3 ms·

Actually, when demand for EVs goes up, lithium mining won't be able to keep up, so in the next decade or so we'll see steep increase in battery prices.

hinkley 3y ago
In the next decade you will see more reliance on technology that becomes cheaper than simply throwing lithium at the problem. It's the same thing with many techs. In the 70's we thought we would run out of oil by 2000, and a lot of asshats in the 80's and 90's crowed about how stupid those so-called experts were. What happened in the 80's and 90's was ground sensing radar found more oil, horizontal drilling found ways to access more of what was there, and zeolites saw widespread use as a catalyst to increase the amount of gas and diesel recovered from a barrel of oil. And over time production of zeolites made that process work better and better. It's very much like when Apple went to non-replaceable batteries. Battery life doubled in that model because 3 different parts of the problem got improvements. Density, volume, and power management all contributed almost 30% each. Between "Oh Shit" and "Told Ya", we could produce twice as much fossil fuel as we knew how to do at the time. The same will happen with Lithium. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Replace.
- tadfisher 3y ago
  That's not what Peak Oil means, but I think you know this. The cost of oil will never return to pre-2000s levels because meeting demand necessitates more expensive extraction technologies like shale and offshore. In that sense (the correct one), the prediction of peak oil by 2000 was remarkably accurate.
  - ffhhttt 3y ago
    If you adjust by inflation oil is now cheaper than it was between 1980 and 85.
    - hinkley 3y ago
      As is food.
    - alanh 3y ago
      Isn't that cherry-picking? That was the peak of the oil crisis
xbmcuser 3y ago
Some chinese car manufacturers have already moved to sodium ion for car batteries. It is quite funny to me when people bring arguments of how electric cars won't work they are unaware the rate at which things are changing in the space. And that their arguments have been invalid in 2-3 years but they read the article from 5 years back and then never bothered to update themselves. The same is the case for solar tech.

hinkley 3y ago

In the next decade you will see more reliance on technology that becomes cheaper than simply throwing lithium at the problem. It's the same thing with many techs. In the 70's we thought we would run out of oil by 2000, and a lot of asshats in the 80's and 90's crowed about how stupid those so-called experts were. What happened in the 80's and 90's was ground sensing radar found more oil, horizontal drilling found ways to access more of what was there, and zeolites saw widespread use as a catalyst to increase the amount of gas and diesel recovered from a barrel of oil. And over time production of zeolites made that process work better and better. It's very much like when Apple went to non-replaceable batteries. Battery life doubled in that model because 3 different parts of the problem got improvements. Density, volume, and power management all contributed almost 30% each. Between "Oh Shit" and "Told Ya", we could produce twice as much fossil fuel as we knew how to do at the time. The same will happen with Lithium. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Replace.

tadfisher 3y ago
That's not what Peak Oil means, but I think you know this. The cost of oil will never return to pre-2000s levels because meeting demand necessitates more expensive extraction technologies like shale and offshore. In that sense (the correct one), the prediction of peak oil by 2000 was remarkably accurate.
- ffhhttt 3y ago
  If you adjust by inflation oil is now cheaper than it was between 1980 and 85.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    As is food.
  - alanh 3y ago
    Isn't that cherry-picking? That was the peak of the oil crisis

xbmcuser 3y ago

Some chinese car manufacturers have already moved to sodium ion for car batteries. It is quite funny to me when people bring arguments of how electric cars won't work they are unaware the rate at which things are changing in the space. And that their arguments have been invalid in 2-3 years but they read the article from 5 years back and then never bothered to update themselves. The same is the case for solar tech.