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Lithium car batteries can be cycled 1500-2000 times. Fossil fuels get 1 cycle. 3 orders of magnitude is a categorical difference. [1] https://www.midtronics.co

Lithium car batteries can be cycled 1500-2000 times. Fossil fuels get 1 cycle. 3 orders of magnitude is a categorical difference. [1] https://www.midtronics.com/blog/do-electric-car-ev-batteries-degrade-over-time/ https://www.midtronics.com/blog/do-electric-car-ev-batteries...

rootusrootus 4y ago
And then when you're done, the lithium in the battery is recycled into a new one.
asdff 4y ago
Thats just because we don't care about reusing spent carbon. If we wanted to sequester all carbon into trees that we use again for fuel, for example, you can cycle atoms of carbon infinitely, and therefore power your vehicle purely from the sunlight energy that structures the chemistry of your woody carbon fuel without needing to build and replace solar panels every few decades.
- advisedwang 4y ago
  There are quite a few technologies that attempt to use chemical energy storage, but none of them are as well developed as electricity/batteries: - The hydrogen economy. Currently hydrogen generation is very expensive and there's no distribution system yet because of H2's physical properties. - Biodiesel. Looks promising, but basically limited by inputs. - Fuel cells can potentially be run reversibly, so you could have the same chemical medium being converted back-and-forth with a charger instead of lithium. I'm not very familiar, but I understand physical and chemical constraints mean this mode is difficult to manufacture and operate in practice.
  - asdff 4y ago
    You can make fuel with yeast today and power your car with it. Go to the grocery store, buy a packet of bakers yeast and some granulated sugar, and distill your sugar wine into liquor. In fact you can probably use any locally available plant material; people make hooch from grass even. The issue is just that gallon for gallon, subsidies make things like corn based ethanol or natural gasoline cheaper. Subsidies can change however, and incentives will shift and behavior will change accordingly. https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-researchers-ethanol-fuel-cells-offer-new-alternative-to-power-cars-technology/ https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-researchers-ethanol-fuel-cells-...

rootusrootus 4y ago

And then when you're done, the lithium in the battery is recycled into a new one.

asdff 4y ago

Thats just because we don't care about reusing spent carbon. If we wanted to sequester all carbon into trees that we use again for fuel, for example, you can cycle atoms of carbon infinitely, and therefore power your vehicle purely from the sunlight energy that structures the chemistry of your woody carbon fuel without needing to build and replace solar panels every few decades.

advisedwang 4y ago
There are quite a few technologies that attempt to use chemical energy storage, but none of them are as well developed as electricity/batteries: - The hydrogen economy. Currently hydrogen generation is very expensive and there's no distribution system yet because of H2's physical properties. - Biodiesel. Looks promising, but basically limited by inputs. - Fuel cells can potentially be run reversibly, so you could have the same chemical medium being converted back-and-forth with a charger instead of lithium. I'm not very familiar, but I understand physical and chemical constraints mean this mode is difficult to manufacture and operate in practice.
- asdff 4y ago
  You can make fuel with yeast today and power your car with it. Go to the grocery store, buy a packet of bakers yeast and some granulated sugar, and distill your sugar wine into liquor. In fact you can probably use any locally available plant material; people make hooch from grass even. The issue is just that gallon for gallon, subsidies make things like corn based ethanol or natural gasoline cheaper. Subsidies can change however, and incentives will shift and behavior will change accordingly. https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-researchers-ethanol-fuel-cells-offer-new-alternative-to-power-cars-technology/ https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-researchers-ethanol-fuel-cells-...