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"Bram Murton, a geologist with the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, says that if all the cars on Europe’s roads are electric by 2040, and if they use the same

by Pigo 9y ago

"Bram Murton, a geologist with the UK’s National Oceanography Centre, says that if all the cars on Europe’s roads are electric by 2040, and if they use the same kind of batteries as the Tesla Model 3, that would require 28 times more cobalt than is produced right now." "At the moment more than 60% of all cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo. For decades allegations of corruption and human rights abuses have swirled around parts of its mining industry." "And with renewable power like wind and solar being installed at a frantic pace, every turbine and every panel also requires key metals." I'm always wondering why more people aren't concerned about the production of these materials we need for all the clean energy, electric cars, and more iPhones. Is it just that it's not as bad as the oil production? Or do people really think we'll be mining asteroids in a few years?

phlowbieuq 9y ago
I'm hardly ever an optimist, but I believe that this kind of situation is exactly what the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" applies to. I am 100% confident that Elon has an entire team of material scientists at Tesla working on alternatives to these rare materials.
- Pigo 9y ago
  I sure hope so. I'm definitely not against these new technologies. I'm just honestly not that informed on where these materials come from generally, and if there are any reasonable plans to source them better or replace them.
- PretzelPirate 9y ago
  Do you think Elon built the Falcon Heavy so he can get an alternative supply of the materials he needs from asteroids (I have no idea if cobalt can be found on asteroids)?
codeulike 9y ago
Here's an in depth analysis of the cobalt situation: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ Tesla are claiming they will only use cobalt mined in North America, the article examines that and find that it might be possible.
alex_duf 9y ago
I am fascinated by renewable energies, and I too hate the idea of mining more in order to manage our energy transition. However the massive difference with drilling for petrol is that petrol has a drill and burn lifecycle. You drill once, then burn it, then you need to drill more. Cobalt for instance will be put in batteries that will be charged and discharged numerous time before reaching their end of life. Then the car battery will be re-used in grid-scale battery storage, then finally recycled to be put in a car again (or phone or whatever else) So although I dislike the idea of more mining, I can see how the situation switches from use once to use thousands of times and how it's a slight improvement on our current situation (climate change aside).
Shivetya 9y ago
so solid state battery technologies require cobalt? Are we just in a transition from the liquid (they are wet, right?) batteries we have now?
parametrek 9y ago
There are plenty of other lithium ion chemistries that use no cobalt. If push comes to shove we use them instead. I already use LiFePO4 everywhere I can.
- TaylorAlexander 9y ago
  But LiFePO4 has much lower energy density right? So not great for cars or airplanes.
philipkglass 9y ago
There's justifiable, moderate concern for cobalt supply as a bottleneck when it comes to ramping up EV battery production with current popular lithium ion battery chemistries. "Every turbine and every panel also requires key metals" is a claim that's either false or trivial (perhaps they've defined "key metals" as "metals used to make wind turbines and solar panels.") It's hard to have a sensible discussion about material supply constraints for renewable energy, EVs, and electronics because it's a lot easier to affirm a baseless panic than to reject it. Some years ago I saw a forum comment like "China has a rare earth monopoly and there's not enough neodymium for everyone in the world to have an iPod." One sentence of concentrated nonsense. It takes multiple paragraphs of carefully cited evidence to demonstrate why that's nonsense. You have to estimate mass of magnets in the device, carefully show your work to justify the estimate as reasonable, further break down magnet composition to find neodymium demand per device, link to citations for crustal abundance of neodymium, link to evidence of non-Chinese neodymium resources, link to evidence of historical mining outside China, show how much the bill-of-materials cost for raw neodymium can rise before it adds $5 to the iPod cost... If you skip any steps, there's a gap left for the "skeptic" to dodge your counter-argument and keep believing whatever they believed before. Here's a non-exhaustive list of materials that I've seen asserted as being both in short supply and critical for the expansion of renewable energy: - Neodymium - Dysprosium - "Rare earth metals," generically - Indium - Gallium - Tellurium - Lithium Of those, I'd say that only dysprosium is even close. Adding a small amount of dysprosium to neodymium magnets permits the magnets to endure higher temperatures, which makes them better suited for high-power applications like permanent magnet generators in wind turbines. But PM generators are just a "nice to have" -- most wind turbines use electromagnets instead. Lithium is very useful but too abundant to worry about. The others just aren't very important to renewable energy technologies in the first place. Sure, there are solar cells that rely on gallium, but over 99% of the world's PV cell manufacturing does not use gallium. Most is based on silicon, which is extremely abundant. There are a lot of incentives aligned to panic about shortages more often than makes sense. Stories in the popular press emphasize shortage and panic because "we're not running out of gallium" is not a story. Junior mining companies play on the panic to lure money -- "we're going to solve the rare earth crisis and make our investors rich!" Shills for the fossil fuel status quo tu quoque renewable energy: "greenies against coal never tell you that those wind turbines need filthy, dangerous mining too." Even several environmentalists of my acquaintance have swallowed this nonsense; perhaps they've seen so many bad examples that they're pre-primed to believe it when someone says that we're even running out of materials to make wind turbines and solar panels.
tritium 9y ago
And, oh yeah, by the way, even if we do “solve” this “problem” by mining asteroids, and unlock an unlimited supply of all minerals on demand at all times, how long before we import so much mass, that we drastically alter the concentrations of strange, toxic compounds in the biosphere, well beyond what would have ever been possible with decades of the most dehumanizing mining operations imaginable? In a hypothetical worst-case scenario, let’s imagine the world had an insatiable appetite for mercury thermometers, and presto! Asteroid mining to the rescue! We discover that all the asteroids have a delicious, juicy mercury core! Extrapolated to extremes, the world adopts disposable mercury thermometers as the new normal, and in a decade, methylmercury poisons the globe, as landfills accumulate tons and tons of broken thermometers, and the waste quickly seeps into the water table. Inexhaustable supply can cause problems on its own.
cryptonector 9y ago
Perhaps, just maybe, our need for these materials may help stabilize and improve countries where they are found. Now, it could easily go the other way. Natural resource wealth is often paired with terrible poverty and does not seem to alleviate it, but to make it worse. However, each find is a chance to get it right.

by Pigo 9y ago

phlowbieuq 9y ago

I'm hardly ever an optimist, but I believe that this kind of situation is exactly what the saying "Necessity is the mother of invention" applies to. I am 100% confident that Elon has an entire team of material scientists at Tesla working on alternatives to these rare materials.

Pigo 9y ago
I sure hope so. I'm definitely not against these new technologies. I'm just honestly not that informed on where these materials come from generally, and if there are any reasonable plans to source them better or replace them.
PretzelPirate 9y ago
Do you think Elon built the Falcon Heavy so he can get an alternative supply of the materials he needs from asteroids (I have no idea if cobalt can be found on asteroids)?

codeulike 9y ago

Here's an in depth analysis of the cobalt situation: https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/01/01/no-cobalt-no-tesla/ Tesla are claiming they will only use cobalt mined in North America, the article examines that and find that it might be possible.

alex_duf 9y ago

I am fascinated by renewable energies, and I too hate the idea of mining more in order to manage our energy transition. However the massive difference with drilling for petrol is that petrol has a drill and burn lifecycle. You drill once, then burn it, then you need to drill more. Cobalt for instance will be put in batteries that will be charged and discharged numerous time before reaching their end of life. Then the car battery will be re-used in grid-scale battery storage, then finally recycled to be put in a car again (or phone or whatever else) So although I dislike the idea of more mining, I can see how the situation switches from use once to use thousands of times and how it's a slight improvement on our current situation (climate change aside).

Shivetya 9y ago

so solid state battery technologies require cobalt? Are we just in a transition from the liquid (they are wet, right?) batteries we have now?

parametrek 9y ago

There are plenty of other lithium ion chemistries that use no cobalt. If push comes to shove we use them instead. I already use LiFePO4 everywhere I can.

TaylorAlexander 9y ago
But LiFePO4 has much lower energy density right? So not great for cars or airplanes.

philipkglass 9y ago

There's justifiable, moderate concern for cobalt supply as a bottleneck when it comes to ramping up EV battery production with current popular lithium ion battery chemistries. "Every turbine and every panel also requires key metals" is a claim that's either false or trivial (perhaps they've defined "key metals" as "metals used to make wind turbines and solar panels.") It's hard to have a sensible discussion about material supply constraints for renewable energy, EVs, and electronics because it's a lot easier to affirm a baseless panic than to reject it. Some years ago I saw a forum comment like "China has a rare earth monopoly and there's not enough neodymium for everyone in the world to have an iPod." One sentence of concentrated nonsense. It takes multiple paragraphs of carefully cited evidence to demonstrate why that's nonsense. You have to estimate mass of magnets in the device, carefully show your work to justify the estimate as reasonable, further break down magnet composition to find neodymium demand per device, link to citations for crustal abundance of neodymium, link to evidence of non-Chinese neodymium resources, link to evidence of historical mining outside China, show how much the bill-of-materials cost for raw neodymium can rise before it adds $5 to the iPod cost... If you skip any steps, there's a gap left for the "skeptic" to dodge your counter-argument and keep believing whatever they believed before. Here's a non-exhaustive list of materials that I've seen asserted as being both in short supply and critical for the expansion of renewable energy: - Neodymium - Dysprosium - "Rare earth metals," generically - Indium - Gallium - Tellurium - Lithium Of those, I'd say that only dysprosium is even close. Adding a small amount of dysprosium to neodymium magnets permits the magnets to endure higher temperatures, which makes them better suited for high-power applications like permanent magnet generators in wind turbines. But PM generators are just a "nice to have" -- most wind turbines use electromagnets instead. Lithium is very useful but too abundant to worry about. The others just aren't very important to renewable energy technologies in the first place. Sure, there are solar cells that rely on gallium, but over 99% of the world's PV cell manufacturing does not use gallium. Most is based on silicon, which is extremely abundant. There are a lot of incentives aligned to panic about shortages more often than makes sense. Stories in the popular press emphasize shortage and panic because "we're not running out of gallium" is not a story. Junior mining companies play on the panic to lure money -- "we're going to solve the rare earth crisis and make our investors rich!" Shills for the fossil fuel status quo tu quoque renewable energy: "greenies against coal never tell you that those wind turbines need filthy, dangerous mining too." Even several environmentalists of my acquaintance have swallowed this nonsense; perhaps they've seen so many bad examples that they're pre-primed to believe it when someone says that we're even running out of materials to make wind turbines and solar panels.

tritium 9y ago

And, oh yeah, by the way, even if we do “solve” this “problem” by mining asteroids, and unlock an unlimited supply of all minerals on demand at all times, how long before we import so much mass, that we drastically alter the concentrations of strange, toxic compounds in the biosphere, well beyond what would have ever been possible with decades of the most dehumanizing mining operations imaginable? In a hypothetical worst-case scenario, let’s imagine the world had an insatiable appetite for mercury thermometers, and presto! Asteroid mining to the rescue! We discover that all the asteroids have a delicious, juicy mercury core! Extrapolated to extremes, the world adopts disposable mercury thermometers as the new normal, and in a decade, methylmercury poisons the globe, as landfills accumulate tons and tons of broken thermometers, and the waste quickly seeps into the water table. Inexhaustable supply can cause problems on its own.

cryptonector 9y ago

Perhaps, just maybe, our need for these materials may help stabilize and improve countries where they are found. Now, it could easily go the other way. Natural resource wealth is often paired with terrible poverty and does not seem to alleviate it, but to make it worse. However, each find is a chance to get it right.