Net Zero

[vk6zgo]

Sorry, but that just is not true, not only is there a higher number of minerals used in EV cars over those used in ICE cars, the quantities being used of what are rare minerals is simply staggering and experts around the world are warning us, if we can be bothered to listen to them (shades of Brexit here where the experts were denied the oxygen to put forward their case, and the politicians and the MSM came up with the catchphrase of "Project Fear"), are saying that we currently do not have enough resources of Lithium for example, to last a decade if half the worlds vehicles are EV by 2030. If that is true, then we shall have well and truly shot ourselves in both feet.

Natural abundance (crustal) on earth, by mass:

Copper 50 ppm
Neodymium 38 ppm
Lithium 20 ppm
Cobalt 20 ppm
Lead 14 ppm
Samarium 7.2 ppm
Tin 2.2 ppm
Tantalum 2 ppm

Lithium has so far had relatively minor industrial use, whereas we've been using lead since roman times, and the amount of copper and tin we've got through since the bronze age must be breath taking. So, the narrative that EVs use vast quantities of "rare" minerals compared to ICE vehicles, or any other of a million industrial processes is false.

The only reason that we do not currently have enough developed sources of lithium at the moment is that there has been little historic demand for lithium. There clearly is much much higher demand now, and the money is flowing to develop the supply chain. Developing markets starting out with constrained supply and high demand is economics 101 as to how those markets get developed.

How much of these minerals are buried at the bottom of the oceans, when there are many parts of the sea bed that are simply too deep even to be properly mapped. Making extraction almost impossible, that could explain why many of the world's experts are declaring that we only have enough to last approximately a decade. EV's need them in such huge volumes per car, we will be using up the natural resources at an alarming rate, bringing forward the destruction of the planet, rather than reducing the amount of current consumption.

Lithium isn't at "the bottom of the ocean".
Maybe it was, millions of years ago!
In 2021 Australia supplied 46%=of the world's total supply of Lithium.

[Specmaster]

How much of these minerals are buried at the bottom of the oceans, when there are many parts of the sea bed that are simply too deep even to be properly mapped. Making extraction almost impossible, that could explain why many of the world's experts are declaring that we only have enough to last approximately a decade. EV's need them in such huge volumes per car, we will be using up the natural resources at an alarming rate, bringing forward the destruction of the planet, rather than reducing the amount of current consumption.

Lithium isn't at "the bottom of the ocean".
Maybe it was, millions of years ago!
In 2021 Australia supplied 46%=of the world's total supply of Lithium.

Yes, I agree that the Lithium deposits that we know about are not at the bottom of the ocean, but the point still remains that the experts are warning that at the current rate and the planned rate of usage to get to a point where a significant amount of the cars in the world are EVs by 2030, we will then have about a decades supply left. I was asking, how much of the minerals in Cerebus's list were located beneath the ocean? Nobody knows that answer, but if it is, it might prove to be impossible to extract.

Two things we do know about is that we are running out of Copper and Lithium, and looking at that chart, a EV car is going to use over twice the amount of Copper that a ICE car does. Copper currently not so bad as we can recycle it and the amount of thefts of large EV rapid charging cables and signal cables from railways, being stolen around the UK are witness to that as they are sold for scrap. Lithium I don't know if we can recycle that, I think that is another problem we have to solve is how can we safely recycle and dispose of old EV batteries?

[Specmaster]

This video was shot 29th April last year in Paris and highlights just how volatile EV vehicles are when things go wrong. Luckily someone was making a video of these EV buses when one decided to erupt, inside 2 minutes it was a complete write-off.

I sure would hate to be a passenger on a bus when that happens, luckily the bus was stationary and empty when that took place, incidents like this are rare but it also clearly demonstrates the reason why such vehicles are banned from the building where BD lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-yN8SugWM

[Cerebus]

How much of these minerals are buried at the bottom of the oceans, when there are many parts of the sea bed that are simply too deep even to be properly mapped. Making extraction almost impossible, that could explain why many of the world's experts are declaring that we only have enough to last approximately a decade. EV's need them in such huge volumes per car, we will be using up the natural resources at an alarming rate, bringing forward the destruction of the planet, rather than reducing the amount of current consumption.

You're making handwaving appeals to "experts" without even quoting them or their bona-fides. I bet most the the "experts" in the You Tube videos you're addicted to have never lifted a geology textbook. Much of what is now commonly extracted, we're taking here about all minerals, was once thought to be inaccessible or uneconomic to extract. You're arguing that resources which are underwater are inaccessible, while quietly ignoring that a lot of the lifeblood of your alternative of continuing with ICE and CO2 pollution, oil, is precisely extracted out of seabeds - a practice that was once unrealistic and uneconomic.

Lithium is neither particularly hard to find, or extract, it's just that until now there was little demand and so the sources are undeveloped. There's even a clue in the element's name that it's commonly found in many rocks - "Lithium" as in the latin "Lithos" - rock. Ironically one of the easiest to exploit sources of lithium is the brine that comes out of some oilfields along with the oil, the same brine is also found in underground deposits without the oil. If you don't believe me check out the British Geological Survey's map of known major deposits, only a few of which are currently being exploited (none of which are underwater by the way): https://www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/downl ... V4CMYK.pdf Also note that the resources shown on that map are liberally distributed worldwide in Europe, the Americas, Asia, Africa, not just in third world countries with tinpot dictators and dubious human rights records. There are even significant deposits in England, Ireland and Scotland.

Check out the history of oil exploration and exploitation. Prior to the advent of the motor car world oil production was minuscule compared to now (in the first decade of last century the well known oil giant Austria was the world's third largest producer) and only the most easily exploited sources of oil were in use. As demand grew with the wide adoption of petroleum fuelled motor transport then resources that were previously undiscovered were sought out, and as the use of petroleum became ubiquitous resources that were known about, but previously considered uneconomic, were exploited because the cost of doing so was now worthwhile. Lithium production is currently constrained because it is in the relatively early part of the demand curve. Every man and his dog in the mining world is currently either searching for unexploited lithium deposits, or developing mines and extraction facilities where there are known major deposits.

[tggzzz]

This video was shot 29th April last year in Paris and highlights just how volatile EV vehicles are when things go wrong. Luckily someone was making a video of these EV buses when one decided to erupt, inside 2 minutes it was a complete write-off.

I sure would hate to be a passenger on a bus when that happens, luckily the bus was stationary and empty when that took place, incidents like this are rare but it also clearly demonstrates the reason why such vehicles are banned from the building where BD lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-yN8SugWM

I wonder what that stuff raining down was. On the ground it looks like a liquid that evaporates very quickly, but that could be a camera artefact.

As for the bans on EVs in some buildings, yes and no....

Yes: they are unreliable and unpredictable. Whether and when they can be made reliable and predictable is TBA.

No: petrol contains similar energy and FAEs are a potential hazard, but the technologies are more mature so the risks are lower. Diesel is less volatile.

[Cerebus]

This video was shot 29th April last year in Paris and highlights just how volatile EV vehicles are when things go wrong. Luckily someone was making a video of these EV buses when one decided to erupt, inside 2 minutes it was a complete write-off.

I sure would hate to be a passenger on a bus when that happens, luckily the bus was stationary and empty when that took place, incidents like this are rare but it also clearly demonstrates the reason why such vehicles are banned from the building where BD lives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5r-yN8SugWM

And, for balance, a flaming Skoda. I would sure hate to be a passenger in one of those ICE vehicles when that happens.



And a diesel London Routemaster, burning much more vigorously than the bus in your video:

Vehicles catch fire sometimes. It doesn't matter whether they are EVs or ICE, they all burn.

If you want to be taken seriously make serious arguments, don't just post predictable 'bad' talking points that have been done to death a thousand times by stick in the muds who don't want their belovéd ICE vehicles taken away from them.

[Cerebus]

I wonder what that stuff raining down was.

The electrolyte in many Li battery chemistries is organic, volatile and flammable. Ironically the major fire hazard with them is not the lithium, as many people think, but the electrolyte in much the same way as petrol is.

[tggzzz]

I wonder what that stuff raining down was.

The electrolyte in many Li battery chemistries is organic, volatile and flammable. Ironically the major fire hazard with them is not the lithium, as many people think, but the electrolyte in much the same way as petrol is.

I'm not sure it is quite as simple as that.

Adding moisture to petrol/diesel doesn't cause a fire, whereas lithium plus moisture is worse than a RIFA plus moisture

[Specmaster]

And a diesel London Routemaster, burning much more vigorously than the bus in your video:

Vehicles catch fire sometimes. It doesn't matter whether they are EVs or ICE, they all burn.

If you want to be taken seriously make serious arguments, don't just post predictable 'bad' talking points that have been done to death a thousand times by stick in the muds who don't want their belovéd ICE vehicles taken away from them.

I don't know how many times I have to say it so that you can remember it, but I don't have any objection to EV vehicles as a concept, can we at least acknowledge that?

You are just twisting everything and making up your own script. The experts I refer to are not "You Tubers" but are the ones writing the scientific reports.

What I'm saying is that they are not suitable for everyone because they need more work to make them capable of being a direct replacement in terms of capability, and they cost a lot more and the required infrastructure is a long way from being ideal.

My car is almost 10 years old and is capable of getting me to Lincoln and back on a single tank of fuel (260 miles) not just once on a good day but 2.5 times, 630 miles in about 18 hours, none stop if required. A further 5 minutes to fill the tank again, and it is ready to do it all again, something that a pure EV car could not do.

As a city car, yes they are a serious possibility if your usage is to and from work in the city and shopping trips as you might be able to charge them at work or while shopping and, if you have the means, at home overnight.

That routemaster is not burning anywhere near as fierce as the EV bus was. The video showed the bus was already well alight before the video was started, and the fire brigade had time to arrive and were already spraying water on it, and they take time to be called, arrive and deploy. No sign of any fire brigade in the EV incident, so not comparable at all, is it?

I don't live in a large city and I need to have the ability to do journeys to places like RAF Fairford, RAF Waddington, RAF Lakenheath, RAF Marham, RAF Coningsby and return home again the same day, which I can do that comfortably with an ICE car. If I had an EV, I doubt that many of those trips could be completed in a day given the current state of development of both the cars and infrastructure. YMMV.

[mnementh]

mnem
*beginning to feel my own little EV project is cursed*

[Specmaster]

Stop eating my popcorn will ya

[Cerebus]

I wonder what that stuff raining down was.

The electrolyte in many Li battery chemistries is organic, volatile and flammable. Ironically the major fire hazard with them is not the lithium, as many people think, but the electrolyte in much the same way as petrol is.

I'm not sure it is quite as simple as that.

Adding moisture to petrol/diesel doesn't cause a fire, whereas lithium plus moisture is worse than a RIFA plus moisture

You do know that's it's not metallic lithium sitting in those batteries? If, and that's a very big if, I've got my electrochemistry right, the lithium in a fully charged battery is actually held as intercalated lithium carbide at the anode and when the battery is discharged as lithium cobalt oxide at the cathode. The assumption here is obviously a lithium cobalt chemistry, not one of the many others. Electrochemistry makes my head hurt, doubly so when it involves batteries, so this should NOT be taken as a definitive statement of fact, save for the fact it is not metallic lithium (ready to violently react with water) that one finds in a lithium battery but lithium compounds.

You could open up a fully charged lithium ion battery to the air and it's not going to spontaneously catch fire from absorbing water vapour. The flammable bit, in first instance, is the organic electrolyte. Then as things get hotter it's the carbon, then if it gets hot enough it's the various metals (mostly aluminium and perhaps some copper). The initiator of fire in lithium batteries is the same as in, say, lead acid batteries, the stored charge heating something to incandescence, the significant difference being that lead acid batteries are not themselves flammable, and they are a deal more resistant to puncture and thermal runaway; but as anyone who has been careless with a spanner near the electrodes can tell you they are more than capable of providing the heat to start a fire from the stored electrical energy.

[Cerebus]

You are just twisting everything and making up your own script. The experts I refer to are not "You Tubers" but are the ones writing the scientific reports.

At least it is MY script, not just parroting what I've picked up from (heavily slanted) You Tube videos that confirm my biases, and I strongly refute that I am twisting anything, merely providing a counterbalance to the clearly misleading slanted "facts" you're allowing yourself to be fed with.

Again, "experts". So you've read (or even spoken to) these experts at source have you? You're not quoting third or fourth hand from You Tube videos? It's a huge red sign when some says "experts say" and doesn't quote primary sources. Anecdote is not evidence, neither is hear-say. All you've provided in the way of 'expert' evidence is hear-say, literally. You are telling us that you've heard it said that "experts say". Provide some actual citations, of actual experts with verifiable expertise, in actual scientific publications, otherwise you're just spouting someone else's talking points.

Case in point. You say that experts say EVs require massive amounts of "rare" minerals. I point out that they aren't rare, using standard CRC Handbook of Chemistry data for these "rare" minerals along with the figures for minerals commonly used in industry. I also point out the world wide distribution of lithium, using British Geological survey data and cite it. One of us is arguing from established facts that any reader can independently verify, the other is making handwaving "experts say" claims without naming a single source that can be checked.

[mnementh]

Stop eating my popcorn will ya

*shares*

mnem
e-popcorn has zero carbs..!

[tggzzz]

The electrolyte in many Li battery chemistries is organic, volatile and flammable. Ironically the major fire hazard with them is not the lithium, as many people think, but the electrolyte in much the same way as petrol is.

I'm not sure it is quite as simple as that.

Adding moisture to petrol/diesel doesn't cause a fire, whereas lithium plus moisture is worse than a RIFA plus moisture

You do know that's it's not metallic lithium sitting in those batteries? If, and that's a very big if, I've got my electrochemistry right, the lithium in a fully charged battery is actually held as intercalated lithium carbide at the anode and when the battery is discharged as lithium cobalt oxide at the cathode. The assumption here is obviously a lithium cobalt chemistry, not one of the many others. Electrochemistry makes my head hurt, doubly so when it involves batteries, so this should NOT be taken as a definitive statement of fact, save for the fact it is not metallic lithium (ready to violently react with water) that one finds in a lithium battery but lithium compounds.

You could open up a fully charged lithium ion battery to the air and it's not going to spontaneously catch fire from absorbing water vapour. The flammable bit, in first instance, is the organic electrolyte. Then as things get hotter it's the carbon, then if it gets hot enough it's the various metals (mostly aluminium and perhaps some copper). The initiator of fire in lithium batteries is the same as in, say, lead acid batteries, the stored charge heating something to incandescence, the significant difference being that lead acid batteries are not themselves flammable, and they are a deal more resistant to puncture and thermal runaway; but as anyone who has been careless with a spanner near the electrodes can tell you they are more than capable of providing the heat to start a fire from the stored electrical energy.

I bow to your superior knowledge.

Anything with stored energy can be entertaining. For battery capacity, I think the "friendly" Daily Wail / BBC unit should be "grenades" rather than anything based on SI units.

[Specmaster]

It seems that ICE cars may not be banned from being sold in the UK as originally planned, in 2030 after all as there is hushed whispers around that the infrastructure will not be ready in time, nothing new there, we still don't have all the required infrastructure at the ports for imports and exports

It is looking likely to be rolled back to 2035, but there are now moves afoot to ramp up production of "e" fuels which will burn happily in all existing ICE vehicles including an "e" diesel, which because the production takes CO2 from the atmosphere, the CO2 emitted at the tail pipe is already carbon-neutral, so it might mean that the future could well be much the same as now, with EV and ICE side by side and people will be able to choose which suits them the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sUug1kfNps

Edit: Toyota are pushing Hydrogen power as is our own JCB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R44denxWmzE&t=399s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6_qAta3Gk8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxtxZY45RMM&t=5s

[tggzzz]

It seems that ICE cars may not be banned from being sold in the UK as originally planned, in 2030 after all as there is hushed whispers around that the infrastructure will not be ready in time, nothing new there, we still don't have all the required infrastructure at the ports for imports and exports

It is looking likely to be rolled back to 2035, but there are now moves afoot to ramp up production of "e" fuels which will burn happily in all existing ICE vehicles including an "e" diesel, which because the production takes CO2 from the atmosphere, the CO2 emitted at the tail pipe is already carbon-neutral, so it might mean that the future could well be much the same as now, with EV and ICE side by side and people will be able to choose which suits them the best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sUug1kfNps

Edit: Toyota are pushing Hydrogen power as is our own JCB.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R44denxWmzE&t=399s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6_qAta3Gk8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxtxZY45RMM&t=5s

For that "e diesel" to be carbon neutral, the energy used to produce it must be accounted for. I smell "greenwashing". I also rather like the cover of the latest E&T magazine, as per attachment.

Useful sanity checks from a source with a credible engineering pedigree and without axes to grind...
https://spectrum.ieee.org/collections/t ... explained/
which includes amongst other articles....

Can Power Grids Cope With Millions of EVs? Palo Alto offers a glimpse at the challenges municipalities and utilities face
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transi ... 2658463709
"At a February meeting of Palo Alto’s Utilities Advisory Commission, Tomm Marshall, assistant director of utilities, stated, “There are places even today [in the city] where we can’t even take one more heat pump without having to rebuild the portion of the [electrical distribution] system. Or we can’t even have one EV charger go in.” "
"A big problem is the 3,150 distribution transformers in the city, Marshall indicated. A 2020 electrification-impact study found that without improvements, more than 95 percent of residential transformers would be overloaded if Palo Alto hits its EV and electrical-appliance targets by 2030."
"Professor Deepak Divan, the director of the Center for Distributed Energy at Georgia Tech, says his team found that in residential areas “multiple L2 chargers on one distribution transformer can reduce its life from an expected 30 to 40 years to 3 years.” Given that most of the millions of U.S. transformers are approaching the end of their useful lives, replacing transformers soon could be a major and costly headache for utilities, assuming they can get them. "

The EV Transition Explained: Charger Infrastructure - How many, where, and who pays?
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transi ... 2658463735
"...with only about half of U.S. vehicles having reliable off-street parking at an owned residence. In addition, according to the National Association of Home Builders, some 31.4 percent (or 44 million residences) households live in multifamily dwellings (apartment buildings, condominiums, townhouses, and mixed-use developments) and may not have convenient charging options. Eliminating “charging deserts” in rural areas and cities, especially in low-income minority areas, is a priority that will need to be addressed."
"Installing DC fast chargers is expensive, and can cost upwards of $470,000 to $750,000 per fast charging station with four ports built entirely from scratch; such a charging station needs about 9 customers a day to cover its operational costs. In rural areas, that number may be very hard to meet. Studies show that it is not unusual for DC fast charging stations to lose money."


And that's enough for now!

[mnementh]

Nevertheless, for us to survive as a species, we have to stop burning shit for our energy. FULL STOP. And it needs to happen VERY VERY soon. We've been waiting for the magic bullet of science to save us for my entire adult life; there is no more time to kick it down the road. We are already past the point of no return; cracking mother Earth's bones to suck out the bituminous marrow and boiling her veins to get the precious gases for our own use.

mnem
Fossil fuels are dead. And they are death. Hydrogen is no more than a crack-dream.

[tggzzz]

Nevertheless, for us to survive as a species, we have to stop burning shit for our energy. FULL STOP. And it needs to happen VERY VERY soon. We've been waiting for the magic bullet of science to save us for my entire adult life; there is no more time to kick it down the road. We are already past the point of no return; cracking mother Earth's bones to suck out the bituminous marrow and boiling her veins to get the precious gases for our own use.

mnem
Fossil fuels are dead. And they are death. Hydrogen is no more than a crack-dream.

Indeed.

But wishing the numbers (financial, technical) added up is a politician's answer response to a serious problem. We need to work out exactly how they will add up; then we can implement solutions that will work.

"Numbers, not adjectives" is the rallying cry.

[Specmaster]

Nevertheless, for us to survive as a species, we have to stop burning shit for our energy. FULL STOP. And it needs to happen VERY VERY soon. We've been waiting for the magic bullet of science to save us for my entire adult life; there is no more time to kick it down the road. We are already past the point of no return; cracking mother Earth's bones to suck out the bituminous marrow and boiling her veins to get the precious gases for our own use.

mnem
Fossil fuels are dead. And they are death. Hydrogen is no more than a crack-dream.

Well, I'm inclined to agree with you, we do need to stop burning shit, but I doubt that the current way is the correct solution. While we are waiting for that "magic bullet" we could be doing so much more common sense things, I mean it can't be denied that Lithium mining itself is possibly more damaging to the planet with its vast water usage, in areas that are already water challenged, its waste products, its toxicity and the spoils are radioactive to say nothing about the conditions that the miners have to work in.

I think we need to limit the engine size of vehicles, make them use less fuel per mile and also fit scrubbers to the tailpipe to filter out the harmful emissions. Do we really need all of these big block V8s, V12s, do we really need to have cars capable of 0-62mph in sub 5 seconds, do we need cars are capable of doing 150mph plus?? There are very few places on earth where you could use that kind of speed!

What we need are cars designed for the modern age where there are increased number of cars on the road and less open spaces, so pure speed and huge engines are really nothing more than bragging points. How often do you find yourself driving along at a sensible speed for the conditions, and you get overtaken by some clown in the high performance car only find them a few minutes down the road, sitting at traffic lights, or on the tail end of a traffic jam etc, all they have done is wasted fuel, they have got zero benefit from their car.

If we reduce the amount of "shit" being burned, that in itself will do more good for everyone.

[mnementh]

IIRC, it was my insistence in TEA That Was that we needed to reclassify all such vehicles to "Toy" status, such that they are not being used as daily drivers, was what got AVGresponding so pissed off at me that he put me on /ignore. But that is at best only a tiny part of the solution...

Even attempting to make alternative combustibles a mainstream thing is literally just digging our graves even faster; those so-called leaders will use it as an excuse to kick the toxic waste barrel down the road for another generation. Our generation is responsible for the majority of this current level of horror... we need to take ownership of that and do what needs to be done while we're still here.

The only sources of energy that don't carry that quadruple-threat of burning stuff for our energy are hydro, solar, wind and nuclear. But they all take something away from the privileged few for the good of the many, on top of making the current paradigm redundant. We can't have that, can we...?

mnem

[Specmaster]

Fossil fuels may not be dead after all, the EU has already passed into law that the ban on ICE cars will not now happen, it was planned for 2035. This will undoubtably put pressure on the UK to do the same and cancel the planned 2030 banning on them. As long as the new ICE cars are capable of running on the "E" fuels, ICE vehicles will still be available to purchase new. This could also have major impacts on the ULEZ expansion and also the new City of Oxford plans to divide the city up into 6 zones with residents given only a certain number of allowances to travel into other zones, once they have used their allowances, the plans are that they would be fined £70 for each unauthorised trip across zone borders

WTF is that all about, restricting people's movements, it is beginning to look more and more like a state where people cannot move out of certain areas without special permission

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-FKKReRvLU

[Specmaster]

Is this possibly the future motive force that could save the planet?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTawvzH0MQ4

[bd139]

Selling my car in a couple of months. Problem solved for me

(need to shift all these bloody boat anchors first )

[Specmaster]

Not going to be keeping for it when you return from your adventure then.