31–40 of 74 posts
If you’ve never seen this you really should to understand how bad this can go. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-...
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Is this satire? With the username, I’m unsure. I don’t know why anyone would mention GPUs and AI in the same context as electric vehicles. Mining isn’t a huge source of greenhouse emissions. It’s not good for the local environment, but it’s necessary. Recycling and reuse is also a grand idea, you’re right about that. Except for plastics, which never made sense. Electric cars are unequivocally a good thing. Every elec…
In 30 years we are going to look back at all the "unequivocally good" electric family cars and wish we'd used the materials and energy on civilizational resilience, not to temporarily extend the unsustainable habits of the planet's richest minority Electric vehicles can be a good thing if we also dramatically reduce our consumption of transportation and bring our political systems, lifestyles and economies in harmony…
EVs are key to “civilizational resilience”, when combined with the sharp increase in solar and renewable energy that we’re also going through.
Fantasizing about telling all of society to stop going places isn’t realistic. The future doesn’t have to be miserable to also be sustainable.
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I've been to some of these 'toxic lakes'. Usually they consist of a few things in large quantities that are easy to neutralize - eg. sulphuric or nitric acid. And thats mixed in with small amounts of something that is natural yet toxic - eg. Mercury, lead, arsenic, etc. The whole lot is typically in the form of a slurry with solids and lots of water. It has to be kept wet, or the toxic solids will turn into dust and…
Now, this may be naïve or uninformed, but... Shouldn't it be possible to take that slurry and deliberately dry it out much faster, possibly even including a step that separates the products to some extent for separate processing or storage? If it were being dried out in a sealed processing facility, rather than a pond open to the air (and wildlife), the toxic dust wouldn't be a problem—indeed, it would be the end goa…
The massive volume is by far the biggest problem, compared to the (relatively low) toxicity.
And the wars haven't started yet. Soon though. Driving your electric car straight to hell on a road paved with feelings.
You should see all the wars that have occurred due to oil. You may be surprised.
I’m interested in how this editorial got written. It’s not attributed to anyone and the language and perspective seem to me to be CCP talking points. “Sustainability, equity and security are all at risk in the rush to break China’s dominance over their production.” - I can think of one entity which wouldn’t want China’s dominance of rare earth production broken and it’s not the DRC. “China’s ascendancy is the result…
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In 30 years we are going to look back at all the "unequivocally good" electric family cars and wish we'd used the materials and energy on civilizational resilience, not to temporarily extend the unsustainable habits of the planet's richest minority Electric vehicles can be a good thing if we also dramatically reduce our consumption of transportation and bring our political systems, lifestyles and economies in harmony…
You act like cars are a luxury good used for joy riding. Transportation is necessary. I’m all for mass transit, and making cities more walkable and friendly to cycling. That’s complementary. But cars are still necessary, and that’s not about to change.
We need to make cars less necessary for life. It's not an easy task, but it's a question of priorities. Do we care more about convenience in the near term, or prospects for life in the long term?
Asianometry made a couple of recent videos on rare earth elements. They aren't that rare but the concentration is so low and they are always mixed in with other elements so it takes a lot of processing. China‘s Iron Grip on the Rare Earth Magnet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxpKcbg30e4 A Semiconductor Rare Earths Problem? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caEsW5h3dhA
I think the original meaning of "rare" may have been in opposition to dense, rather than meaning scarce. They are not densely concentrated in the substrate they're taken from as you say. From M-W rare, "3. marked by wide separation of component particles."
It's good news if you're in Maine: Gem Hunters Found the Lithium America Needs. Maine Won’t Let Them Dig It Up https://time.com/6294818/lithium-mining-us-maine/ not so good news if you're indigenous: Tribes object. But a federal ruling approves construction of the largest lithium mine https://www.npr.org/2023/07/17/1188204958/tribes-object-fede... A mining company is hunting for lithium, right on the edge of wildlife…
I’m interested in how this editorial got written. It’s not attributed to anyone and the language and perspective seem to me to be CCP talking points. “Sustainability, equity and security are all at risk in the rush to break China’s dominance over their production.” - I can think of one entity which wouldn’t want China’s dominance of rare earth production broken and it’s not the DRC. “China’s ascendancy is the result…
An opposite argument could be make for semiconductors. In that case, the environmental approach is to NOT make multiple fabs, keep them in Taiwan / the Netherlands, and discourage China from making new fabs. This would be against China.
Generally, the environmental position favors not duplicating effort, which favors the current incumbent.
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Electric cars are helping, but maybe not as much one can be lead to believe. The biggest danger about them is possibly that people may believe they are a big step forward. They are an important but rather small step forward. Electric cars will reduce demand for gasoline. Some people say this won't affect how much oil is pumped out of the ground, because we still need the other fractions. That's not exactly the case t…
I thought the fractions were relatively straightforward to convert to balance demand? I don't really have good intuition for the economics of it though.