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It's a matter of scale. A Tesla has about 8kg of lithium. My Honda Fit has burned about 5000 gallons of gasoline over 150k miles. That means, in order to run my
by foxyv 3y ago
It's a matter of scale. A Tesla has about 8kg of lithium. My Honda Fit has burned about 5000 gallons of gasoline over 150k miles. That means, in order to run my little passenger car they needed to mine/pump/drill about 33 thousand kilos of crude oil.
- ijhuygft776 3y agoHave you also looked at the production process of lithium? Quantity used of the final product isn't everything. Actual disposal method of used batteries also could be considered... I might forget other factors
- Tagbert 3y agoEV batteries are not being disposed in a landfill. The relatively few that have failed are mostly stored right now as the processes to recycle their materials are brought into production. The volumes are too low right now for a full industrial build out but pilot plants exist and can be built into full industrial recycling facilities as the need grows. https://electrek.co/2022/10/14/us-increases-ev-battery-recycling-capacity-with-new-al-facility/ https://electrek.co/2022/10/14/us-increases-ev-battery-recyc... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35513612 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35513612 https://blog.ucsusa.org/jessica-dunn/are-ev-batteries-recyclable/ https://blog.ucsusa.org/jessica-dunn/are-ev-batteries-recycl...
- foxyv 3y agoI don't expect there will be much of a disposal issue with lithium batteries. We already recycle the daylights out of them. I expect they will have a similar pattern to lead acid batteries. https://www.epa.gov/hw/lithium-ion-battery-recycling#:~:text=Although%20innovations%20are%20happening%20quickly,based%20leaching%20process%20(hydrometallurgy) https://www.epa.gov/hw/lithium-ion-battery-recycling#:~:text....
- legitster 3y agoThat's not quite equivalent though. It takes about 400kg of ore to create 1 kg of lithium. You're also not factoring in the resources to create/transmit the electricity for the Tesla which would be factored into the gas for the Fit.
- Tagbert 3y agoOr the resources to drill, extract, refine, distribute, and deliver the gasoline, hunh?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- foxyv 3y agoThat's true, which is probably why they said 535x instead of 4125x.
- legitster 3y agoIf you go look at the report they are citing, the could tell that it's only a measure of processed materials.
- foxyv 3y agoTo produce 8kg of lithium you would need to mine about 100kg of Spodumene. Spodumene is about 6% of the mined ore in the top ten lithium mines meaning you will need to mine about 1700kg of material. This means that you will need to pump roughly 20x as much oil as raw rock from a lithium mine to run a Honda Fit instead of a Tesla. However, after the lifespan of a vehicle, you will then start recycling. You will get the lithium back, but the oil will need to be pumped again and again. This is only automotive too. This isn't including grid scale power generation.