watching all the drama happening lately around climate change issues, this is very much interesting and needed read, thanks!
Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
171–180 of 413 posts
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#172Earlier 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…
>The market is profoundly distorted by single use zoning, parking minimums, density maximums
None of which they have in the developing world yet those nations become wealthier people buy cars basically as soon as they can make the economics pencil out. People like to sit in expensive four wheeled air-conditioned boxes more than they like the alternatives.
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's your justification for saying that it's the US with a profoundly distorted market and not places like Utrecht?
How about the fact that America's most walkable and transit-accessible neighborhoods are also the most expensive and highest demand? People want this kind of development, they flock to it, and they are willing to pay astronomically high prices to get it. The government keeps the supply low with exclusionary zoning that makes all types of construction except car-centric single family housing illegal.
Which is why I'm always surprised by the makeup of the coalition of voters that support strict zoning. Personally, I don't understand how zoning isn't seen an impairment of property value requiring ongoing payments from the government to the owners, with the idea being that if the zoning is a benefit to the community then the community's taxes should be paying for that benefit. As it is, it's a hidden tax that prevents open discussion and accurate cost/benefit analysis.
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#174Earlier 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
This is like arguing water is dangerous to drink as it contains hydrogen, which explodes.
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, the market has also spoken as to what kind of councils get elected and what kind of plans those councils approve. Of course, that's in large part because car owners pay infrastructure taxes cyclists don't. But that's also precisely what the market is - the segment who's paying. If wishes built livable cities there'd probably be more of them.
The problem is that it's not just the people who decide who gets elected. Like it or not, the chances of winning an election highly correlate with advertising budgets, and the fossil fuel and car industry has sunk dozens of billions of dollars in campaign contributions, (S)PAC donations and other legal and illegal forms of bribery to make sure their interests were taken care of.
>Like it or not, the chances of winning an election highly correlate with advertising budgets,
This is just BS/lies at the local level.
Moneyed PACs aren't fighting it out over councilor, selectman and planner positions for random suburbs.
Pretty much all the money these candidate dispense is either self raised or comes from an official political party who don't really doll out meaningful amounts to these elections
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
Our cities are designed for cars. Hell, most of our society is designed around owning a car. It is horrendously impractical in a lot of places to go without a car. Our public transit systems are largely garbage, if they exist at all. Bike lanes are extremely rare, and are really just used as free car parking. Take my commute to work for instance. It's about 3 miles, but it would be impossible to bike, as there are hu…
Our suburbs are designed for cars. Our cities are retrofitted for cars. That might seem pedantic but I’m not trying to be. The point is that we do actually have significant areas of population which are ready to be reworked to prioritize cycling without completely changing the way we live. Suburbs can also prioritize safe cycling. Take a look at bentonville Arkansas. It has a tiny downtown but most of it looks and fu…
Bentonville's core is vastly different from the surrounding suburb/exurb/metro area which is mostly 0.5+ acre lots built in confined subdivisions connected via 4-8 lane arterial stroads - typical American car style suburban planning. The damage is done, retrofitting this development pattern to suit cycling over F150 throughput is just not something that will be achievable in the Bentonville, or the greater US.
I live in Kansas City and there is a valiant effort happening here to put in meaningful cycling infrastructure. There are bollard protected lanes from downtown out to the inner ring suburbs, additionally we have a residential grid that would allow safe cycling around town, but the new lanes are going completely unused. Visit the KC reddit and look at the vitriol being spewed - 'why are my tax dollars being wasted on this', 'i cant park', 'it ruins business'... These are the people coming from our outer ring suburbs where cycling is just not an option - they can't even fathom a place without cars.
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#177This 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…
The form factor of a motorbike has been around and more affordable than a car for a century now. I don't think it's the type of engine that makes the majority of people in the developed world prefer to spend substantially more money on vehicles which are considerably more stable and crash resistant, enclosed from the weather and with room for passengers and cargo. If they get e-bikes, they tend to get them as well which might reduce electricity use but requires even more batteries.
And I say that as someone that's managed 18 years of adult life without owning a car or motorised bike living in a country with one of the densest (but still entirely unsuitable for most long distance journeys) rail networks around...
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#178This 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…
Those other kinds of ICE vehicles are supported in poorer markets. In the Third World people use motorcycles and scooters and so on all the time, for all sorts of things.
If lithium becomes scarce, electric vehicles become more expensive. An increase in the price of vehicles produces a similar effect to a decrease in people's incomes, so the market would push people towards smaller vehicles just like in the Third World now.
As a concrete example, tiny electric cars are common in China. Amusingly, the government doesn't like tiny cars because they are hard to regulate. It really is the market that has spoken. https://restofworld.org/2021/tesla-vs-tiny-cars/
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
In theory, but that would also require changing how/where many people live (which would require a lot of construction which would require energy and concrete - both bad things for the environment). I’m thinking over my schedule today and needing to drive the kids places, often many miles away in different directions, plus going to work, running errands with multiple people, etc. Both a bike and a trike would be wildl…
A cargo ebike is a game changer for all of this. I can bring 2 kids to school and do a full grocery trip without even breaking a sweat. I do 6 miles each way and since I avoid traffic it's just as fast as driving. Plenty of people bike all 4 seasons, the Netherlands is the go-to example... it rains a lot there. Driving to work under-dressed in a heated box is a luxury that's kind of harmed a lot of people's ability t…
Good for you!
My needs are:
- have place for a family of four, two of which are small children;
- be something I can use with said family in -15 Celsius;
- Be able to be used for a 200km trip weekly with said family;
I have an EV.
Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?
#180This 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…
The form factor of a motorbike has been around and more affordable than a car for a century now. I don't think it's the type of engine that makes the majority of people in the developed world prefer to spend substantially more money on vehicles which are considerably more stable and crash resistant, enclosed from the weather and with room for passengers and cargo. If they get e-bikes, they tend to get them as well wh…
> living in a country with one of the densest (but still entirely unsuitable for most long distance journeys) rail networks
I'm very curious, what country has such a dense rail network that isn't very good for long distance journeys? Is it because it's in a hub-and-spoke system with the capital/largest city as the hub, and if you want to go from spoke to spoke it sucks?