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Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

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Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#381

Post by AtlasBarfed »

epistasis wrote: post #340
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Light sweet crude definitely peaked. Petroleum reserves are basically tsr sands and fracking which is low EROEI, even with the industry externalizing costs like methane leakage, vast freshwater consumption / pollution. For example it used to be you burned a barrel of oil to get 20 or 30 out back in the easily accessible light sweet crude days. Shit like the tar sands is more like 2:1 EROEI.

EROEI: the metric deployed against solar and wind in the past, that was quickly erased from public discourse once it became apparent that modern fossil fuels did worse on it. All those people complaining about EROEI no longer seem to have the slightest concern, despite it being a significant hurdle for future fossil fuel use.

I haven't tracked any of the peak oil stats and petroleum stuff since it became apparent that BEVs / Solar / Wind are the strategic winners.

And the EROEIs get even worse if any sane carbon taxation / sequestration costs are applied, if any widespread damage from fracking is charged (as in set-your-tapwater-on-fire stories), or the horrific environmental destruction of tar sands (which use ungodly amounts of freshwater to try to get the oil out of the mined sands).

I guess that claimed EROEI on fracking is 5-10x. No idea what it is like in practice, I assume there should be a distribution that could be analyzed.

Tar sands peak at 5x, and I bet that is only in the best case. Why tar sands is still a thing, does any Canadian know? Is this because oil/gas has penetrated the Canadian government lobby and made it too big to fail?

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#382

Post by toyg »

twelve40 wrote: post #330
toyg wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The American Revolution was bankrolled by interested parties in Europe. That doesn't make its ideals and achievements less valid.

yeah like an example from centuries ago a world away is relevant. Situation in Syria or "democratic" Iraq is probably more illustrative of what's in store for them.

> yeah like an example from centuries ago a world away is relevant.

"I don't like where this is going so I'll just arbitrarily disqualify the line of argument even though it's logically valid."

> Situation in Syria or "democratic" Iraq is probably more illustrative

Cynicism is a hinder to progress. Reality is messy, but if we tell people to stop aspiring, things can only get worse. Tunisia after the revolution has had its problems but it's still freer than it was, for example; same for Algeria. Chances are even going from a theocracy to a secular dictatorship on the Egyptian model, for example, would be a significant step forward.

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#383

Post by karmakurtisaani »

saiya-jin wrote: post #290
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi Arabia is hardly a desirable model, though enough money admittedly papers over a lot of human rights abuses. In the above example it's like a hot girl with severe mental health issues. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is a strategy to escape the resource curse. It's like a hot girl with high self esteem and a handgun in her purse. Alaska is one state in a country that has other things going for it. It's like a ho…

If Alaska would be a separate state maybe there would be a reason for concern /s I think 'resource curse' got it a bit backward although effect is straightforward and obvious - it allows a-holes aka bottom of society to rise, gives them extra booster rockets to rise fast (ie capture diamond mine, or oil fields like ISIL and sell via Turkey which was their primary income). Norway got it right because well its Norway,…

This is not the resource curse. It's basic economics actually: when there is a natural resource to be exploited, most investment, human capital and attention goes to that resource. This is because that's where the biggest returns are. Furthermore, the country's currency will get very strong, so it will make exporting anything else very difficult.

Combine these factors and you end up with a country trapped in producing mainly only that one natural resource.

This is also why Saudi Arabia is building seemingly insane megaprojects: to lure in enough production and construction to kick start a on industry unrelated to oil.

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#384

Post by cykros »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #381
epistasis wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EROEI: the metric deployed against solar and wind in the past, that was quickly erased from public discourse once it became apparent that modern fossil fuels did worse on it. All those people complaining about EROEI no longer seem to have the slightest concern, despite it being a significant hurdle for future fossil fuel use.

I haven't tracked any of the peak oil stats and petroleum stuff since it became apparent that BEVs / Solar / Wind are the strategic winners. And the EROEIs get even worse if any sane carbon taxation / sequestration costs are applied, if any widespread damage from fracking is charged (as in set-your-tapwater-on-fire stories), or the horrific environmental destruction of tar sands (which use ungodly amounts of freshwat…

>Is this because oil/gas has penetrated the Canadian government lobby and made it too big to fail?

You're almost certainly onto something here. Much like why water cooled nuclear reactors are still a thing, despite molten salt reactors having been around for about 60 years (as in, before any of those water cooled reactors melted down with a catastrophic hydrogen explosion, caused by you know, all that water).

We don't have an energy shortage. We have political obstructionism.

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#385

Post by adshouts »

thehappypm wrote: post #379
adshouts wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no good alternative unfortunately, but the belief that electric cars are "better" for the planet is utterly ridiculous and false.

How so?

The total energy cost of producing and using the Tesla Model S Long Range battery pack for example, including battery production, lithium extraction, transportation, the energy cost of building the Gigafactory, battery transportation, battery recycling, diesel fuel required to generate electricity to charge the battery, and the environmental costs of battery disposal and battery fires, is equivalent to about 3,088,431 barrels of oil.

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#386

Post by gregw2 »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #278
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saudi Arabia is hardly a desirable model, though enough money admittedly papers over a lot of human rights abuses. In the above example it's like a hot girl with severe mental health issues. Norway's sovereign wealth fund is a strategy to escape the resource curse. It's like a hot girl with high self esteem and a handgun in her purse. Alaska is one state in a country that has other things going for it. It's like a ho…

> Norway's sovereign wealth fund is a strategy to escape the resource curse. Alaska has the Permanent Fund for much the same reason. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Permanent_Fund

Less discussed than Alaska, Texas uses it's oil money per its constitution to fund its university which seems pretty shrewd mitigation to the resource curse at a high level. Also no income tax for its citizens.

Sample details: https://www.texastribune.org/2017/08/21/ut-system-oil-money-...

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#387

Post by thehappypm »

adshouts wrote: post #385
thehappypm wrote: post #379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How so?

The total energy cost of producing and using the Tesla Model S Long Range battery pack for example, including battery production, lithium extraction, transportation, the energy cost of building the Gigafactory, battery transportation, battery recycling, diesel fuel required to generate electricity to charge the battery, and the environmental costs of battery disposal and battery fires, is equivalent to about 3,088,43…

That’s like, one oil tanker to produce an entire fleet of cars?

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#388

Post by adshouts »

thehappypm wrote: post #387
adshouts wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The total energy cost of producing and using the Tesla Model S Long Range battery pack for example, including battery production, lithium extraction, transportation, the energy cost of building the Gigafactory, battery transportation, battery recycling, diesel fuel required to generate electricity to charge the battery, and the environmental costs of battery disposal and battery fires, is equivalent to about 3,088,43…

That’s like, one oil tanker to produce an entire fleet of cars?

Source: https://clifhigh.substack.com/p/3-million-barrels-of-oil-per...

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#389

Post by panick21_ »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #373
panick21_ wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thorium is literally in the ground all around everywhere and incredibly cheap to extract, basically free. And yet we don't use it. If we did, we wouldn't really need that much lithium.

Can you share a link to a battery chemistry based on thorium that I can buy?

My point is that if you have nuclear plants that can dispatch power on demand based on demand, there is far less need grid scale store.

And if you build on electric trains and trams, rather then EV you can likely reduce the amount of lithium a society needs by 80%.

Re: Iran discovers world’s second largest lithium reserve

#390

Post by aidenn0 »

cameldrv wrote: post #380
syntheweave wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends on whether we define fracked oil to be actually the same energy resource as conventional. Which, in EROEI terms, it isn't - it gets a compatible result at a higher cost. In that framing, peak oil happened - we just proceeded to reframe reality around a substitute and choked down a decade of stagnation in the energy economy.

IMO that was another problem with the peak oil theory -- the obsession with EROEI. They would say that Saudi oil was, say, 30 EROEI and shale was 5. If you flip that upside down though 30 EROEI = 97% efficiency, and 5 EROEI is 80% efficiency. Of course you'd rather have 97% efficiency, but 80% works fine.

Yeah, I don't buy the EROEI argument either. I do think that non-demand based price shocks spurred research into more expensive (usually lower EROEI) sources of petroleum much sooner than a purely open market would have. 1975-1985 was about as expensive (inflation adjusted) as the early 21st century, and we didn't have a huge shale boom then.
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