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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?

#211

Post by roamerz »

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…

>electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport.

I think a vast majority of people in the United States that choose to drive cars, suvs and pickups would disagree your assumption.

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

#213

Post by stcredzero »

ag315 wrote: post #142

It's not just lithium that's the problem; copper is also a major component, and we don't have nearly enough of that either. A full transition to electric vehicles is not viable with current technologies. If we can make a big leap in solid state battery technology then that could make all the difference, but the viability of those is being continuously postponed.

In one of his most recent videos, Peter Zeihan cites some things, which actually make me question his objectivity in this matter.

    - He claims that graphite will be a problem. I'm not sure if this will
      be if we divert coal and petroleum away from energy to graphite, which
      would sequester that carbon.
    - He's not aware that the aluminum industry has made plans to become 
      carbon neutral. I'm not sure if they really mean it, but they've
      made plans.
    - He claims that at no point in history, has the world doubled the 
      availability of a resource by a factor of 2 in 10 years. This just
      strikes me as fishy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf85EuQKWeQ

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

#214

Post by matsemann »

AstralStorm wrote: post #148
matsemann wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How often do you travel those 200 miles? Why can't you use a car share service for that one occasion? I'm not assuming people never travels beyond their city. Why do car enablers always use people needing a wheelchair to push their agenda? If you're so concerned with their well being, wouldn't it be better if they got the roads for themselves and didn't get stuck in traffic and could always find parking close? Or if…

Funnily enough cars suck for people with wheelchairs compared to a specialty designed EV. Mostly due to the doors, lack of a ramp, misplaced steering column and an unnecessary chair. Turning a wheelchair into a speedy electric vehicle is quite easy if not cheap. It's one wheel removed from an electric recumbent trike.

Exactly!

As can probably be gleaned from my posts here, I'm an activist working for better cycling and human transportation in how we do urban planning.

And one thing I often see, at least locally, is how those using a wheelchair or other amenities want better pedestrian infrastructure (or cycling infrastructure). Not car infrastructure. Many don't have the ability to drive, or the money for a special car. But a motorized tricycle, or an electric wheelchair using bicycle ramps works great.

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

#215

Post by hcurtiss »

rootusrootus wrote: post #54
samwillis wrote: post #31

Something that I think needs to be considered more is the now dominant thought that Electric Vehicles = Lithium BEVs. We should not be putting all eggs in that one basket. Obviously they are the most widely developed, and hydrogen fuel cell technology isn't anywhere near the point where it is ready. But we shouldn't stop developing it. Then there's the fascinating "aluminium air" battery [0] concept which could work…

> hydrogen fuel cell technology isn't anywhere near the point where it is ready. But we shouldn't stop developing it. Scientific development on the technology should continue, but the focus on FCEVs as a use case is misplaced. The idea has been worked on for decades , but we're just about as far away from practical hydrogen infrastructure as we've ever been. It's still only available in any meaningful way in two metr…

Is that true? The Tesla semi presentation cracked me up with the huge container of batteries prepared to charge a single semi. The grid load for charging any meaningful number of EVs simultaneously is hilariously out of reach (even if we could build the generation capacity, NIMBY-Americans will never accomodate the transmission). It seems to me that hydrogen is a relatively elegant solution to this problem. We are good at transporting and storing compressed gases today. It seems to me that building out that infrastructure is more likely than the gigantic power delivery infrastructure necessary to charge lithium batteries.

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

#217

Post by samastur »

matsemann wrote: post #36
dumbfounder wrote: post #30

Can batteries be created to make the process of reclaiming the lithium orders of magnitude easier? A completely different topic: Politics tends to focus on forcing consumer vehicles to go electric, is this really the right move? Most cars are not driven a lot in a day. But cars that are used for work (fleet, uber/deliveries) are used much more, so the benefit to them being electric is far greater. Trucks too most lik…

Most people shouldn't need to own a car. I don't mean that in a "self driving will save us" way. But that a personal car is parked 95% of the day. In a city huge areas are used for storing these blocks of metal not in use. More accessible car sharing could make less people feel the need to own a car.

I use my kitchen not more than 1.5 hours a day on average. Not to mention toilet and bathroom which I use even less. I guess we should all live in two room "apartments" and rest be communal ;)

I actually agree with you about better support for car sharing, but low usage by itself is not a particularly strong argument.

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

#218

Post by wpm »

hcurtiss wrote: post #207
kuschku wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Train tickets include track maintenace, but if you travel by car, you usually don't include road maintenance, car purchase, etc in the travel price (as they're often hidden and include many subsidies and tax breaks). Additionally, a train always costs the same amount to run, no matter the number of passengers, so in countries where trains don't see much use (like the US), they'll be much more expensive than they shou…

Passenger rail in the US, like Amtrak, is spectacularly subsidized.

Amtrak is receiving $19.26B over the years of 2022 to 2026. $4.8B a year. That is an increase from the $1.7B/year it received from FY17 to FY19

The FHWA is handing out $52B in FY22. Now, you might say, oh, well, more people drive, so the FHWA is clearly a more sensible place to invest. But Americans spent $743B on their cars, including payments, interest, and insurance.

It's a scam.

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

#219

Post by vel0city »

malfist wrote: post #181
apocalyptic0n3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their homepage is claiming up to "40 miles of solar powered driving per day" and "1,000 miles on a single charge". Even given the size and layout of the vehicle, that seems impressive as heck if true. It's in reservation stages for ~$26k, which is also not bad.

When I was in college, the car was being advertised as 100 MPG. The car looks virtually the same, if you can get 100MPG you can probably get insane ranges without huge batteries. It's basically a motorcycle on three wheels, those things have great milage.

> It's basically a motorcycle on three wheels, those things have great milage.

The mileage really varies on a lot of things. Cruising on the highway with some side cases and a little bit of gear I usually only get like 35ish MPG on my 1050cc bike, into the low 40s without any cases and with my windshield fully down/off. Fully loaded with camping stuff I'd only get like 30mpg. My 650cc bike with some cases as well got like 40ish, mid 40s without any cases, but really didn't have enough power to feel great when needing to overtake on highways with big trucks.

Some really small motorcycles will get into the 80s, but its really not a given that motorcycles have high mileage numbers.

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

#220

Post by wpm »

scythe wrote: post #159
bertil wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Heat and rain are bigger barriers to bicycles than cold. You could make a case for ice, but you can address that at the infrastructure level. You can make a case for hills, but again, infrastructure (namely, minimizing grade and going around whenever possible). It's a lot easier to wear a coat than it is to wear an air conditioner; if Tw > 30, you are risking heat stroke by pedaling. California, except the far southe…

Heat can be mitigated too, to a certain extent. Shade from trees, reducing the urban heat island effect, and infrastructure to minimizing stop-and-go.
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