this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Eh...
Batteries take "rare earth metals" like cobalt.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-24/cobalt-mining-in-the-congo-green-energy/100802588
There's an environmental cost, and a huge cost on a personal level to the people who mine it.
It's like if your house is burning down, but then a flood comes and puts out the fire.
Sure, the fire is out, but now your house is underwater. We're just switching one problem for another, not really solving anything
Edit:
Not sure why so many people think this comment is pro fossil fuels...
But I'm not going to repeatedly explain the very basic concept that with two bad things, one is sometimes less bad.
I really really thought people would already know that...
Some Lithium-Ion batteries use Cobalt, but many don't. Lithium-Iron-Phosphate, for example, is a popular variant without any Cobalt. There is a push going on to move to battery chemistries without Cobalt or to reduce the actual amount of Cobalt where it is still required.
Lithium production does still take an insane amount of water to produce
Wait until you hear about the oil refining process!
Or in the case of Canada, to separate oil out of the ground!
Current Li-ion batteries have numerous issues, but fortunately there are several alternatives too. Bringing a new battery chemistry to production scale hasn’t been easy, but we’re taking small steps like that every year.
We may still need lithium, nickel or manganese in the near future, but the demand for cobalt (per cell) has been decreasing gradually. Who knows which alternative ends up dominating the market after a few decades
Eventually I hope we end up with sodium batteries.
But that's probably a long way off still
Not that far off actually, China started producing the first sodium ion battery powered car in series this year
Nice.
The whole sodium story is how we should be going about shit.
We didn't focus on making the best battery and came up with sodium.
A couple college students instead looked for the most abundent and easily accessible thing we can make batteries out of.
Sodium batteries would be a welcome change. Solid state batteries are another interesting technology that looks promising.
People think your comment is pro fossil fuels because it's literally a pro fossil fuel talking point. This is the kind of stuff they parrot. Dumb people think that having batteries somehow makes EVs equivalent to ICE when it comes to environmental impacts and will repeat exactly what you wrote while ignoring all the other facts.
You can be right and still be a mouthpiece spreading oil propoganda.
I agree that no battery is perfect. But unlike gasoline, you can use a rechargeable battery over and over, then it gets recycled.
It's a far better solution. And better batteries will come along to replace what we use now.
And petroleum products don't? I don't get your argument Lithium mining is pretty bad but nowhere near as bad as oil/fossil fuels
Fracking contaminates ground water, when you pump oil out it get replaced with what? Water, once again contaminating everything it touches. Plus this doesn't happen with Lithium mining either
Rare earths for alloys in oil pipes. Cobalt to refine fossil fuels. Noble metals in catalytic converters. "Do as I say, not as I do "
Funny how people are overly concerned about cobalt in EV batteries but never cellphone batteries.
I said cobalt was an issue...
Not just cobalt for EVs, even tho I shouldn't need to explain that bigger batteries take more cobalt...
Things might seem "funny" to you because you're not understanding what they're saying mate.
If you're nicer about being confused, people may be more willing to take time to help you. But this is the most help I'm giving considering what you said.
Funny how people are overly concerned about gotcha games online rather than considering what the poster is trying to highlight or say.
Almost like I'm pointing out that they don't actually give a shit about cobalt.
Is there an environmental cost with fossil fuels?
Nah, people hate nuance, it's now the age of false dichotomy. Where you either offer my position unconditional non-critical support, or you are offering my opponents unconditional non-critical support.
I said something similar about nuclear power a while ago and got a similar response.
Bruh, mentioning how much concrete it takes for a new nuke plant and how long it will keep spewing co2 in the atmosphere for curing will get you crucified lol
Like, we're way past "crunch time" on climate change, we can't afford to just do random shit without understanding all the consequences and just hope for the best.
People just want to feel like we have all these perfect solutions on standby
Yeah, I wasn't even that critical in my statement. I was just explaining how switching to nuclear power would require us to combat the NIMBY attitude that killed it in the first place, and that political capital would probably be spent more wisely elsewhere.
I'm fine with nuclear power, but as you said it's not exactly the silver bullet a lot of people claim it to be.