3 ms·

4 billion tonnes of coal mined per year. 2021 produced 50 thousand tons of pure lithium. Coal gets used ONCE, lithium stores energy thousands of times before

4 billion tonnes of coal mined per year. 2021 produced 50 thousand tons of pure lithium. Coal gets used ONCE, lithium stores energy thousands of times before recycling to do it again. This kind of context is important before whatabouting.

defrost 3y ago
Coal has peaked, is on a plateau, and will decline and continue so, according to the IEA. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 Lithium, Copper, Nickel, and a slew of other minerals and elements are on the increase and have some serious waste products. The comparison here is to > Good thing nothing like that ever happens with nuclear. (with implied /s) with the rational response that all resources come with a downside. This kind of context is important before whatabouting. You've whatabout'd by dragging in coal.
- flir 3y ago
  Lets try rephrasing it. Given that we need about 580m terajoules (source https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/energy/global-energy-consumption https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/ene...) what's the least worst way of achieving that? Mixed, obviously, and different mixes in different parts of the world, but what should be our first-choice energy source? Assume fusion's off the table for now, lets stick with things that already exist. My gut feeling is that wind, with its primarily local ecological impacts that are able to be minimised with careful placement and design, is a strong candidate for least-worst solution. The catastrophic failure mode of a wind farm does a lot less damage than the catastrohopic failure mode of a nuclear reactor, for a start. I do realise a lot of that wind power is probably going to end up in batteries (I'm hopeful for StEnSEA, but like fusion it's a bit Real Soon Now).
  - defrost 3y ago
    Regardless of our personal positions and feelings on nuclear it's going ahead and will persist as a global low continuous baseload provider; South Korea is building more, China is building more, both at home and globally. In a very real sense to date the actual catastrophic failure modes of nuclear haven't been that bad on a realistic industrial scale. Chernobyl persists as a bad place to dig into the soil if you're a Russian soldier commanded to do dumb things, as a large area nature reserve the case could be made that it has been a positive for non human animals. The events at the Fukishima nuclear plant had few actual direct deaths, as an incident embedded within the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that directly caused 19,759 deaths, 6,242 injured, and 2,553 people missing it would fade from sight were it not for the evacuations and containment costs. The areas evacuated are already allowing returns to much of the region, the containment costs are the kinds of things that can be mitigated with engineering on future projects. I'm no great fan of nuclear but pragmatically designs and safety have improved over the decades and actual deaths and casualties look small compared to deaths in conventional resource mining and industrial accidents such as the Bhopal disaster (500,000 people exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate). Sure, let's go with as much wind and solar as we can, let's have battery farms, green gas production, overnight thermal energy storage in sodium salts, etc. But let us also pay attention to the costs of "green energy" - the ramp up to meet the current fossil fuel power creation levels will drastically ramp up toxic waste byproducts from nickel|copper mining, litium for batteries, rare eath processing, etc. We are in a looming CO2 crisis that is worse for being kicked down the road since the 1970s when eraly action could have been taken. Let's not blindly walk into another e-waste crisis by greenwashing away the real issues that come with new energy sources.
- jnsaff2 3y ago
  Also from IAE https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V?format=png&name=900x900 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V?format=png&name=... Coal might have peaked but it has an insanely long way down. Mining waste problems need to be dealt with but they are localized and can be cleaned up afterwards. Climate change is neither.
  - defrost 3y ago
    > Mining waste problems need to be dealt with but they are localized and can be cleaned up afterwards. Right .. like recycling in the USofA - greenwashing. Just be self aware about advocating to continuing to kick a can down the road and admit to yourself at least that you have no intention of being bothered by mining waste. I'm glad to see the back of coal, but were it not for the associated C02 emmissions I would much prefer to live within 20 km of (say) the Muja coal | power site than (say) Lynas Malaysia, Kuantan. Nickel | Copper mining in Sudbury and nearby generates more than 650 million tonnes of tailings every year from 200 operations along with about 10,000 abandoned mines that are "managed" by the Canadian government. "Managed" is essentially a euphermism for "not actively dealt with". Mine remediation has a long way to go in countries such as Canda and Australia and the majority of sites with problems are elsewhere and out of sight out of mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muja_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muja_Power_Station https://aidwatch.org.au/stop-lynas/ https://aidwatch.org.au/stop-lynas/ "Can be cleaned up afterwards" is very different from "Will be cleaned up". > Also from IAE https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V Seriously? Not sure what point you're attempting to make with an graphic that lacks context and in any case supports my point that solar related waste will be rising seemingly "expontentially" along with solar. If you're serious about understanding global energy and mineral resources I advise you to look at presentations that put total usage and transitions in the same picture - coal has a long way to fall to zero and solar has a long way to go to replace. I'd also reiterate that I care about the issues here that come along with energy transitions - I'm not advocating for any one over another.

defrost 3y ago

Coal has peaked, is on a plateau, and will decline and continue so, according to the IEA. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38652273 Lithium, Copper, Nickel, and a slew of other minerals and elements are on the increase and have some serious waste products. The comparison here is to > Good thing nothing like that ever happens with nuclear. (with implied /s) with the rational response that all resources come with a downside. This kind of context is important before whatabouting. You've whatabout'd by dragging in coal.

flir 3y ago
Lets try rephrasing it. Given that we need about 580m terajoules (source https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/energy/global-energy-consumption https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/climate-change/ene...) what's the least worst way of achieving that? Mixed, obviously, and different mixes in different parts of the world, but what should be our first-choice energy source? Assume fusion's off the table for now, lets stick with things that already exist. My gut feeling is that wind, with its primarily local ecological impacts that are able to be minimised with careful placement and design, is a strong candidate for least-worst solution. The catastrophic failure mode of a wind farm does a lot less damage than the catastrohopic failure mode of a nuclear reactor, for a start. I do realise a lot of that wind power is probably going to end up in batteries (I'm hopeful for StEnSEA, but like fusion it's a bit Real Soon Now).
- defrost 3y ago
  Regardless of our personal positions and feelings on nuclear it's going ahead and will persist as a global low continuous baseload provider; South Korea is building more, China is building more, both at home and globally. In a very real sense to date the actual catastrophic failure modes of nuclear haven't been that bad on a realistic industrial scale. Chernobyl persists as a bad place to dig into the soil if you're a Russian soldier commanded to do dumb things, as a large area nature reserve the case could be made that it has been a positive for non human animals. The events at the Fukishima nuclear plant had few actual direct deaths, as an incident embedded within the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that directly caused 19,759 deaths, 6,242 injured, and 2,553 people missing it would fade from sight were it not for the evacuations and containment costs. The areas evacuated are already allowing returns to much of the region, the containment costs are the kinds of things that can be mitigated with engineering on future projects. I'm no great fan of nuclear but pragmatically designs and safety have improved over the decades and actual deaths and casualties look small compared to deaths in conventional resource mining and industrial accidents such as the Bhopal disaster (500,000 people exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate). Sure, let's go with as much wind and solar as we can, let's have battery farms, green gas production, overnight thermal energy storage in sodium salts, etc. But let us also pay attention to the costs of "green energy" - the ramp up to meet the current fossil fuel power creation levels will drastically ramp up toxic waste byproducts from nickel|copper mining, litium for batteries, rare eath processing, etc. We are in a looming CO2 crisis that is worse for being kicked down the road since the 1970s when eraly action could have been taken. Let's not blindly walk into another e-waste crisis by greenwashing away the real issues that come with new energy sources.
jnsaff2 3y ago
Also from IAE https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V?format=png&name=900x900 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V?format=png&name=... Coal might have peaked but it has an insanely long way down. Mining waste problems need to be dealt with but they are localized and can be cleaned up afterwards. Climate change is neither.
- defrost 3y ago
  > Mining waste problems need to be dealt with but they are localized and can be cleaned up afterwards. Right .. like recycling in the USofA - greenwashing. Just be self aware about advocating to continuing to kick a can down the road and admit to yourself at least that you have no intention of being bothered by mining waste. I'm glad to see the back of coal, but were it not for the associated C02 emmissions I would much prefer to live within 20 km of (say) the Muja coal | power site than (say) Lynas Malaysia, Kuantan. Nickel | Copper mining in Sudbury and nearby generates more than 650 million tonnes of tailings every year from 200 operations along with about 10,000 abandoned mines that are "managed" by the Canadian government. "Managed" is essentially a euphermism for "not actively dealt with". Mine remediation has a long way to go in countries such as Canda and Australia and the majority of sites with problems are elsewhere and out of sight out of mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muja_Power_Station https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muja_Power_Station https://aidwatch.org.au/stop-lynas/ https://aidwatch.org.au/stop-lynas/ "Can be cleaned up afterwards" is very different from "Will be cleaned up". > Also from IAE https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FpLhuguXsA8YE8V Seriously? Not sure what point you're attempting to make with an graphic that lacks context and in any case supports my point that solar related waste will be rising seemingly "expontentially" along with solar. If you're serious about understanding global energy and mineral resources I advise you to look at presentations that put total usage and transitions in the same picture - coal has a long way to fall to zero and solar has a long way to go to replace. I'd also reiterate that I care about the issues here that come along with energy transitions - I'm not advocating for any one over another.