7 ms·

The flipside of electrification of vehicles is all the extra metal they need to mine, which is highly environmentally destructive. We don't even have the metal

The flipside of electrification of vehicles is all the extra metal they need to mine, which is highly environmentally destructive. We don't even have the metal supplies to fully electrify car production, not even close, although I see South America is going to ramp up production substantially soon.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago
Afghanistan has something like $1T worth of lithium reserves. Who gets access and how it ends up being exploited remains to be seen but that country is not going to become some forgotten backwater anytime soon.
- Victerius 4y ago
  Afghanistan is landlocked. To its north is Russia. To its east is China. To its south are Pakistan and India. And to its west is Iran. Fun neighborhood. Nothing could go wrong with the above countries fighting for their share of Afghanistan's mineral resources.
  - newyankee 4y ago
    India does not share land border with Afghanistan , although Afg and Indian people apparently share warm relations (not Taliban)
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      > India does not share land border with Afghanistan I'm guessing India would claim that it does. Pakistan would argue otherwise.
      - devoutsalsa 4y ago
        Reading about the line of control that splits Kashmir is pretty interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi_Agreement
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    >Afghanistan is landlocked Which is not that great if you intend to export raw bulk goods (e.g. ore). You really want to have ports for that. The extra few percent efficiency of ship vs rail makes a huge difference because margin is so thin.
    - asdff 4y ago
      One of its neighbors will build out rail lines to their borders so they can take the position of lucrative refiner and exporter of a massive lithium reserve that only their infrastructure has good access to.
Workaccount2 4y ago
Localised environmental destruction is such a pittance compared to global environmental catastrophe that its comical people even bring it up.
- Synaesthesia 4y ago
  But it's not an either/or. The mining and transport of metals also releases carbon dioxide. To give an example every day I see convoys of trucks coming from Zambia to South African ports. These should be transported by train! The solution is smaller, more efficient cars, electric bikes, public transport and things like that, not expensive 3 ton Tesla cars.
- lob_it 4y ago
  Abandonded mines (with the environmental carelessness) and the coming revelation of abandoned oil/gas operations leaking greenhouse gases is just a slice of history on repeat. https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/abandoned-mine.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/aba... It looks like insufficient bonds and bankruptcy just shifted cost burdens for cleanup to government. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cleaning-abandoned-coal-mines-important-difficult https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cleaning-abandoned-coal-mi... https://apnews.com/article/business-mountains-environment-and-nature-bills-bef72619fbd977e22c887df63143b17e https://apnews.com/article/business-mountains-environment-an... Most of the issues with abandonded mines can be confirmed in several countries, but the profits from pump and dump do afford positive GDP (superfund cleanups, etc). The ROI while in operation keeps it going and keeps the "we need renewables now" crowd focused on (someone elses) goal(s) :) The oil and gas industries have already started transfering ownership to smaller companies to bypass obligations, so the cycle continues, with new lithium mining just coming on the heels of two other unresolved climate catastrophes.
  - iso1631 4y ago
    > It looks like insufficient bonds and bankruptcy just shifted cost burdens for cleanup to government. That's the goal of capitalism, privitise the profits, socialise the losses.
andrewmutz 4y ago
> The flipside of electrification of vehicles is all the extra metal they need to mine, which is highly environmentally destructive. The environmental destruction of climate change is almost certainly worse
jeffbee 4y ago
If you think 10kg of lithium in a Tesla is a lot of extraction, you're never going to believe how much steel and aluminum is in a car.
- Synaesthesia 4y ago
  Yes that's why we need to move to small, efficient, reliable cars and public transport.
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    100% true. But objections to resource extraction for lithium should just be ignored. There are literally 1000x larger extraction sites for other purposes, especially iron and aluminum, but also table salt, laundry soap, etc. There are nation-sized areas of America that have been scraped flat for oil and gas production. The land sacrificed for lithium extraction is so far down the list of important environmental issues that it can't even be ranked more precisely than "tied for last place".
  - gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
    Keep in mind that you have to move your population to higher density housing. Essentially to really prompt public transit in the US you will have to introduce draconian laws that prevent the creation of single family houses and their future sales. This is if you work from the idea that we only have 9 years left until we can’t prevent the climate damage.
    - surfaceofthesun 4y ago
      Is that necessarily true? I'm a more optimistic about gradual densification. Across the US, we've seen an increase in offices moving to the periphery of cities [1]. I think we keep reinventing mini-cities in the suburbs and will eventually end up with an American-style polycentricity, especially in the South and West [2]. Remote work will increase these pressures. Let's look at the sprawling suburbs of Houston, Texas. These suburbs have necessities covered within 10-15 minutes by car. If you look at this map [3] and this one [4] of a newer neighborhood in Katy, TX (about 30 miles) from downtown Houston, you'll notice a few points: * The schools and stores are already close to the neighborhoods. Biking to the store takes ~12 minutes vs 8 mins driving * It's ~4.5 mi (7km) to the park & ride. Biking takes ~22 mins vs 12 mins by car. * There's several food places, dentist offices, and doctors offices along the way. This neighborhood is following the same developmental pattern as the earlier neighborhoods, which some iterative refinements. Of course there is still some low handing fruit that could be addressed: * This area could add bike lanes whenever they did planned road expansions (which is often) * Add safe bike and pedestrian over/underpasses for the freeways & busy intersections * Connect existing paths that connect neighborhood amenities (i.e. parks, schools) to inter-neighborhood paths * Prevent commercial and industrial site boundaries from harming neighborhood inter-connectivity These fixes would allow an extremely car-dependent area more "transit options" at very little cost. These would not require rezoning, rule changes (i.e. parking minimums), or forced increases in density. The market repeatedly identifies that people want the same things basic things nearby. But the chosen zoning and local car-centric ordinances perpetuate this car centrality. Parking minimums set a floor on store size, which limits store density, which undermines convenient access by any means other than cars. Builders don't know how the commercial sites are going to be used and exactly what-for. Within the neighborhoods, access to locals schools and parks are considered in the planning stages. That's why it's common to see schoolchildren riding their bike or walking home from school in groups -- sometimes with chaperones / crossing guards. It's designed to be convenient, for example adding shortcuts between streets to the school [5]. Making these slightly larger to explicitly accommodate bikes, especially for accessing nearby essentials is not a tough sell. This is largely a consequence of builders' presumptions about homeowners' expectations/preferences. It has taken a while, but these same builders are finally starting to run fiber alongside or instead of coax to these newer neighborhoods -- a convenient selling point post-covid. Regarding densification, there are already apartments [6] built nearby the highway, adjacent to these new neighborhoods. Changes that would require more effort than the points mentioned above include: * Allow duplexes and small apartments to be built within the neighborhoods * Apartments and duplexes [7] are currently like standalone "communities," isolated from the surrounding neighborhoods * Let small shops and offices be built within the neighborhoods, not just immediately adjacent Note that a lot of these zoning changes only require changing builder presumptions. Often they're building in unincorporated areas. You can see an increasing mix of home-types and nearby shopping in very new communities like Bridgeland [9]. There's even a "desired path" emerging behind this Lifetime Fitness [8]. This path isn't even possible in the older neighborhoods. Basically, builders are rezoning large areas (often displacing cows), so better inter-mixing of stores and community centers (for transit stops) can be done ahead of time. That's why I don't think the changes required for more transit are so significant. Transit agencies are already using existing parking (e.g. stores and theaters) for park & rides. To be clear, I personally know people taking park-and-rides to work at Oil & Gas companies because it's more convenient. Expanding access to these facilities, adding some transit interconnections between suburbs, and expanding to important non-office destinations (malls, community colleges, and airports) are low-risk expansion opportunities. Adding compelling optionality can be a means to build support for more expansive projects later on. I think if builders thought adding autonomous trams through their master planned communities would help make them more money, they'd do it in a heartbeat. If you look at a older part of the suburbs (south of I-10), you see the same sidewalks and shortcuts for access to the school. But somehow they haven't extended the walking/biking infrastructure to the shopping center across the street from the high school [10]. Even further south, you see the same thing [11]. Sidewalks will connect you to the park, but it's impossible to that Target from the neighborhood directly adjacent! These shortsighted mistakes are (slowly) being remediated with each new neighborhood built. We can achieve substantial emissions reductions by enabling families to get by owning only 1 vehicle instead of 2, especially if those vehicles are EVs or Plug-in hybrids. Hopefully we'll even see more innovations like shared heating / cooling for whole neighborhoods, like this one in Austin [12], while we aim for ever-lower emissions. --- [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/10/06/moving-offices-from-big-cities-to-the-suburbs-may-be-the-future-of-work/?sh=122120d0312e https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/10/06/moving-off... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2399808320951205 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23998083209512... [3] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School,+Peek+Road,+Katy,+TX/Walmart+Supercenter,+22850+Morton+Ranch+Rd,+Katy,+TX+77449/@29.8261979,-95.7801838,2546m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x8641262b07748d5b:0x1732b23ca79d85fb!2m2!1d-95.7748469!2d29.8434914!1m5!1m1!1s0x864127ba62d02079:0xcb46ae77c9d78b88!2m2!1d-95.767742!2d29.8186406!3e1 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School,+Peek+Road,+Katy,+TX/Grand+Parkway+Park+%26+Ride,+North+Grand+Parkway,+Katy,+TX/@29.7993773,-95.8201033,11771m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x8641262b07748d5b:0x1732b23ca79d85fb!2m2!1d-95.7748469!2d29.8434914!1m5!1m1!1s0x864126e252e8eee7:0x3b2945e7ec1d46e5!2m2!1d-95.7758785!2d29.7876231!3e1 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School... [5] https://www.google.com/maps/@29.8434568,-95.7820818,121m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@29.8434568,-95.7820818,121m/dat... [6] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29.8281147,-95.7754337,665m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x864127300243d081:0x945a2066f33dc33!8m2!3d29.8217976!4d-95.7698902 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29... [7] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenbrae+Ln,+Cinco+Ranch+West,+TX+77494/@29.724099,-95.7861763,242m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x86412111048b5b61:0xd52c0b540f2b8be5!8m2!3d29.7240978!4d-95.7856291 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenbrae+Ln,+Cinco+Ranch+... [8] https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9310744,-95.7259749,113m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9310744,-95.7259749,113m/dat... [9] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridgeland,+Cypress,+TX+77433/@29.94201,-95.7260215,693m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86412a06400268f9:0x2cdbdea23e7194c!8m2!3d29.9565313!4d-95.7326149 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridgeland,+Cypress,+TX+77... [10] https://www.google.com/maps/place/LaCenterra+at+Cinco+Ranch/@29.7428751,-95.7762681,642m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86412127c9426ef9:0xf2df94aa67538eb5!8m2!3d29.7427085!4d-95.7755397 https://www.google.com/maps/place/LaCenterra+at+Cinco+Ranch/... [11] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Meadow+Lake+Park/@29.5962922,-95.6321041,485m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8640e72cc5bc8293:0xcd5cfcc7b7a3b6aa!8m2!3d29.5958146!4d-95.6306722 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Meadow+Lake+Park/@29.59629... [12] https://www.whispervalleyaustin.com/why-youll-want-to-live-in-a-geothermal-community/ https://www.whispervalleyaustin.com/why-youll-want-to-live-i...
elsonrodriguez 4y ago
Lung cancer rates are higher near major roads due to air pollution from cars. Fossil fuel cars basically means every highway is a superfund site. We just don't talk about it. Given the choice between toxic waste at a mine and toxic waste in millions of homes, I'll take the mine.
- patall 4y ago
  I am optimistic as well but let's not forget the asphalt (major pollutant during construction and repair), breaking and tire degradation that each contribute to this.
- 0xffff2 4y ago
  How much of that pollution is coming out of the tail pipe vs. off of the brake pads and tires?
  - kibwen 4y ago
    Keep in mind that EVs with their regenerative braking use their brake pads effectively never. Modern EV brake systems actually have to deliberately not use their regenerative braking once in a while in order to exercise the brake pads and make sure that they don't rust into uselessness from utter disuse.
    - aldonius 4y ago
      And on the flip side, EVs tend to be heavier and therefore work their tyres even harder.
    - iancmceachern 4y ago
      That tire dust though
  - elsonrodriguez 4y ago
    It’s also important to wonder how much of the pollution is leaked fluids and burnt motor oil. A while back I saw a video on youtube of someone mining road dust for platinum of all things. Evs will be a likely improvement for the health of those near roads.
it_citizen 4y ago
Do you have a reliable source for the lack of supply? Ideally with a detailed breakdown for each potentially problematic material. I keep seeing claims that go both way on that matter. But none were backed by serious research.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Ultimately, scarcity is determined by cost. Here's the cost history: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium The cathode accounts for just over half a battery's cost: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-an-ev-battery-cell/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-a...
- throwanapple 4y ago
  I came across this before: - The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth (https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/16_2021.pdf https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/16_2021.pdf)
  - beefield 4y ago
    Just to note, that is making pretty questionable assumptions to get to the conclusion that there are not enough metals. For example, they assume that there is a set need of cobalt/nickel per kWh of lithium batteries, which obviously is completely false (see LFP chemistry). They also use 2018 reserves as the yardstick, completely oblivious to the fact that already by 2021 the lithium reserves had increased compared to 2018 by more than what their own numbers say a generation of EVs need.
- cscharenberg 4y ago
  In 8th grade I read a book on Zinc and it projected the world's supply would run out by ~1985. The book was published in like 1970 and I was reading it in 1994. Since then I've had a big of skepticism of "it's running out" when it comes to raw industrial materials.
keewee7 4y ago
>highly environmentally destructive Is there any reliable information on this?
beefield 4y ago
> We don't even have the metal supplies to fully electrify car production, Okay, I need to say that you are not even wrong. Yep, I am slightly irritated on this blatantly false claim that has started popping up. If you think your claim has any merit, could you please provid the metal that you think we are lacking, estimat the amount needed and compare that amoun to the amount in earth's crust. If you get anything but infinitesmally small needs compared to what here is, please explain why that metal can't be replaced.

MonkeyMalarky 4y ago

Afghanistan has something like $1T worth of lithium reserves. Who gets access and how it ends up being exploited remains to be seen but that country is not going to become some forgotten backwater anytime soon.

Victerius 4y ago
Afghanistan is landlocked. To its north is Russia. To its east is China. To its south are Pakistan and India. And to its west is Iran. Fun neighborhood. Nothing could go wrong with the above countries fighting for their share of Afghanistan's mineral resources.
- newyankee 4y ago
  India does not share land border with Afghanistan , although Afg and Indian people apparently share warm relations (not Taliban)
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    > India does not share land border with Afghanistan I'm guessing India would claim that it does. Pakistan would argue otherwise.
    - devoutsalsa 4y ago
      Reading about the line of control that splits Kashmir is pretty interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi_Agreement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi_Agreement
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >Afghanistan is landlocked Which is not that great if you intend to export raw bulk goods (e.g. ore). You really want to have ports for that. The extra few percent efficiency of ship vs rail makes a huge difference because margin is so thin.
  - asdff 4y ago
    One of its neighbors will build out rail lines to their borders so they can take the position of lucrative refiner and exporter of a massive lithium reserve that only their infrastructure has good access to.

Workaccount2 4y ago

Localised environmental destruction is such a pittance compared to global environmental catastrophe that its comical people even bring it up.

Synaesthesia 4y ago
But it's not an either/or. The mining and transport of metals also releases carbon dioxide. To give an example every day I see convoys of trucks coming from Zambia to South African ports. These should be transported by train! The solution is smaller, more efficient cars, electric bikes, public transport and things like that, not expensive 3 ton Tesla cars.
lob_it 4y ago
Abandonded mines (with the environmental carelessness) and the coming revelation of abandoned oil/gas operations leaking greenhouse gases is just a slice of history on repeat. https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/abandoned-mine.htm https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/aba... It looks like insufficient bonds and bankruptcy just shifted cost burdens for cleanup to government. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cleaning-abandoned-coal-mines-important-difficult https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cleaning-abandoned-coal-mi... https://apnews.com/article/business-mountains-environment-and-nature-bills-bef72619fbd977e22c887df63143b17e https://apnews.com/article/business-mountains-environment-an... Most of the issues with abandonded mines can be confirmed in several countries, but the profits from pump and dump do afford positive GDP (superfund cleanups, etc). The ROI while in operation keeps it going and keeps the "we need renewables now" crowd focused on (someone elses) goal(s) :) The oil and gas industries have already started transfering ownership to smaller companies to bypass obligations, so the cycle continues, with new lithium mining just coming on the heels of two other unresolved climate catastrophes.
- iso1631 4y ago
  > It looks like insufficient bonds and bankruptcy just shifted cost burdens for cleanup to government. That's the goal of capitalism, privitise the profits, socialise the losses.

andrewmutz 4y ago

> The flipside of electrification of vehicles is all the extra metal they need to mine, which is highly environmentally destructive. The environmental destruction of climate change is almost certainly worse

jeffbee 4y ago

If you think 10kg of lithium in a Tesla is a lot of extraction, you're never going to believe how much steel and aluminum is in a car.

Synaesthesia 4y ago
Yes that's why we need to move to small, efficient, reliable cars and public transport.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  100% true. But objections to resource extraction for lithium should just be ignored. There are literally 1000x larger extraction sites for other purposes, especially iron and aluminum, but also table salt, laundry soap, etc. There are nation-sized areas of America that have been scraped flat for oil and gas production. The land sacrificed for lithium extraction is so far down the list of important environmental issues that it can't even be ranked more precisely than "tied for last place".
- gadflyinyoureye 4y ago
  Keep in mind that you have to move your population to higher density housing. Essentially to really prompt public transit in the US you will have to introduce draconian laws that prevent the creation of single family houses and their future sales. This is if you work from the idea that we only have 9 years left until we can’t prevent the climate damage.
  - surfaceofthesun 4y ago
    Is that necessarily true? I'm a more optimistic about gradual densification. Across the US, we've seen an increase in offices moving to the periphery of cities [1]. I think we keep reinventing mini-cities in the suburbs and will eventually end up with an American-style polycentricity, especially in the South and West [2]. Remote work will increase these pressures. Let's look at the sprawling suburbs of Houston, Texas. These suburbs have necessities covered within 10-15 minutes by car. If you look at this map [3] and this one [4] of a newer neighborhood in Katy, TX (about 30 miles) from downtown Houston, you'll notice a few points: * The schools and stores are already close to the neighborhoods. Biking to the store takes ~12 minutes vs 8 mins driving * It's ~4.5 mi (7km) to the park & ride. Biking takes ~22 mins vs 12 mins by car. * There's several food places, dentist offices, and doctors offices along the way. This neighborhood is following the same developmental pattern as the earlier neighborhoods, which some iterative refinements. Of course there is still some low handing fruit that could be addressed: * This area could add bike lanes whenever they did planned road expansions (which is often) * Add safe bike and pedestrian over/underpasses for the freeways & busy intersections * Connect existing paths that connect neighborhood amenities (i.e. parks, schools) to inter-neighborhood paths * Prevent commercial and industrial site boundaries from harming neighborhood inter-connectivity These fixes would allow an extremely car-dependent area more "transit options" at very little cost. These would not require rezoning, rule changes (i.e. parking minimums), or forced increases in density. The market repeatedly identifies that people want the same things basic things nearby. But the chosen zoning and local car-centric ordinances perpetuate this car centrality. Parking minimums set a floor on store size, which limits store density, which undermines convenient access by any means other than cars. Builders don't know how the commercial sites are going to be used and exactly what-for. Within the neighborhoods, access to locals schools and parks are considered in the planning stages. That's why it's common to see schoolchildren riding their bike or walking home from school in groups -- sometimes with chaperones / crossing guards. It's designed to be convenient, for example adding shortcuts between streets to the school [5]. Making these slightly larger to explicitly accommodate bikes, especially for accessing nearby essentials is not a tough sell. This is largely a consequence of builders' presumptions about homeowners' expectations/preferences. It has taken a while, but these same builders are finally starting to run fiber alongside or instead of coax to these newer neighborhoods -- a convenient selling point post-covid. Regarding densification, there are already apartments [6] built nearby the highway, adjacent to these new neighborhoods. Changes that would require more effort than the points mentioned above include: * Allow duplexes and small apartments to be built within the neighborhoods * Apartments and duplexes [7] are currently like standalone "communities," isolated from the surrounding neighborhoods * Let small shops and offices be built within the neighborhoods, not just immediately adjacent Note that a lot of these zoning changes only require changing builder presumptions. Often they're building in unincorporated areas. You can see an increasing mix of home-types and nearby shopping in very new communities like Bridgeland [9]. There's even a "desired path" emerging behind this Lifetime Fitness [8]. This path isn't even possible in the older neighborhoods. Basically, builders are rezoning large areas (often displacing cows), so better inter-mixing of stores and community centers (for transit stops) can be done ahead of time. That's why I don't think the changes required for more transit are so significant. Transit agencies are already using existing parking (e.g. stores and theaters) for park & rides. To be clear, I personally know people taking park-and-rides to work at Oil & Gas companies because it's more convenient. Expanding access to these facilities, adding some transit interconnections between suburbs, and expanding to important non-office destinations (malls, community colleges, and airports) are low-risk expansion opportunities. Adding compelling optionality can be a means to build support for more expansive projects later on. I think if builders thought adding autonomous trams through their master planned communities would help make them more money, they'd do it in a heartbeat. If you look at a older part of the suburbs (south of I-10), you see the same sidewalks and shortcuts for access to the school. But somehow they haven't extended the walking/biking infrastructure to the shopping center across the street from the high school [10]. Even further south, you see the same thing [11]. Sidewalks will connect you to the park, but it's impossible to that Target from the neighborhood directly adjacent! These shortsighted mistakes are (slowly) being remediated with each new neighborhood built. We can achieve substantial emissions reductions by enabling families to get by owning only 1 vehicle instead of 2, especially if those vehicles are EVs or Plug-in hybrids. Hopefully we'll even see more innovations like shared heating / cooling for whole neighborhoods, like this one in Austin [12], while we aim for ever-lower emissions. --- [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/10/06/moving-offices-from-big-cities-to-the-suburbs-may-be-the-future-of-work/?sh=122120d0312e https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/10/06/moving-off... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2399808320951205 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/23998083209512... [3] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School,+Peek+Road,+Katy,+TX/Walmart+Supercenter,+22850+Morton+Ranch+Rd,+Katy,+TX+77449/@29.8261979,-95.7801838,2546m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x8641262b07748d5b:0x1732b23ca79d85fb!2m2!1d-95.7748469!2d29.8434914!1m5!1m1!1s0x864127ba62d02079:0xcb46ae77c9d78b88!2m2!1d-95.767742!2d29.8186406!3e1 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School... [4] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School,+Peek+Road,+Katy,+TX/Grand+Parkway+Park+%26+Ride,+North+Grand+Parkway,+Katy,+TX/@29.7993773,-95.8201033,11771m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x8641262b07748d5b:0x1732b23ca79d85fb!2m2!1d-95.7748469!2d29.8434914!1m5!1m1!1s0x864126e252e8eee7:0x3b2945e7ec1d46e5!2m2!1d-95.7758785!2d29.7876231!3e1 https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School... [5] https://www.google.com/maps/@29.8434568,-95.7820818,121m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@29.8434568,-95.7820818,121m/dat... [6] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29.8281147,-95.7754337,665m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x864127300243d081:0x945a2066f33dc33!8m2!3d29.8217976!4d-95.7698902 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Luxury+Apartments/@29... [7] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenbrae+Ln,+Cinco+Ranch+West,+TX+77494/@29.724099,-95.7861763,242m/data=!3m2!1e3!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x86412111048b5b61:0xd52c0b540f2b8be5!8m2!3d29.7240978!4d-95.7856291 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Greenbrae+Ln,+Cinco+Ranch+... [8] https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9310744,-95.7259749,113m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9310744,-95.7259749,113m/dat... [9] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridgeland,+Cypress,+TX+77433/@29.94201,-95.7260215,693m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86412a06400268f9:0x2cdbdea23e7194c!8m2!3d29.9565313!4d-95.7326149 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridgeland,+Cypress,+TX+77... [10] https://www.google.com/maps/place/LaCenterra+at+Cinco+Ranch/@29.7428751,-95.7762681,642m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x86412127c9426ef9:0xf2df94aa67538eb5!8m2!3d29.7427085!4d-95.7755397 https://www.google.com/maps/place/LaCenterra+at+Cinco+Ranch/... [11] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Meadow+Lake+Park/@29.5962922,-95.6321041,485m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x8640e72cc5bc8293:0xcd5cfcc7b7a3b6aa!8m2!3d29.5958146!4d-95.6306722 https://www.google.com/maps/place/Meadow+Lake+Park/@29.59629... [12] https://www.whispervalleyaustin.com/why-youll-want-to-live-in-a-geothermal-community/ https://www.whispervalleyaustin.com/why-youll-want-to-live-i...

elsonrodriguez 4y ago

Lung cancer rates are higher near major roads due to air pollution from cars. Fossil fuel cars basically means every highway is a superfund site. We just don't talk about it. Given the choice between toxic waste at a mine and toxic waste in millions of homes, I'll take the mine.

patall 4y ago
I am optimistic as well but let's not forget the asphalt (major pollutant during construction and repair), breaking and tire degradation that each contribute to this.
0xffff2 4y ago
How much of that pollution is coming out of the tail pipe vs. off of the brake pads and tires?
- kibwen 4y ago
  Keep in mind that EVs with their regenerative braking use their brake pads effectively never. Modern EV brake systems actually have to deliberately not use their regenerative braking once in a while in order to exercise the brake pads and make sure that they don't rust into uselessness from utter disuse.
  - aldonius 4y ago
    And on the flip side, EVs tend to be heavier and therefore work their tyres even harder.
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    That tire dust though
- elsonrodriguez 4y ago
  It’s also important to wonder how much of the pollution is leaked fluids and burnt motor oil. A while back I saw a video on youtube of someone mining road dust for platinum of all things. Evs will be a likely improvement for the health of those near roads.

it_citizen 4y ago

Do you have a reliable source for the lack of supply? Ideally with a detailed breakdown for each potentially problematic material. I keep seeing claims that go both way on that matter. But none were backed by serious research.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Ultimately, scarcity is determined by cost. Here's the cost history: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium The cathode accounts for just over half a battery's cost: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-an-ev-battery-cell/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-a...
throwanapple 4y ago
I came across this before: - The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth (https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/16_2021.pdf https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/16_2021.pdf)
- beefield 4y ago
  Just to note, that is making pretty questionable assumptions to get to the conclusion that there are not enough metals. For example, they assume that there is a set need of cobalt/nickel per kWh of lithium batteries, which obviously is completely false (see LFP chemistry). They also use 2018 reserves as the yardstick, completely oblivious to the fact that already by 2021 the lithium reserves had increased compared to 2018 by more than what their own numbers say a generation of EVs need.
cscharenberg 4y ago
In 8th grade I read a book on Zinc and it projected the world's supply would run out by ~1985. The book was published in like 1970 and I was reading it in 1994. Since then I've had a big of skepticism of "it's running out" when it comes to raw industrial materials.

keewee7 4y ago

>highly environmentally destructive Is there any reliable information on this?

beefield 4y ago

> We don't even have the metal supplies to fully electrify car production, Okay, I need to say that you are not even wrong. Yep, I am slightly irritated on this blatantly false claim that has started popping up. If you think your claim has any merit, could you please provid the metal that you think we are lacking, estimat the amount needed and compare that amoun to the amount in earth's crust. If you get anything but infinitesmally small needs compared to what here is, please explain why that metal can't be replaced.