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Cool thing is, they could actually claim "safe" in a bigger sense of the word that most companies do not. Zero emissions is safer for everyone over the long ter
by jkestner 11y ago
Cool thing is, they could actually claim "safe" in a bigger sense of the word that most companies do not. Zero emissions is safer for everyone over the long term.
I'd want to see a cradle-to-grave carbon footprint analysis first, though.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoGood point. Maybe there's an asterisk in there somewhere stating this claim is predicated on successfully launching used batteries into space and having them crash into a dump on the moon.
- anon4 11y agoOr building that giant solar array around Mercury that beams energy for free to every Tesla car.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoBuild it around Earth of course. Get about 10X the solar density outside atmosphere. Even with 50% losses due to translating to/from laser, still magnitudes more efficient than ground-bases. And Mercury-based orders of magnitude harder yet!
- talmand 11y agoNah, just get them to orbit and then gently nudge them towards the sun. After the cost of getting out of the gravity well, let physics take care of the rest. We will need the moon one day, no point in trashing it beforehand.
- hollerith 11y agoDoesn't work that way. It take about 3 times as much delta v to crash something into the sun from low-earth orbit as it does to put it into orbit in the first place. If you gently nudge something in orbit, it will continue to be at risk of crashing into other orbiting thing or falling back to earth. (Of course there's also the fact that it's very unlikely that launching even the most dangerous kinds of wastes into space is a net environmental win.)
- talmand 11y agoHow much more to go from low-earth to the outskirts of orbit where the gentle nudge will work? If we can plan getting a small satellite to land on a moving comet then we should be able to work out the mechanics of plotting a course for a bit of junk to eventually make its way to the sun. Think positive!
- leephillips 11y agoHere are some calculations, and a good explanation, showing why you don't want to try to shoot waste into the Sun: http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/shooting_for_the_sun/ http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/shooting_for_the_sun/
- talmand 11y agoYour link is totally ruining my bit. Nonetheless, interesting article. I guess proposals to the UN will have to wait until technology catches up with my business plan.
- infogulch 11y agoWhat? Used lithium batteries aren't radioactive, there's no reason we couldn't recycle them. And their proliferation will only make them more economical to recycle.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoLithium batteries are widely recycled.
- 6stringmerc 11y agoOkay, but how does that scale to Tesla vehicles? Is it cost-effective? Is it part of the ownership / leasing arrangement that Tesla will recycle them? I genuinely would like to know.
- infogulch 11y agoWell if it's economical to recycle now, with comparatively tiny and hugely varied laptop and cellphone batteries, I can only imagine it would be more cost-effective to do with very large and regularized car batteries.
- Phlarp 11y agoTesla's battery packs are really just a very large array of relatively standard lithium ion cells, 18650 lithium ions if you're curious. These individual cells fail independently of each other, so the packs slowly degrades over time as a bell curve function of the MTBF, a Tesla battery can be "rebuilt" at any point in time during this lifecycle by replacing the individual dead cells within it. These individual cells that have gone bad over time and no longer hold a charge can be "recycled" more completely, where the individual materials and electrolytes are separated, processed and reconstituted as a new battery that can then be used in a pack rebuild or a new Tesla car or wall pack.
- mikeash 11y agoPersonally, I'm much more impressed by the crash safety than stuff like emissions. It's hard to get people to care about emissions. But almost everyone has been in a car crash at some point. Most people know someone who has been killed or severely injured in one. What makes Tesla remarkable is that their EVs aren't just good EVs, they're good cars. Previous EVs were basically sold as, "Well, this is kind of a crap car, but it doesn't burn gasoline!" And then people wondered why there were few buyers. Being extremely safe is a big part of that whole "good cars" thing.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoSpoken like a person who didn't live through the 70s. The roads were a blue haze, with choking smog over most cities. Think Beijing today. Once emissions were controlled to a comfortable level, then further improvements became marginally less important. That's natural and probably correct. I imagine Federal regulations are too stringent now; that's part of why car companies are resisting.
- mikeash 11y agoTesla is around today, not the 70s. Yes, emissions in general are very important. But they don't sell cars. Crash safety sells cars. "Better crash safety than anything else out there" really sells cars.
- jkestner 11y agoAgreed - Tesla is in a position to succeed because it exceeds by traditional car criteria. The long-term benefits are visible, but don't really drive the purchasing decision. But much like Apple seems to be doing with security, it can be developed as a differentiator once traditional bona fides are established (which they seem to be).