pmbydesign
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
StephaneWithAnE@petergleick It's a great one. Look at the one YouTube recommended me after :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn__9hLJKAk
Nissan LEAF: Gas Powered Everything commercial
Tony Weddle@petergleick Maybe, but we'd still have multiple environmental predicaments.
/C\a/r\l/o\s/@petergleick Excellent commercial.
Erik Szewczyk 
@petergleick This is such a great ad, and would be so much better today with the current market offerings (the early LEAFs were a bit rubbish).
I'm on my 3rd EV and completely agree on the comparison with ICE...it's like comparing ICE to a horse drawn carriage, sure there are some things that I enjoy (noise) but it's a much worse experience overall (shoveling shit)
Rob Hooft@petergleick I dan’t have an EV myself yet (hard story to tell why) but I frequently imagine the complaints in a world in which the ICE would try to replace EV after 125 years: “you mean you can’t charge at home but always need to go to a special shop to buy energy?”
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
Chris Young@petergleick I went to a gas museum many years ago, and they had a room filled with weird things which ran on gas. I don't really remember much about it, but there was definitely a gas powered radio!
I'm British, so I'm referring to proper gas (probably "town" rather than natural though), not petrol.
Alanna 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️@petergleick The history of electric vehicles is fascinating. EV were apparently sold until the mid 1930's and used in some commercial settings (Milk floats, laundry vans, bakery vans until the 1990s). It is interesting how ICE took over so entirely.
Luk@petergleick @charlesrandall 11 years ago 😳
Charles Randall@Luk @petergleick yeah. would have been nice if this kind of messaging made more of an impact back then, maybe we'd have managed to make a more impactful switch to electric cars in time for it to make any difference at all to the climate.
WWeiss53@petergleick
Figured you'd just leaf it right there eh?
Figured you'd just leaf it right there eh?
Dr Richard Erskine@petergleick absolutely brilliant!
♾️ Roko's Apprentice ♾️@petergleick Great commercial. Somewhat related, somewhat unrelated: we drove by a car accident the other day between a Nissan Leaf and an Acura MDX. The leaf had rear-ended the Acura and it’s entire front was obliterated; the Acura had barely a scratch. Probably the first time I was made consciously aware of how lighter materials might fare more poorly than heavier ones when it comes to passenger safety.
Tim Foster@quinticben @petergleick How was the passenger compartment?
If it was intact, I'd say that was a success. As far as I know, for frontal impacts, the car is designed to fold up, to protect occupants.
(can't do that to thesame degree for rear impacts because that's where the petrol tank is in ICE cars)
@timfoster @petergleick Intact passenger compartment! Yep I've learned that crumpling is actually good (better?) for safety.
Nathan Schneider@petergleick I love the dig at the hybrid chevy volt at the end.
I love the Leaf but my goodness I wish it had CCS.
lauowolf@petergleick This is lovely!
Craig Morris@petergleick EVs did dominate the market until electric starters were rolled out starting in 1912.
Larry Garfield@petergleick EVs did come out about the same time as gas. But the early versions didn't have the same range, and weren't macho enough (no need for big strong men to pull a crank), so relegated to "women's cars" where they died off.
Jim Brobeck@petergleick Automotive pollution is not limited to tailpipes. Some E-SUVs are heavier than gas powered and produce more tire wear. The wear and tear of tires and brake pads leave behind huge amounts of these tiny pieces of plastic. Previous studies have found that tire abrasion is one of the most significant sources globally of microplastics in aquatic ecosystems, and is responsible for an estimated 30 percent of all the microplastic particles in our oceans.
Max@petergleick @leadegroot I like to point out that historic documentation even points out this was the case. The 19th and early 20th century EV owners thought ICE ridiculous, dangerous, and unreliable. “Range anxiety” originally came from ICE owners who had no idea where the next druggist would be to supply them gas. AAA was partly founded on ICE range anxiety.
ICE captured the market despite being laughed at initially and only seems reliable in a country saturated with gas stations.
Lea de Groot TZ+10@max @petergleick indeed, range anxiety (nice term!) happens with any new transport tech - 20 years ago we acquired an LPG fuelled car, and then went on a 4000 km trip - we Very Carefully ensured we knew which towns we could fill in!!!