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But how many millions of tons of soil do we have to shift to get the lithium for all these millions and millions of batteries, versus a few kilos of uranium? A
by DrBazza 5y ago
But how many millions of tons of soil do we have to shift to get the lithium for all these millions and millions of batteries, versus a few kilos of uranium?
And it's the same with the turbines and all the rare earths that need to be mined to make the current most efficient dynamos.
If people want to promote wind turbines and solar, they should at least compare like for like, which includes the costs of digging the materials out of the ground, and the disposal of old panels and turbines, in the same way people say 'but nuclear waste!'.
- shafyy 5y agoYes, I agree that we need to include all costs. But, to my knowledge the costs presented in the link I sent to include all costs, e.g. here for batteries: https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth#batteries-and-electricity-storage-follow-learning-curves-too https://ourworldindata.org/cheap-renewables-growth#batteries...
- DrBazza 5y agoI'm not disagreeing that batteries are cost efficient, just pointing out that batteries aren't (natural) resource efficient.
- shafyy 5y agoSure, but digging for Uranium isn't a walk in the park, either :-) I'm just pointing to the fact that if the data in the Our World in Data does in fact inclulde these costs for both our cases, then it's still clear that the costs of renewable + battery is cheaper than nuclear and still on a strong downward trend.