their groceries home?

The problem with cars is their carbon footprint, and EVs go a long way to solving that.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#108

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

tuatoru wrote: post #71
ecshafer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reality is that electric vehicles are a fools errand. The real winning strategy is one that overall reduces dependency on vehicles, and moves more to walking, biking, and mass transit. This would mean actually making hard decisions and having policy changes though. You lower the CO2 produced by orders of magnitude compared to even electric vehicles.

That would be a great place to live, and several decades from now, it may exist. Several decades from now is too long to wait for an energy transition.

We went from "We're going to the moon" to landing on the moon in under a decade. We could make this transition that fast if we really wanted to, the problem is there are a whole lot of entrenched interests in not making this transition.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#110

Post by rootusrootus »

CalRobert wrote: post #91
jgilias wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory. In practice the market has spoken as to what kind of a form-factor people find the most useful for personal transportation in different climates and economic development scenarios. There’s no reason why ICEs couldn’t have supported the kind of vehicles some people imagine other people need. The market has spoken, EVs only started gaining traction when they started resembling actual cars in form and functio…

The market is profoundly distorted by single use zoning, parking minimums, density maximums, wide (and high speed) stroads, and other urban design choices that force long journeys. It's also not safe to be on an ebike surrounded by electric Hummers, F-350 super duties, and your normal "whole kindergarten class in the blind spot" Escalades. Having just spent a week in Utrecht it's very clear that "the market" can cert…

What's your justification for saying that it's the US with a profoundly distorted market and not places like Utrecht?
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