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I wonder if some of the more scarce materials needed for EVs will turn out to be like the peak oil concern in the 80s… once a material becomes important enough

by meling 4y ago

I wonder if some of the more scarce materials needed for EVs will turn out to be like the peak oil concern in the 80s… once a material becomes important enough human ingenuity seems to find ways.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago
That’s the beauty of economics
meltyness 4y ago
Agreed, auto fuel is more abundant than ever. Consider EVs, Ethanol, LNG, hybrids doubling and tripling efficiency.
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  It will be oversupplied. But I posit that the oil/gas industry is built on large scale facilities that may not survive seeing demand drop by 30-50%. I believe this will trigger a "reverse economies of scale" where gas will get more expensive and less profitable from the drop in demand making large refining facilities and the like less profitable. Which will cause closures, and further inefficiencies, and a downward spiral. What I most hope is that the tar sands and fracking oil becomes fundamentally noncompetitive, and what is left is the remaining conventional extraction reserves. I also hope it starves every petro-authoritarian state. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, etc. But that's still a decade away, a lot can happen.
  - thriftwy 4y ago
    Russia by the means of its territory may process and export any kind of raw material. Whether it is oil, gas, coal, iron ore, steel, nickel, wheat, cooking oil, lumber.
msla 4y ago
Given how much the oil companies knew about climate change even then, Peak Oil was effectively always nonsense: The people who knew always realized we'd hit hard climate limits long before we'd "run out" of oil like some childish "Mad Max" fantasy. Of course, I wonder how many authors simply failed to understand the OPEC embargo, or the concept of an "embargo" in general. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-clima...
aylmao 4y ago
I think this characterization should be accompanied by three thoughts: - In the scale of human history, we haven't used oil at industrial scales that long; roughly 170 years our of, say ~12000 years since the Neolithic Revolution [1]. In those 12000 years, there's times we have have "made it" past resource shortage, but there's also times it has all come burning down. We don't always find ways past problems. - It's a rather romanticized characterization to call "human ingenuity" what saved us from "peak oil". Yes, there was a lot of ingenuity and tech involved, but there were also some nasty politics, disastrous wars and terrible environmental impact from new extraction sites/techniques. Economic pressure doesn't only make us smarter, it also makes us more ruthless. - Overall, is this what we want? Perhaps the peak oil predictions of the 80s would've been a better outcome; we'd live in a world with less "stuff", yeah, but also perhaps fewer problems? Thinking about the current transition to EVs: do we want to replace all gas cars with them, or is the better outcome that cars be expensive, and we opt for more efficient modes of transportation like public transit or walking? Our economic system means human ingenuity and ruthlessness finds a way to scale production, since profit incentives align with that. Perhaps though the better ingenuity would be not to find "more", but use what we've got in a better way. [1] I chose the Neolithic Revolution since that's arguably when our mindset shifted from "following resources" and adapting to what we find, to settling down and producing what we need instead. Thus I'd assume this is where the concern of how we manage our resources became more akin what we find ourselves in now. We weren't going anywhere— we had to figure out how to keep the land from decertifying, our water from running out, etc.
- codeflo 4y ago
  > In those 12000 years, there's times we have have "made it" past resource shortage, but there's also times it has all come burning down. We don't always find ways past problems. Peak tin is a conspiracy theory, and everyone who worries about the Sea Peoples is a warmongering racist.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > everyone who worries about the Sea Peoples is a warmongering racist If the climate and seismic disasters which appear to have displaced the Sea Peoples hadn’t happened, isn’t it plausible that peak tin wouldn’t have happened? There was plenty of tin on Iberia and the British Isles.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Doesn't really matter much for the majority of the BEV revolution, that is going to be LFP and Sodium Ion batteries for the vast majority of cars, especially when LFP hits 230-250 wh/kg and really especially once sodium ion hits 200 wh/kg. Cobalt/Nickel chemistries will be for luxury cars, long range vehicles, tractor trailers, until the sulfur chemistries take over in probably 5-8 years (although I hope a lot sooner). So this is kind of good news, but really isn't the meat of the BEV revolution.
- ObviousHumanGPT 4y ago
  CATL's 210Wh/kg LMFP cells are already in volume production for a major automotive customer. I would expect that customer to disclose shipping product in a March investor event.
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    Hmm. Who has an investor day on March 1? I wonder...
    - ObviousHumanGPT 4y ago
      I don't want to call out certain antisocial twits by name. The 350 mile LFP car is probably already in production in a Shanghai factory if you can still stomach giving him money...
  - AtlasBarfed 4y ago
    The 200-215 wh/kg LF*P chems are in mass production! 160 wh/kg sodium ion this year as well! I was referring to their roadmap chemistries that they are next targeting for mass production, that will likely underlie what I call the "third phase" of BEVs. The first was the earlier prototypes and Model S/X era of Tesla. The Model 3 heralded the second phase, where most carmakers actually started trying at BEV products. Third phase is where the ICE cannot compete pricewise and BEVs are the clear choice when buying a new car. 200-210 wh/kg should do 400 mile cars if they have to . the 160 wh/kg sodium ion though, that should be a 200-300 mile car, eventually drop to $40/kwh... that will be the city car revolution, a technology for several billion BEVs. Exciting times. Of course the US government is hopelessly behind.
_hypx 4y ago
Peak oil will be "solved" by humanity moving away from oil. It is not solved by drilling for more oil, even though it allows for a temporary reprieve. My personal opinion will be that shortages on battery related materials will be solved by going to hydrogen cars. Replace a finite resource with a practically infinite one.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > personal opinion will be that shortages on battery related materials will be solved by going to hydrogen cars Fuel cells often use platinum (anode) and nickel (cathode).
  - _hypx 4y ago
    Those are not necessary. Solid oxide fuel cells use neither. In the long run, PEM fuel cells likely will use neither too, or very little (on the order of grams per fuel cell).
    - pfdietz 4y ago
      SOFCs use zirconium or cerium as well as nickel conductors. To be efficient, they need to be the topping cycle of a combustion turbine, so they also need strong turbine blade alloys, which involve nickel.
      - _hypx 4y ago
        None of these materials are really that limited. Not even nickel at the scale you’re imagining them to be. Remember, we’re looking at grams of such things, and they can easy be swapped out with some other material. Also, you do not need a combustion turbine at all. You can envision fuel cells with near 100% efficiency in the long run.
        pfdietz 4y ago
        If these materials aren't limited, neither are the ones for batteries, so why do you imagine these supposed limitations will be solved by going to hydrogen cars?

by meling 4y ago

I wonder if some of the more scarce materials needed for EVs will turn out to be like the peak oil concern in the 80s… once a material becomes important enough human ingenuity seems to find ways.

zeroonetwothree 4y ago

That’s the beauty of economics

meltyness 4y ago

Agreed, auto fuel is more abundant than ever. Consider EVs, Ethanol, LNG, hybrids doubling and tripling efficiency.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago
It will be oversupplied. But I posit that the oil/gas industry is built on large scale facilities that may not survive seeing demand drop by 30-50%. I believe this will trigger a "reverse economies of scale" where gas will get more expensive and less profitable from the drop in demand making large refining facilities and the like less profitable. Which will cause closures, and further inefficiencies, and a downward spiral. What I most hope is that the tar sands and fracking oil becomes fundamentally noncompetitive, and what is left is the remaining conventional extraction reserves. I also hope it starves every petro-authoritarian state. Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, etc. But that's still a decade away, a lot can happen.
- thriftwy 4y ago
  Russia by the means of its territory may process and export any kind of raw material. Whether it is oil, gas, coal, iron ore, steel, nickel, wheat, cooking oil, lumber.

msla 4y ago

Given how much the oil companies knew about climate change even then, Peak Oil was effectively always nonsense: The people who knew always realized we'd hit hard climate limits long before we'd "run out" of oil like some childish "Mad Max" fantasy. Of course, I wonder how many authors simply failed to understand the OPEC embargo, or the concept of an "embargo" in general. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-climate-change-global-warming-research https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/12/exxon-clima...

aylmao 4y ago

I think this characterization should be accompanied by three thoughts: - In the scale of human history, we haven't used oil at industrial scales that long; roughly 170 years our of, say ~12000 years since the Neolithic Revolution [1]. In those 12000 years, there's times we have have "made it" past resource shortage, but there's also times it has all come burning down. We don't always find ways past problems. - It's a rather romanticized characterization to call "human ingenuity" what saved us from "peak oil". Yes, there was a lot of ingenuity and tech involved, but there were also some nasty politics, disastrous wars and terrible environmental impact from new extraction sites/techniques. Economic pressure doesn't only make us smarter, it also makes us more ruthless. - Overall, is this what we want? Perhaps the peak oil predictions of the 80s would've been a better outcome; we'd live in a world with less "stuff", yeah, but also perhaps fewer problems? Thinking about the current transition to EVs: do we want to replace all gas cars with them, or is the better outcome that cars be expensive, and we opt for more efficient modes of transportation like public transit or walking? Our economic system means human ingenuity and ruthlessness finds a way to scale production, since profit incentives align with that. Perhaps though the better ingenuity would be not to find "more", but use what we've got in a better way. [1] I chose the Neolithic Revolution since that's arguably when our mindset shifted from "following resources" and adapting to what we find, to settling down and producing what we need instead. Thus I'd assume this is where the concern of how we manage our resources became more akin what we find ourselves in now. We weren't going anywhere— we had to figure out how to keep the land from decertifying, our water from running out, etc.

codeflo 4y ago
> In those 12000 years, there's times we have have "made it" past resource shortage, but there's also times it has all come burning down. We don't always find ways past problems. Peak tin is a conspiracy theory, and everyone who worries about the Sea Peoples is a warmongering racist.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > everyone who worries about the Sea Peoples is a warmongering racist If the climate and seismic disasters which appear to have displaced the Sea Peoples hadn’t happened, isn’t it plausible that peak tin wouldn’t have happened? There was plenty of tin on Iberia and the British Isles.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

Doesn't really matter much for the majority of the BEV revolution, that is going to be LFP and Sodium Ion batteries for the vast majority of cars, especially when LFP hits 230-250 wh/kg and really especially once sodium ion hits 200 wh/kg. Cobalt/Nickel chemistries will be for luxury cars, long range vehicles, tractor trailers, until the sulfur chemistries take over in probably 5-8 years (although I hope a lot sooner). So this is kind of good news, but really isn't the meat of the BEV revolution.

ObviousHumanGPT 4y ago
CATL's 210Wh/kg LMFP cells are already in volume production for a major automotive customer. I would expect that customer to disclose shipping product in a March investor event.
- pfdietz 4y ago
  Hmm. Who has an investor day on March 1? I wonder...
  - ObviousHumanGPT 4y ago
    I don't want to call out certain antisocial twits by name. The 350 mile LFP car is probably already in production in a Shanghai factory if you can still stomach giving him money...
- AtlasBarfed 4y ago
  The 200-215 wh/kg LF*P chems are in mass production! 160 wh/kg sodium ion this year as well! I was referring to their roadmap chemistries that they are next targeting for mass production, that will likely underlie what I call the "third phase" of BEVs. The first was the earlier prototypes and Model S/X era of Tesla. The Model 3 heralded the second phase, where most carmakers actually started trying at BEV products. Third phase is where the ICE cannot compete pricewise and BEVs are the clear choice when buying a new car. 200-210 wh/kg should do 400 mile cars if they have to . the 160 wh/kg sodium ion though, that should be a 200-300 mile car, eventually drop to $40/kwh... that will be the city car revolution, a technology for several billion BEVs. Exciting times. Of course the US government is hopelessly behind.

_hypx 4y ago

Peak oil will be "solved" by humanity moving away from oil. It is not solved by drilling for more oil, even though it allows for a temporary reprieve. My personal opinion will be that shortages on battery related materials will be solved by going to hydrogen cars. Replace a finite resource with a practically infinite one.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> personal opinion will be that shortages on battery related materials will be solved by going to hydrogen cars Fuel cells often use platinum (anode) and nickel (cathode).
- _hypx 4y ago
  Those are not necessary. Solid oxide fuel cells use neither. In the long run, PEM fuel cells likely will use neither too, or very little (on the order of grams per fuel cell).
  - pfdietz 4y ago
    SOFCs use zirconium or cerium as well as nickel conductors. To be efficient, they need to be the topping cycle of a combustion turbine, so they also need strong turbine blade alloys, which involve nickel.
    - _hypx 4y ago
      None of these materials are really that limited. Not even nickel at the scale you’re imagining them to be. Remember, we’re looking at grams of such things, and they can easy be swapped out with some other material. Also, you do not need a combustion turbine at all. You can envision fuel cells with near 100% efficiency in the long run.
      - pfdietz 4y ago
        If these materials aren't limited, neither are the ones for batteries, so why do you imagine these supposed limitations will be solved by going to hydrogen cars?