4 ms·

I’m still waiting to see a Cat D11 with an electric motor or a mechanic who can fix a used EV battery or what planet we’re going to get the lithium and cobalt f

by sk2020 5y ago

I’m still waiting to see a Cat D11 with an electric motor or a mechanic who can fix a used EV battery or what planet we’re going to get the lithium and cobalt from to make billions of EV cars. I don’t think we share a common definition for technical superiority.

dna_polymerase 5y ago
Lithium isn't that much of a problem, but cobalt might bring some fresh freedom to parts of Africa.
- epistasis 5y ago
  And there's plenty of competitive, cobalt-free battery chemistries coming to the fore. And as you hint, cobalt's damage is a political problem, not a "we don't have enough of it" problem. With proper regulations, the battery industry could clean up what has been a long-accepted human rights nightmare. But nobody seems to complain about it unless they can use it as an excuse to continue fossil fuel use.
  - sk2020 5y ago
    There are 7M tons of cobalt reserves in the world. That is a “we don’t have enough of it” problem.
    - brohee 5y ago
      Known reserves, not reserves. (https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-cobalt.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-cobalt.pdf). Same known reserves were 4.5M tons in 2000. (https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prd-wret/assets/palladium/production/mineral-pubs/cobalt/210300.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prd-wret/assets/palladium...). Despite all the extraction that happened during those 20 years, we now have more known reserves than before, because unsurprisingly, the more you look for something, the more of it you find.
      - sk2020 5y ago
        Discovering 2.5M tons in 20 years does not come close to the demand. You would need at least 3X the rate of discovery forever assuming we only ever serve the need of passenger vehicles and never increase world vehicle production. That’s a big hand-wave.
        brohee 5y ago
        Reserves grew despite increased extraction. So far we are discovering faster than we can extract. Obviously it is something to keep an eye on but panic is not warranted.
epistasis 5y ago
That type of vehicle is ideal for electrification. Electric motors have maximum torque at zero RPM. A lot of haul trucks are already electric, and just use diesel to generate electricity for the electric motor. I don't understand your skepticism about mechanics being able to service electric vehicles though. Why the doubt?
- sk2020 5y ago
  Ideal? Huh. You’d think CAT would just do that sort of thing on their own for equipment with price tags in the millions. That Diesel engines are required to produce the electricity underscores that battery energy density is not comparable to petroleum products. Are you aware of someone with a machine shop having fixed a battery made of exotic minerals? I’m not.
akiselev 5y ago
> what planet we’re going to get the lithium and cobalt from to make billions of EV cars This one. Lithium and cobalt are slightly less abundant in the oceans and Earth's crust than nitrogen and there's more of it than lead or boron, which are produced at much greater scale than lithium or cobalt [1]. The problem isn't the amount it's the concentration of the elements in economically extractable ore. That's rapidly changing as various extraction methods reach economies of scale. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...
- sk2020 5y ago
  You seem to be expecting to get a waterfall out of a pond. That we will just push the ocean through a fantasy machine that gives you the minerals you want is Lysenkoism.
  - akiselev 5y ago
    If by fantasy machine you mean existing mining and evaporative extraction technology - like those used to produce boron in California and Turkey - then yes.
    - sk2020 5y ago
      That’s fascinating! Can you please share the name of one of those operations or the companies operating them? I can only find academic papers referencing pilot projects.
      - akiselev 5y ago
        Examples are Searles Valley Minerals which extracts boron from the brine under Searles Lake, CA [1] and Rio Tinto's lithium extraction plant which uses waste rock from the Borox mines in Boron, CA [2]. It takes time to spin up production to 10 million tons per year - which is the scale of boron or silicon production according to the wiki - but now that lithium is worth something, it's just a matter of time and incentives. [1] http://www.svminerals.com http://www.svminerals.com [2] https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2021/Rio-Tinto-achieves-battery-grade-lithium-production-at-Boron-plant https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2021/Rio-Tinto-ach...
fallingknife 5y ago
You don't fix batteries, you replace them. Lithium is not a major supply issue. Tesla is already moving away from cobalt entirely. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/07/11/teslas-shift-to-cobalt-free-batteries-is-its-most-important-move-yet/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/07/11/teslas-s...
- sk2020 5y ago
  > You don't fix batteries, you replace them Yes. That’s my point.

by sk2020 5y ago

dna_polymerase 5y ago

Lithium isn't that much of a problem, but cobalt might bring some fresh freedom to parts of Africa.

epistasis 5y ago
And there's plenty of competitive, cobalt-free battery chemistries coming to the fore. And as you hint, cobalt's damage is a political problem, not a "we don't have enough of it" problem. With proper regulations, the battery industry could clean up what has been a long-accepted human rights nightmare. But nobody seems to complain about it unless they can use it as an excuse to continue fossil fuel use.
- sk2020 5y ago
  There are 7M tons of cobalt reserves in the world. That is a “we don’t have enough of it” problem.
  - brohee 5y ago
    Known reserves, not reserves. (https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-cobalt.pdf https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2021/mcs2021-cobalt.pdf). Same known reserves were 4.5M tons in 2000. (https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prd-wret/assets/palladium/production/mineral-pubs/cobalt/210300.pdf https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/prd-wret/assets/palladium...). Despite all the extraction that happened during those 20 years, we now have more known reserves than before, because unsurprisingly, the more you look for something, the more of it you find.
    - sk2020 5y ago
      Discovering 2.5M tons in 20 years does not come close to the demand. You would need at least 3X the rate of discovery forever assuming we only ever serve the need of passenger vehicles and never increase world vehicle production. That’s a big hand-wave.
      - brohee 5y ago
        Reserves grew despite increased extraction. So far we are discovering faster than we can extract. Obviously it is something to keep an eye on but panic is not warranted.

epistasis 5y ago

That type of vehicle is ideal for electrification. Electric motors have maximum torque at zero RPM. A lot of haul trucks are already electric, and just use diesel to generate electricity for the electric motor. I don't understand your skepticism about mechanics being able to service electric vehicles though. Why the doubt?

sk2020 5y ago
Ideal? Huh. You’d think CAT would just do that sort of thing on their own for equipment with price tags in the millions. That Diesel engines are required to produce the electricity underscores that battery energy density is not comparable to petroleum products. Are you aware of someone with a machine shop having fixed a battery made of exotic minerals? I’m not.

akiselev 5y ago

> what planet we’re going to get the lithium and cobalt from to make billions of EV cars This one. Lithium and cobalt are slightly less abundant in the oceans and Earth's crust than nitrogen and there's more of it than lead or boron, which are produced at much greater scale than lithium or cobalt [1]. The problem isn't the amount it's the concentration of the elements in economically extractable ore. That's rapidly changing as various extraction methods reach economies of scale. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...

sk2020 5y ago
You seem to be expecting to get a waterfall out of a pond. That we will just push the ocean through a fantasy machine that gives you the minerals you want is Lysenkoism.
- akiselev 5y ago
  If by fantasy machine you mean existing mining and evaporative extraction technology - like those used to produce boron in California and Turkey - then yes.
  - sk2020 5y ago
    That’s fascinating! Can you please share the name of one of those operations or the companies operating them? I can only find academic papers referencing pilot projects.
    - akiselev 5y ago
      Examples are Searles Valley Minerals which extracts boron from the brine under Searles Lake, CA [1] and Rio Tinto's lithium extraction plant which uses waste rock from the Borox mines in Boron, CA [2]. It takes time to spin up production to 10 million tons per year - which is the scale of boron or silicon production according to the wiki - but now that lithium is worth something, it's just a matter of time and incentives. [1] http://www.svminerals.com http://www.svminerals.com [2] https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2021/Rio-Tinto-achieves-battery-grade-lithium-production-at-Boron-plant https://www.riotinto.com/en/news/releases/2021/Rio-Tinto-ach...

fallingknife 5y ago

You don't fix batteries, you replace them. Lithium is not a major supply issue. Tesla is already moving away from cobalt entirely. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/07/11/teslas-shift-to-cobalt-free-batteries-is-its-most-important-move-yet/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesmorris/2020/07/11/teslas-s...

sk2020 5y ago
> You don't fix batteries, you replace them Yes. That’s my point.