3 ms·

Why are these studies always factor in the carbon impact of production when they are looking at technologies that are at least a decade away from mass market ad

by jupp0r 3y ago

Why are these studies always factor in the carbon impact of production when they are looking at technologies that are at least a decade away from mass market adoption? Is there any reason to assume that production/mining won't be electrified and produce zero emissions?

endisneigh 3y ago
Why would they assume something that’s not the case today?
- jupp0r 3y ago
  The study is about the potential environmental impact that these in-the-lab battery technologies would have if they were scaled up to industrial scale in the future.
PaulKeeble 3y ago
I think we need both. We need to understand how much the transition will cost in CO2 and also what the situation will look like once that is done.
ianburrell 3y ago
Instead of tracking the carbon impact of manufacturing, they should track the energy input. Or just track the overall cost. As you said, it is hard to calculate manufacturing cost, and it depends on the energy source for factory. Then can assign cost to the carbon emitted or saved, and then compare that to the overall cost.
- jupp0r 3y ago
  How do cost and energy usage play into this though? Let's say mining, refining and all industrial processes are electrified or using green hydrogen one day, electricity is really cheap, what does it matter how much costs are when everything in carbon neutral?
Qwertious 3y ago
>Is there any reason to assume that production/mining won't be electrified and produce zero emissions? Mining is done with huge vehicles that are hard to electrify due to energy-density limits of batteries and hydrogen, and also operate in a remote low-infrastructure area where there are a bunch of big vehicles moving around and ripping up the ground all over the place, making it expensive and difficult to run any direct powerlines or such. And of course, hypothetical future improvements can't be compared to a baseline of zero - they have to be compared to a baseline of no more than the alternative, the alternative here being hypothetical future ICE cars. For instance, suppose that tomorrow they invent a magic petrol-producing machine that sucks out CO2 from the air and turns it into fuel, for free - that would reduce the emissions of mining dramatically, but it would also make ICE cars near-zero net emissions. So hypothetical future improvements could be negative simply due to ICE cars improving faster. Note that I say "could" as in "it's possible", not that it's necessarily likely - ICE cars have received far more R&D money than EVs, due to having dominated the market for the last century, so they're way further ahead on the learning curve.
- defrost 3y ago
  > Mining is done with huge vehicles that are hard to electrify .. Mining is done with huge vehicles that have had electric drive trains for decades - Haul Paks (100+ tonne trucks) have electric motors driven by onboard diesel engines, shovel loaders that move from face to face and fill Haul Paks are mostly stationary and are powered by fat electric cables that pressurize on board hydraulics. Fully electric Haul Paks already exist in small numbers and are increasing in number, hydrogen powered Haul Paks are still in test (last time I checked). > and also operate in a remote low-infrastructure area where there are a bunch of big vehicles moving around and ripping up the ground all over the place, making it expensive and difficult to run any direct powerlines or such. Iron ore ares such as the Pilbara ship almost a billion tonne per annum of ore and move more than a billion tonnes of material per year; they factor building power stations adjacent to minesites into costs and have started buying entire adjacent cattle stations in order to build out solar farms for direct power and hydrogen creation. Mining processing plants are mostly electric, and have been so for 50+ years - crushers, screens, ship loaders, conveyors, etc all run from local power stations. The power stations are the key to "greening" mineral resource extraction - these are already scoped to be replaced by solar farms and generated hydrogen for overnight 24/7/365 operations. The Infinity Train project is current building (and still hiring) electric trains to recover power from transporting than near billion tonnes from 600m above sea level inland to the coastal ports. You can chase up Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals on these projects.

by jupp0r 3y ago

endisneigh 3y ago

Why would they assume something that’s not the case today?

jupp0r 3y ago
The study is about the potential environmental impact that these in-the-lab battery technologies would have if they were scaled up to industrial scale in the future.

PaulKeeble 3y ago

I think we need both. We need to understand how much the transition will cost in CO2 and also what the situation will look like once that is done.

ianburrell 3y ago

Instead of tracking the carbon impact of manufacturing, they should track the energy input. Or just track the overall cost. As you said, it is hard to calculate manufacturing cost, and it depends on the energy source for factory. Then can assign cost to the carbon emitted or saved, and then compare that to the overall cost.

jupp0r 3y ago
How do cost and energy usage play into this though? Let's say mining, refining and all industrial processes are electrified or using green hydrogen one day, electricity is really cheap, what does it matter how much costs are when everything in carbon neutral?

Qwertious 3y ago

>Is there any reason to assume that production/mining won't be electrified and produce zero emissions? Mining is done with huge vehicles that are hard to electrify due to energy-density limits of batteries and hydrogen, and also operate in a remote low-infrastructure area where there are a bunch of big vehicles moving around and ripping up the ground all over the place, making it expensive and difficult to run any direct powerlines or such. And of course, hypothetical future improvements can't be compared to a baseline of zero - they have to be compared to a baseline of no more than the alternative, the alternative here being hypothetical future ICE cars. For instance, suppose that tomorrow they invent a magic petrol-producing machine that sucks out CO2 from the air and turns it into fuel, for free - that would reduce the emissions of mining dramatically, but it would also make ICE cars near-zero net emissions. So hypothetical future improvements could be negative simply due to ICE cars improving faster. Note that I say "could" as in "it's possible", not that it's necessarily likely - ICE cars have received far more R&D money than EVs, due to having dominated the market for the last century, so they're way further ahead on the learning curve.

defrost 3y ago
> Mining is done with huge vehicles that are hard to electrify .. Mining is done with huge vehicles that have had electric drive trains for decades - Haul Paks (100+ tonne trucks) have electric motors driven by onboard diesel engines, shovel loaders that move from face to face and fill Haul Paks are mostly stationary and are powered by fat electric cables that pressurize on board hydraulics. Fully electric Haul Paks already exist in small numbers and are increasing in number, hydrogen powered Haul Paks are still in test (last time I checked). > and also operate in a remote low-infrastructure area where there are a bunch of big vehicles moving around and ripping up the ground all over the place, making it expensive and difficult to run any direct powerlines or such. Iron ore ares such as the Pilbara ship almost a billion tonne per annum of ore and move more than a billion tonnes of material per year; they factor building power stations adjacent to minesites into costs and have started buying entire adjacent cattle stations in order to build out solar farms for direct power and hydrogen creation. Mining processing plants are mostly electric, and have been so for 50+ years - crushers, screens, ship loaders, conveyors, etc all run from local power stations. The power stations are the key to "greening" mineral resource extraction - these are already scoped to be replaced by solar farms and generated hydrogen for overnight 24/7/365 operations. The Infinity Train project is current building (and still hiring) electric trains to recover power from transporting than near billion tonnes from 600m above sea level inland to the coastal ports. You can chase up Rio Tinto and Fortescue Metals on these projects.