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ICE cars are made from steel. BEVs are made from Lithium and literally require acid poured through mountains to collect, along with child labor in the Congo to

ICE cars are made from steel. BEVs are made from Lithium and literally require acid poured through mountains to collect, along with child labor in the Congo to collect cobalt. Iron / steel is mostly recycled today and incredibly cheap and efficient. A steel engine very well would have less of an environmental impact than Li-ion production. ------ The pro-battery crowd needs to start recycling batteries and improving the environmental impact of that technology.

martindbp 4y ago
And to run one ICE car for its lifetime takes 30000 gallons of gas pumped from the ground, refined and shipped across the planet by hostile nations such as Russia and Saudi Arabia or through local fracking. There are cobalt-free batteries, and you don't need to use child labor (even if this is the case now, which I doubt). Lithium is super abundant.
- dragontamer 4y ago
  > 30000 gallons of gas ICE cars travel at 30mpg, so you're assuming that ICE cars travel 900,000 miles? > refined and shipped across the planet by hostile nations such as Russia and Saudi Arabia or through local fracking. And where do you think the Nickle that your Li-ion batteries use comes from? (Hint Russia). The core manufacturing capabilities of Li-ion batteries are almost entirely foreign. Nickle from Russia, Cobalt from Congo, LFP from China. If you're trying to make a US-centered argument, the thing about local fracking is that it is US-centered and therefore subject to US laws and regulations. > There are cobalt-free batteries, and you don't need to use child labor (even if this is the case now, which I doubt). Lithium is super abundant. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/09/lithium-mining-and-the-hidden-environmental-costs-of-evs/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/09/lithium-mining-and-th... > Because lithium’s concentration in ore at Thacker Pass runs as low as two-tenths of one percent, producing one ton of the stuff for use by society entails strip mining and processing as much as 500 tons of earth. Over a single year, producing 60,000 tons of lithium at the site could mean digging up as much as 20 to 30 million tons of earth, more than the annual amount of earth dug up to produce all coal output of all but seven or eight U.S. states. Are you sure that the oil slurpped up through a straw is really more environmentaly damaging than hundreds-of-tons of mining activity per bit of Lithium?
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    > > 30000 gallons of gas > ICE cars travel at 30mpg, so you're assuming that ICE cars travel 900,000 miles? It seems likely the number includes production of the car, as your criticism of EVs does.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      The energy used in recycling steel and processing it is likely far, far less than mining, purifying, refining, and chemically combining Lithium and the other chemicals needed to make an electric battery.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - bryanlarsen 4y ago
        A typical EV uses about 30 kg of Lithium. It's not going to take a huge amount of resources to create that just due to the sandal quantities.
  - martindbp 4y ago
    > Are you sure that the oil slurpped up through a straw is really more environmentaly damaging than hundreds-of-tons of mining activity per bit of Lithium? Again, a gallon of gas is 2.7 kg, and car consumes thousands of gallons over its lifetime. Batteries are also recycleable, or get a second life as stationary energy storage, unlike gas which just ends up polluting our air. I just can't comprehend how you can even argue for fossil fuels at this stage, it's pure stupidity or nefariousness, I can't tell which.
lostlogin 4y ago
> The pro-battery crowd needs to start recycling batteries and improving the environmental impact of that technology. How would you apply that logic to ICE enthusiasts? Must they fix the Middle East and extract CO2 from the atmosphere?
- dragontamer 4y ago
  The raw materials of ICE is steel. The highest % of recycled material in the USA. ICE enthusiasts properly care and dispose of their vehicles, to a degree not possible today when we look at battery EV enthusiasts. ------- What % of a Tesla battery comes from recycled material? What % of a F150 truck engine comes from recycled material? QED.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    The person buying a Tesla is likely not disposing of it now, but some years away. Betting there will be recycling that doesn’t exist now isn’t ideal, but it seems likely. If the material is scare and valuable, it isn’t going to be wasted. This really isn’t an “ICE is better, end discussion” type situation.
    - dragontamer 4y ago
      > If the material is scare and valuable, it isn’t going to be wasted. But if the material is mixed with other materials, making recycling difficult and expensive to do, maybe it won't. After all, Li-ion battery recycling is pretty bad right now, and there's plenty of Li-ion batteries being disposed of today. 5% of disposed Li-ion batteries are recycled right now. Sure, that number will improve in the future, but by how much? Even 200% to 300% improvement would be terrible in absolute terms. And its not like there's a singular kind of Li-ion battery, each Li-ion cell has its own chemistry, some are Cobalt based, others are Nickle based, others are Iron based. Has there ever been a recycling process that worked when chemicals were so mixed up together? Are there any companies even trying to solve the problem? Or are you trusting blind faith that the problem will be solved without any actual evidence?

martindbp 4y ago

And to run one ICE car for its lifetime takes 30000 gallons of gas pumped from the ground, refined and shipped across the planet by hostile nations such as Russia and Saudi Arabia or through local fracking. There are cobalt-free batteries, and you don't need to use child labor (even if this is the case now, which I doubt). Lithium is super abundant.

dragontamer 4y ago
> 30000 gallons of gas ICE cars travel at 30mpg, so you're assuming that ICE cars travel 900,000 miles? > refined and shipped across the planet by hostile nations such as Russia and Saudi Arabia or through local fracking. And where do you think the Nickle that your Li-ion batteries use comes from? (Hint Russia). The core manufacturing capabilities of Li-ion batteries are almost entirely foreign. Nickle from Russia, Cobalt from Congo, LFP from China. If you're trying to make a US-centered argument, the thing about local fracking is that it is US-centered and therefore subject to US laws and regulations. > There are cobalt-free batteries, and you don't need to use child labor (even if this is the case now, which I doubt). Lithium is super abundant. https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/09/lithium-mining-and-the-hidden-environmental-costs-of-evs/ https://usa.streetsblog.org/2021/02/09/lithium-mining-and-th... > Because lithium’s concentration in ore at Thacker Pass runs as low as two-tenths of one percent, producing one ton of the stuff for use by society entails strip mining and processing as much as 500 tons of earth. Over a single year, producing 60,000 tons of lithium at the site could mean digging up as much as 20 to 30 million tons of earth, more than the annual amount of earth dug up to produce all coal output of all but seven or eight U.S. states. Are you sure that the oil slurpped up through a straw is really more environmentaly damaging than hundreds-of-tons of mining activity per bit of Lithium?
- lostlogin 4y ago
  > > 30000 gallons of gas > ICE cars travel at 30mpg, so you're assuming that ICE cars travel 900,000 miles? It seems likely the number includes production of the car, as your criticism of EVs does.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    The energy used in recycling steel and processing it is likely far, far less than mining, purifying, refining, and chemically combining Lithium and the other chemicals needed to make an electric battery.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - bryanlarsen 4y ago
      A typical EV uses about 30 kg of Lithium. It's not going to take a huge amount of resources to create that just due to the sandal quantities.
- martindbp 4y ago
  > Are you sure that the oil slurpped up through a straw is really more environmentaly damaging than hundreds-of-tons of mining activity per bit of Lithium? Again, a gallon of gas is 2.7 kg, and car consumes thousands of gallons over its lifetime. Batteries are also recycleable, or get a second life as stationary energy storage, unlike gas which just ends up polluting our air. I just can't comprehend how you can even argue for fossil fuels at this stage, it's pure stupidity or nefariousness, I can't tell which.

lostlogin 4y ago

> The pro-battery crowd needs to start recycling batteries and improving the environmental impact of that technology. How would you apply that logic to ICE enthusiasts? Must they fix the Middle East and extract CO2 from the atmosphere?

dragontamer 4y ago
The raw materials of ICE is steel. The highest % of recycled material in the USA. ICE enthusiasts properly care and dispose of their vehicles, to a degree not possible today when we look at battery EV enthusiasts. ------- What % of a Tesla battery comes from recycled material? What % of a F150 truck engine comes from recycled material? QED.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  The person buying a Tesla is likely not disposing of it now, but some years away. Betting there will be recycling that doesn’t exist now isn’t ideal, but it seems likely. If the material is scare and valuable, it isn’t going to be wasted. This really isn’t an “ICE is better, end discussion” type situation.
  - dragontamer 4y ago
    > If the material is scare and valuable, it isn’t going to be wasted. But if the material is mixed with other materials, making recycling difficult and expensive to do, maybe it won't. After all, Li-ion battery recycling is pretty bad right now, and there's plenty of Li-ion batteries being disposed of today. 5% of disposed Li-ion batteries are recycled right now. Sure, that number will improve in the future, but by how much? Even 200% to 300% improvement would be terrible in absolute terms. And its not like there's a singular kind of Li-ion battery, each Li-ion cell has its own chemistry, some are Cobalt based, others are Nickle based, others are Iron based. Has there ever been a recycling process that worked when chemicals were so mixed up together? Are there any companies even trying to solve the problem? Or are you trusting blind faith that the problem will be solved without any actual evidence?