21–30 of 46 posts
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I remember Sid Smith saying that we have enough lithium in known reserves to replace every car on earth one time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WPB2u8EzL8&t=35m29s
Yesterday I learned that Sodium batteries might become a contender to Lithium batteries. And they are safer.
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https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(18)30292-7.pdf : "Lithium Metal Extraction from Seawater" > Based on the consumption rate projected for 2050, the residual lithium reserve on land will be exhausted by 2080 > In contrast, the ocean contains 230 billion tons of lithium, an amount four orders of magnitude larger than the lithium reserves on land > our prototype device can be powered by a solar panel and metalli…
What exactly do they mean by "seawater"? Not all seawater is exactly the same, chemically speaking. I have actually measured "seawater" before, and the chemistry of the water at a single location can vary wildly from day to day. I just want to know under what conditions they tested their prototype! THIS IS NOT BAD FAITH FAUX IGNORANCE. I AM ACTUALLY CURIOUS ABOUT THIS.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly do they mean by "seawater"? Not all seawater is exactly the same, chemically speaking. I have actually measured "seawater" before, and the chemistry of the water at a single location can vary wildly from day to day. I just want to know under what conditions they tested their prototype! THIS IS NOT BAD FAITH FAUX IGNORANCE. I AM ACTUALLY CURIOUS ABOUT THIS.
It's the substance that composes those 75% of the surface of our planet that we call "sea".
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What exactly do they mean by "seawater"? Not all seawater is exactly the same, chemically speaking. I have actually measured "seawater" before, and the chemistry of the water at a single location can vary wildly from day to day. I just want to know under what conditions they tested their prototype! THIS IS NOT BAD FAITH FAUX IGNORANCE. I AM ACTUALLY CURIOUS ABOUT THIS.
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Hydrogen is denser by weight, but by volume the story is completely different. The tanks need to be large.
What if most of the aircraft was hydrogen tank or bag? Then it could use the hydrogen for some of its lift! We can call it an "airship". Or compress the hydrogen, but then you have 700 PSI handling issues and the tanks have to be very strong.
Yeah, let's make a huge one and call it the Hindenburg! That sounds like a foolproof plan.
It’s pretty clear that battery technology and cost efficiency is going to have to advance substantially before it can have a meaningful impact on air transport. Blimps might be a slight exception.
Or just use hydrogen, it's a much denser energy storage medium, and airflight is less cost sensitive than ground transportation.
At that point, why not package the hydrogen on a carbon chain...oh wait.
A lot of these schemes compare poorly against synthetic jet fuel manufactured from atmospheric carbon.
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Universal basic income and massive carbon taxes to pay for it! It’s about time we tax actual destruction, not a minimum wage earner’s Netflix subscription.
Best way to do it I've ever seen is the automated transactions tax, whereby you replace most taxes with a small percentage taken on every financial transaction (plus a larger one when converting to/from cash to account for the black economy). It's progressive because poor people will only pay twice (once on their salary/benefits, once when buying stuff), whereas rich people will pay several times when moving money ar…
I am strongly in favor of a tax on all stock market transactions, though—anything to deter HFT, which IMHO has little societal benefit while externalizing a ton of risk.
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Best way to do it I've ever seen is the automated transactions tax, whereby you replace most taxes with a small percentage taken on every financial transaction (plus a larger one when converting to/from cash to account for the black economy). It's progressive because poor people will only pay twice (once on their salary/benefits, once when buying stuff), whereas rich people will pay several times when moving money ar…
Why tax the income side when you could just tax the consumption side?
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Yesterday I learned that Sodium batteries might become a contender to Lithium batteries. And they are safer.
Sodium is very clearly a contender for stationary batteries. It may even be competitive for surface mobile applications like cars... But there is just no way it can compete on air transport.
How scarce is vanadium, though?
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https://www.cell.com/joule/pdf/S2542-4351(18)30292-7.pdf : "Lithium Metal Extraction from Seawater" > Based on the consumption rate projected for 2050, the residual lithium reserve on land will be exhausted by 2080 > In contrast, the ocean contains 230 billion tons of lithium, an amount four orders of magnitude larger than the lithium reserves on land > our prototype device can be powered by a solar panel and metalli…
What exactly do they mean by "seawater"? Not all seawater is exactly the same, chemically speaking. I have actually measured "seawater" before, and the chemistry of the water at a single location can vary wildly from day to day. I just want to know under what conditions they tested their prototype! THIS IS NOT BAD FAITH FAUX IGNORANCE. I AM ACTUALLY CURIOUS ABOUT THIS.