Peter GleickThe best EV ad I've seen.
Seriously, if EVs had been first to capture the car market, people would have laughed at the ICE.
YouTube
En3pY - Sebastian Zdrojewski@petergleick there is still that lack of transparency about the environmental impact on battery production and disposal. Also electricity has to be produced, so we have less engines, much bigger. Commercials are what they are (and this one is brilliant IMHO) yet... still.
Nafnlaus 🇮🇸 🇺🇦@en3py @petergleick "Yet still" what? Peer-reviewed research has *extensively* studied the lifecycle emissions of EVs, from cradle to grave. Even on current power grids (which get cleaner every year), they're like 1/3rd the environmental impact of ICE vehicles.
@nafnlaus @petergleick the emissions of a EV are clearly sustainable. Electric grids... I live in Italy, the power grids are unsustainable to manage a large amount of EVs, an upgrade plan is on the way... For 2032. In other cities in Europe still applies. Power is generated by heavy impact electric power plants, which doesn't help. Lithium batteries production is not exactly a clean process. The cost of the vehicle makes it a mid-high tier car, which means owners will change it every 2-3 year tops: what about disposal? Can we look at the entire lifecycle of a product instead of its single use?
@en3py @petergleick Long thread response.
1) #EVs are *stabilizing* to power grids. For the most part, they're highly predictable, steady loads, predominantly off-peak (no new construction needed) that respond very well to incentives to load shift.
The more desirable a load is - and EVs are very desirable loads - the easier it makes a #grid operator's job. Which, depending on the competitive environment, equals some combation of (A) higher profits, (B) greater stability, or (C) lower bills
@en3py @petergleick 2) Nobody ***throws away*** a 2-3 year old #car. It goes onto the used market. And it continues being resold on the used market until it's *broken*. Modern battery packs last hundreds of thousands of kilometers, like engines.
3) Let me be blunt here: I doubt you know a damned thing about how #battery packs are made. Made obvious by many things, including the fact that you refer to #LithiumIon batteries as "#lithium #batteries"
@en3py @petergleick ("#lithium batteries" are a completely different type of battery, non-rechargeable and usually structured as those little coin cells that you put in small #electronics)
*Everything* around you comes from somewhere. There's nothing magical about #LiIon #batteries in this regard. "Everything else" isn't summoned from the void by fairies. And studies repeatedly have established that far more damage is done in *operating* a vehicle than in making it.
@en3py @petergleick The average #ICE #vehicle burns its entire weight in #fuel every year. Up in smoke, into our breathing air - versus the vehicle itself, which is "produce once, then #recycle most of it". And the #recycleable content of #battery packs is much *more* than vehicles as a whole.
There's nothing particularly alien about what goes into li-ion battery packs. Let's go into them.
The cathodes are either (A) #iron phosphate, aka the most common industrial metal combined...
@en3py @petergleick with one of the most common industrial acids, yielding what's basically fertilizer; or (B) mixed metal oxides, where the #metals are predominantly #nickel (one of the main components of stainless #steel), with small amounts of (B1) either #alumium (the most common metal in #Earth's crust) or #manganese (the most common steel alloying agent), and (B2) #cobalt (used in tool steels and #oil refining, among other things; on its way out, as it's the most expensive of the metals).
@en3py @petergleick The anodes are #graphite (like pencils - just pure carbon), either natural or synthetic.
Both electrodes are entirely inert / insoluble, which is kind of the whole point of them. E.g. another term for "mixed metal oxides" would be "rocks", as that's what most rocks are.
The electrolytes are mainly organic carbonates. Fairly typical #solvents. Petrochemical products.
The separator membranes are #plastic (aka, also petrochemical products).
@en3py @petergleick
The anode current collectors are copper foil. The amount of #copper used will never remotely compare to the amount used for other things.
The cathode current collectors are #alumium foil. Just a higher-grade version of what you use in the kitchen.
The casing is #steel.
Everything else is in tiny quantities, such as various electrolyte additives and #lithium. Since the focus is usually on Li, let's go into that.
Lithium is a light metal usually found as salts...
@en3py @petergleick .., such as lithium chloride, which is only about ~4x more toxic than table salt (sodium chloride), are neuroprotective and commonly found naturally in mineral water), and comprises only 1-3% of the mass of a battery. Contrary to popular myth, #lithium is abundant, with no shortage of known resources. Even with minimal exploration, #Nevada alone has enough to convert every single vehicle in the #USA, and then some. The oceans contain enough for many *quadrillions* of #EVs.
@en3py @petergleick The only reason we don't produce from seawater is that land resources are so abundant and cheap. The primary constraint on lithium production is *refining*, of which there's currently a shortage.
#Lithium is produced in two main ways plus a couple others, and there's a lot of face-palmingly bad articles out there from people who don't know a damned thing about what they're talking about, so let me go into them.
1) Salar. Until the mid 2010s this was the primary resource.
@en3py @petergleick Salars are places where there's brine (saltwater) underneath a salt crust - usually basins with no outlet that get annual floods. Brine (non-potable, useless for agriculture) is pumped up to the surface into evaporation ponds, concentrating the salts and causing less soluble salts to drop out of solution, one at a time. The remaining #lithium solution is sent in for refining, and the other salts are also industrially desirable and are sold as well.
@en3py @petergleick No freshwater is used in the production process, except for the drinking/cleaning needs of the production staff. Relatively minor amounts are used in refining, and refining can be done anywhere. Salar floods basically erase past operations, turning surface salt back into brine. Unlike the impacts of producing virtually everything around you (look aroud), environmental impacts from salar #lithium production are generally minimal to none. For example, the most serious...
@en3py @petergleick ...thing SQM has ever been cited for, for example, was the death of a dozen or so carob trees (they have to monitor every single carob tree in the area; they actually tolerate saltwater).
2) #Spodumene. This has taken over from salar #lithium. Spodumene is found in #volcanic rock, and is commonly found in high concentrations - at Greenbushes (in #Australia) it can be up to 50% of the mass of the rock in places! This, combined with how little lithium is needed, makes these..
@en3py @petergleick ...relatively small (by mine standards, at least) - the biggest being Greenbushes, which really isn't that big, but produces a sizable chunk of all the spodumene #lithium on #Earth. It's fairly straightforward hard-rock mining, with no association with heavy metals or acid drainage, with the primary risk only being that associated with all hard rock mining (#silt).
3) #Clay. This new resource is rather minor at present, but is expected to grow to become the dominant...
@en3py @petergleick ....resource over time, as the amount available is truly staggering. It's right what it says on the tin: clay. You just dig it up, leech out the salts (including the #lithium) for refining, if #acids are used for the leach then a neutralization stage (though acids are not always used - #Tesla's approach uses table #salt and grinding instead) then put the clay back.
4) Other minor resources: for example, lithium recovered from #geothermal waters or old #oil wells.
@en3py @petergleick Again: NOTHING around you is just summoned from the void. #ICE #vehicles, unlike #EVs, actually contain actually rare metals, like #platinum. #Steel itself is full of semi-exotic alloying agents, and *its* production process isn't exactly the epitome of cleanliness. But it all pales compared to the impact of the truly insane amounts of #oil we produce, which is a readily leaked, neurotoxic carcinogenic liquid.
End of thread.
@nafnlaus @petergleick that's plenty of knowledge (and you should write down a paper on that). Do you have any link about all of the above to deep dive into it?
Sérgio Machado
Elias Fox