Do you know what peer-reviewed studies are? I've got a dozen more where that came from. Basically, on our current grid, certain pollutants (such as PM) increase by using EVs, while others are nearly eliminated (such as CO and VOCs); however, all pollutants are shifted to higher altitude and to less populated areas (instead of being emitted at street level in populated areas), leading to huge health benefits. CO2 is reduced by a quarter.
That's on our *current grid*. Our grid gets cleaner every year; most new capacity being added to it is wind and natural gas. Oil production, however, gets dirtier every year, as we keep having to shift more and more to deepwater, bitumen, ultra-heavy, sour, arctic, coal liquefaction, and so forth.
Lastly, your emissions control line is an urban legend, albeit one greatly encouraged by automakers.
"Powered by Tesla" is a standard marketing gimmick. Company A is a well-established player. Company B is a new player. A and B want to work together. Because A has the bigger name, the product is clearly going to be branded as "A". But B wants their brand name out there as well.
It was changed not because of "accountants", but because the drag coefficient was a disaster. Giant stub-nose, wasted hood space that could be used for a slope, sharp corners at the windshield and A-pillars, a wasted opportunity for a Kammback, and huge absurd wheel wells.
Keeping the drag down is extremely important in early EVs. They never should have given it over to "designers" first. Engineers should go first, designers go *second*. That is, you have the engineers tell you what shape the car needs to be in order to meet your operating requirements, and then designers make that shape pretty without ruining its aerodynamics. But that's backwards from how it's usually done.
1) The batteries used are non-cobalt li-ion. *These* are the type that you can just throw in a landfill (you can't with NiMH).
2) The "Nickel from Canada" line is part of an old myth. Most of the nickel used in NiMH batteries doesn't come from the Sudsbury mines any more.
3) Pretty much *every* part of *every* car nowadays gets shipped all over the world at least once. Why should we weigh the environmental consequences for shipping batteries or battery parts more than for, say, a transmission or steel for the chassis?
4) Shipping is a small fraction of the energy consumption of auto manufacture, which in turn is a small fraction of the lifetime energy usage of a vehicle.
Isn't information that could provide tips to an enemy on how to disable huge numbers of their foes' nuclear missiles one of those little things that you DON'T TALK ABOUT?
The difficulty (and cost) of rocket launch rises in proportion to the delta-V. And not linearly in proportion to it -- exponentially. The figures I've seen for SS2's delta-V range from 1,400 to 2,000. X-15's was 2,020. Orbit is 7,800 m/s in energy plus about 2k in gravity losses and drag.
No, a craft like SS2 cannot scale to orbit. The Isp is too low for carrier launch to be plausible. Basically, you need to start from scratch with a more scalable design.
Of course, why start from scratch? If your goal is Newspace getting to orbit in hopes of dramatic cost reduction, why not cheer for companies like SpaceX who are already making that happen?
You don't have to take the two extremes described in the article, though -- there is a middle ground between.92c / 22.4 Earth years / 6.1 traveller years -- and 0.00012c / 180,000 years.
Producing 530(/2) times the mass of a colony ship's worth of antimatter is pretty much a preposterous concept with current known tech. We just can't even come close. But there are a lot of techs that have been proposed that, while not as impressive as a pure matter/antimatter drive, are achievable with current tech. For example, antimatter-initiated microfusion looks like we could feasibly build a colony ship that could reach about 0.1c. That's 200 earth years / 199 traveller years. So it would need to be a generation ship, but then again, if you're planning to colonize, you better be able to handle reproduction and long-term habitation to begin with. Such a ship could conceivably be launched in ~50 years or so if there was sufficient dedication to the cause. That's far less than the time it'll take us to learn how to colonize a planet well enough for the mission (at 20 light years away, it has to be essentially 100% independent, all the way down to producing microprocessors and the like). This isn't Star Trek; even a planet in the "Goldilocks Zone" isn't going to be something you can just land on in your shirtsleeves and settle with nothing more than the phaser on your belt, like some space version of Jamestown. You need a large chunk of our planet's entire tech tree to maintain life support, mining, refining, and production infrastructure.
While tech does indeed change over time, I guarantee you, we're not going to learn how to produce those absurd amounts of antimatter for a matter-antimatter drive in a couple centuries.
I think there's a big difference between spammers promoting sites that sell fake drugs, and legitimate online pharmacies which don't spam-vertize and which sell legit drugs. I think there's a compelling interest to shut the former down. I don't think there's a compelling argument for the latter. Honestly, I think it's pretty stupid that 98% of drugs out there have to have a prescription to get. It's not like druggies on the street are getting hopped up on immunosuppressants or anti-convulsants or whatnot.
I've seen the good these legit online pharmacies have done for whole communities of people who are too afraid to go to the doctor for conditions and who often have done more research on the drugs for their conditions than the medical professionals who would otherwise prescribe them.
That sounds like the Kea. Think about it: how would the flightless kakapo climb up the smooth sides of your vehicle to eat the window lining?
The Kea is a fascinating (and threatened, but not endangered) species in its own right. It's the world's only predatory parrot. Due to the high intelligence level of parrots, however, they're able to prey on animals many times their size -- even sheep -- through either attacking them then leaving them to die of infection, or by stampeding them off cliffs and then swooping down to eat the remains. As with most parrots, Kea are extremely playful, and their play is often destructive. There are reports of them travelling down the chimneys of mountain houses and then ripping up nearly everything inside before leaving.
In general, conservationists take the approach that if we caused a problem, we should do our best to fix it. New Zealand's amazing bird species were really hard hit by human settlement (which has profoundly changed the islands' ecosystem), and a huge number are either extinct, endangered, or threatened. There's the Kakapo and all but one species of Kiwi, of course. The huge Moa was butchered to extinction by the Maori. The Haast's Eagles, big enough to prey on the Moa, went extinct in turn. Two of three species of Kaka parrot are extinct. The remaining one is threatened; among other things, it feeds on honeydew from scale insects, and introduced bees and others compete for it. Even the Kea is threatened -- the "feathered wolf", a predatory parrot which you'd think could take care of itself and might even benefit from some of the new prey. But because of the bird's notoriety for killing animals many times it's size, including sheep (pecking at them with a scythe-like beak and causing them either to die of infection or to stampede off cliffs), plus the typical parrot destructive play behavior (destroying car antennas, windshield wipers, rubber seals around doors, etc), they've been extensively hunted as a pest and are now a threatened species.
By the way -- if you want to get a sense of how much they spend trying to save this species, check this out. That's what they do when one of these birds gets sick. They really don't want to let the kakapo die out.
Let me provide the history here. Let's look at the Kakapo, for example.
The Kakapo, or "owl parrot", is the heaviest (and only flightless) parrot species in the world. It is a unique evolutionary branch; it is the only member in not just its genus, but its own monotypic tribe. It has a wide range of unusual habits, such as being nocturnal and having a lek breeding system (where the males gather in a certain place at a certain time and put on shows to attract females).
It is incredibly well camouflaged, which was its defense in an area devoid of mammals which can hunt by smell. When cats, rats, ferrets, weasels, and stoats were introduced to New Zealand, however, it become a sitting dinner. The population on the mainland collapsed. In the late 1800s, they tried moving the remaining birds to Resolution Island as a sanctuary. In 1900s, stoats swam to the island and wiped out the entire population there in six years. So they tried moving the increasingly rare Kakapos to Little Barrier Island. Feral cats existed on the island, and the birds were never seen again. So they tried Kapiti island. The birds held out a bit longer against the feral cats there, but died as well. The bird went extinct on the north Island of New Zealand, and they were only rarely spotted on the south. A few times they caught enough birds to try to breed them in captivity. Every attempt failed. At several times, the birds were believed to be extinct or functionally extinct.
Then, in 1977, they found a small, precarious population of kakapo on Steward Island. There were no stoats, but feral cats were killing half the population every year. They had good luck controlling the cats, but could not eliminate them, so they began transferring the birds to even more remote islands and embarking on major predator eradication efforts. They finally got them to start breeding and increasing their numbers (although early on, polynesian rats were a huge predator of chicks). The population was down to about 40 in the mid 1990s, but is now up to 122 at present.
While the efforts to eradicate predators have been pretty successful, polynesian rats still remain a big problem in places. They go through great efforts to keep the rats away from the nests, including electronic devices with IR motion sensors that make bangs and flashes when rats approach. In short, for the time being, these species are entirely dependent on humans for their survival, and until a stable population can be reached, they will continue to need our assistance. The long term goal is to have stable populations on predator-free islands.
In the mean time, if you can make it so rats, cats, stoats, etc can't smell the defenseless birds? That'd be a huge, money-saving coup that could really help restore the populations.
Of course, I imagine you're all picturing the sort of woman who looks like a model and spends half the day doing her makeup and hair, rather than the average American geek girl.
You know, a lot of slashdot guys remind me of those idiots who get kanji tattoos but don't speak Chinese or Japanese. To them, they're pretty pictures with some "mystical" (and often erroneous) meaning. To Chinese and Japanese people, they're just writing. You're just writing on your body in a language you don't understand.
Bras and underwear are just clothing. I know, I know, they're naked-woman adjacent, and all that. But they're still just clothing. My first reactions when I saw this article? "I wonder how it fits. Is it an underwire that would dig into me? Is it made well -- is the wire going to start to come out and jab me?" Etc.
It's actually a brilliant ad campaign. An offensive, brilliant campaign.
Domain registrars have the same problem re, advertising that the oil industry has: they're all selling almost the exact same stuff. There's little to distinguish one registrar from another, especially for your average person who doesn't know that much about DNS. There are vast numbers of registrars out there, all of who want you to buy the same thing from them. But if you make a really offensive ad campaign, everyone starts talking about you. All of the sudden, everyone knows *your* name, not anyone else's. Sure, a large chunk of them will be too offended to ever buy from you. But of the rest, those who are only mildly offended may still buy from you, and those who aren't offended or even like it will buy from you as well. You set yourself apart by creating a scandal over something that isn't in the slightest controversial (domain names).
If you don't mind a german registrar, I use Joker.com. I used to have some problems with them, but for the last several years, it's been smooth sailing.
Here's a variation: find a spot where far-reaching, comprehensive environmental regulation and changes in people's general attitudes have resulted in changing a toxic, ugly body of water into a clean, thriving, healthy body of water.
Since when is the point of comedy to accomplish something? I'd just love to see a stand-up comic hop onto the stage and announce to the audience, "Today, instead of telling jokes, I'm going to organize a letter-writing campaign to help free Tibet," then start passing out letters, envelopes, stamps, and talking point sheets to the audience.
I think the funniest thing would be the signs the Colbert supporters would be carrying. I'm picturing things like:
"You'll Pry My Teller-Ulam Configuration Thermonuclear Device From My Cold Dead Hands! / 'The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed!"
"Abortion Kills! / Also, Has Anybody Seen My Keys? I Think I Dropped Them Somewhere Around Here."
"I Have A Third-Grade Education And I VOTE!"
"Barack Obama Is An Incompetent Kenyan Socialist Buffoon Who's Carefully Engineering The Wholesale Restructuring Of Our Society For Militant Islam!"
"Don't Tread On Me / (pic) / Because I'm A Snake And Stuff!"
"I Don't Support Socialist Road Spending / I Took The Subway To The Protest!"
"Bring Back The 1950s!"
"There's A Gathering Storm Of Gays Coming For Your Kids. RUN! Run Like The Wind!"
Thanks, well they assume a battery technology that's not commercially available
Oh really? Then what are they putting in the Volt? Or the Leaf? LiMn2O4 is one of the most popular chemistries for EVs. Here, want to buy some?
To be fair, their wording could have been clearer. Nickel and cobalt-based li-ions currently dominate the market. But LiMn2O4 absolutely are already out on the market, and have been for years. Their main competitor is LiFePO4. Both chemistries offer much better cycle life, stability, and power than traditional cathodes, at the cost of lower energy density. They used to be a lot more expensive, but their prices have been falling, and they'll probably be cheaper within the next few years.
a maximum vehicle lifetime of 92k miles
No, they assume a vehicle lifespan of 240,000 km (pgs 2 and 4). They assume two batteries used per vehicle over it's lifespan (one replacement) -- even though most upcoming mass-market EVs are being *warrantied* for 8-10 years.
a lithium extraction technology that's low energy but unlikely to scale to widespread usage of the lithium for transportation
Huh? What they describe is the standard way of producing lithium carbonate. And energy to produce a product generally declines as you scale up, rather than increasing. And the lithium extraction is only 1.9% of the battery's energy consumption anyway. The biggest chunk is aluminum, at 15.1%. So even if you have to jump to spodumene, like they mention (you wouldn't jump straight there, by the way -- you'd first use lithium hydroxide, like is found in Nevada), it would hardly change the picture.
Lithium is just such a small part of the overall picture; the only reason people focus on it is it's in the name. As they make clear, it's the bulk metals (aluminum, copper, etc) and the roasting of the cathode that takes most of the energy of production.
and finally they don't take recycling into account but rather attribute all inputs to virgin materials.
They specifically note that recycling would *improve* the picture for BEVs (bottom of page 5 / top of page 6)
Still if you tweak the numbers towards a more realistic mix you still come out with battery powered vehicles being no worse than ICE unless the battery vehicle is primarily powered by coal.
Tweak nothing. That would take a complete rewrite with absurd bogus numbers to get a breakeven value. The comparison numbers aren't even close, and coal only increases the total energy 13.4% (page 4). BEVs blow ICEs away.
Slashdot Mirror
Do you know what peer-reviewed studies are? I've got a dozen more where that came from. Basically, on our current grid, certain pollutants (such as PM) increase by using EVs, while others are nearly eliminated (such as CO and VOCs); however, all pollutants are shifted to higher altitude and to less populated areas (instead of being emitted at street level in populated areas), leading to huge health benefits. CO2 is reduced by a quarter.
That's on our *current grid*. Our grid gets cleaner every year; most new capacity being added to it is wind and natural gas. Oil production, however, gets dirtier every year, as we keep having to shift more and more to deepwater, bitumen, ultra-heavy, sour, arctic, coal liquefaction, and so forth.
Lastly, your emissions control line is an urban legend, albeit one greatly encouraged by automakers.
"Powered by Tesla" is a standard marketing gimmick. Company A is a well-established player. Company B is a new player. A and B want to work together. Because A has the bigger name, the product is clearly going to be branded as "A". But B wants their brand name out there as well.
The solution? "Powered by B".
It was changed not because of "accountants", but because the drag coefficient was a disaster. Giant stub-nose, wasted hood space that could be used for a slope, sharp corners at the windshield and A-pillars, a wasted opportunity for a Kammback, and huge absurd wheel wells.
Keeping the drag down is extremely important in early EVs. They never should have given it over to "designers" first. Engineers should go first, designers go *second*. That is, you have the engineers tell you what shape the car needs to be in order to meet your operating requirements, and then designers make that shape pretty without ruining its aerodynamics. But that's backwards from how it's usually done.
Let's deconstruct.
1) The batteries used are non-cobalt li-ion. *These* are the type that you can just throw in a landfill (you can't with NiMH).
2) The "Nickel from Canada" line is part of an old myth. Most of the nickel used in NiMH batteries doesn't come from the Sudsbury mines any more.
3) Pretty much *every* part of *every* car nowadays gets shipped all over the world at least once. Why should we weigh the environmental consequences for shipping batteries or battery parts more than for, say, a transmission or steel for the chassis?
4) Shipping is a small fraction of the energy consumption of auto manufacture, which in turn is a small fraction of the lifetime energy usage of a vehicle.
Isn't information that could provide tips to an enemy on how to disable huge numbers of their foes' nuclear missiles one of those little things that you DON'T TALK ABOUT?
The difficulty (and cost) of rocket launch rises in proportion to the delta-V. And not linearly in proportion to it -- exponentially. The figures I've seen for SS2's delta-V range from 1,400 to 2,000. X-15's was 2,020. Orbit is 7,800 m/s in energy plus about 2k in gravity losses and drag.
No, a craft like SS2 cannot scale to orbit. The Isp is too low for carrier launch to be plausible. Basically, you need to start from scratch with a more scalable design.
Of course, why start from scratch? If your goal is Newspace getting to orbit in hopes of dramatic cost reduction, why not cheer for companies like SpaceX who are already making that happen?
You don't have to take the two extremes described in the article, though -- there is a middle ground between .92c / 22.4 Earth years / 6.1 traveller years -- and 0.00012c / 180,000 years.
Producing 530(/2) times the mass of a colony ship's worth of antimatter is pretty much a preposterous concept with current known tech. We just can't even come close. But there are a lot of techs that have been proposed that, while not as impressive as a pure matter/antimatter drive, are achievable with current tech. For example, antimatter-initiated microfusion looks like we could feasibly build a colony ship that could reach about 0.1c. That's 200 earth years / 199 traveller years. So it would need to be a generation ship, but then again, if you're planning to colonize, you better be able to handle reproduction and long-term habitation to begin with. Such a ship could conceivably be launched in ~50 years or so if there was sufficient dedication to the cause. That's far less than the time it'll take us to learn how to colonize a planet well enough for the mission (at 20 light years away, it has to be essentially 100% independent, all the way down to producing microprocessors and the like). This isn't Star Trek; even a planet in the "Goldilocks Zone" isn't going to be something you can just land on in your shirtsleeves and settle with nothing more than the phaser on your belt, like some space version of Jamestown. You need a large chunk of our planet's entire tech tree to maintain life support, mining, refining, and production infrastructure.
While tech does indeed change over time, I guarantee you, we're not going to learn how to produce those absurd amounts of antimatter for a matter-antimatter drive in a couple centuries.
I think there's a big difference between spammers promoting sites that sell fake drugs, and legitimate online pharmacies which don't spam-vertize and which sell legit drugs. I think there's a compelling interest to shut the former down. I don't think there's a compelling argument for the latter. Honestly, I think it's pretty stupid that 98% of drugs out there have to have a prescription to get. It's not like druggies on the street are getting hopped up on immunosuppressants or anti-convulsants or whatnot.
I've seen the good these legit online pharmacies have done for whole communities of people who are too afraid to go to the doctor for conditions and who often have done more research on the drugs for their conditions than the medical professionals who would otherwise prescribe them.
That sounds like the Kea. Think about it: how would the flightless kakapo climb up the smooth sides of your vehicle to eat the window lining?
The Kea is a fascinating (and threatened, but not endangered) species in its own right. It's the world's only predatory parrot. Due to the high intelligence level of parrots, however, they're able to prey on animals many times their size -- even sheep -- through either attacking them then leaving them to die of infection, or by stampeding them off cliffs and then swooping down to eat the remains. As with most parrots, Kea are extremely playful, and their play is often destructive. There are reports of them travelling down the chimneys of mountain houses and then ripping up nearly everything inside before leaving.
In general, conservationists take the approach that if we caused a problem, we should do our best to fix it. New Zealand's amazing bird species were really hard hit by human settlement (which has profoundly changed the islands' ecosystem), and a huge number are either extinct, endangered, or threatened. There's the Kakapo and all but one species of Kiwi, of course. The huge Moa was butchered to extinction by the Maori. The Haast's Eagles, big enough to prey on the Moa, went extinct in turn. Two of three species of Kaka parrot are extinct. The remaining one is threatened; among other things, it feeds on honeydew from scale insects, and introduced bees and others compete for it. Even the Kea is threatened -- the "feathered wolf", a predatory parrot which you'd think could take care of itself and might even benefit from some of the new prey. But because of the bird's notoriety for killing animals many times it's size, including sheep (pecking at them with a scythe-like beak and causing them either to die of infection or to stampede off cliffs), plus the typical parrot destructive play behavior (destroying car antennas, windshield wipers, rubber seals around doors, etc), they've been extensively hunted as a pest and are now a threatened species.
By the way -- if you want to get a sense of how much they spend trying to save this species, check this out. That's what they do when one of these birds gets sick. They really don't want to let the kakapo die out.
Let me provide the history here. Let's look at the Kakapo, for example.
The Kakapo, or "owl parrot", is the heaviest (and only flightless) parrot species in the world. It is a unique evolutionary branch; it is the only member in not just its genus, but its own monotypic tribe. It has a wide range of unusual habits, such as being nocturnal and having a lek breeding system (where the males gather in a certain place at a certain time and put on shows to attract females).
It is incredibly well camouflaged, which was its defense in an area devoid of mammals which can hunt by smell. When cats, rats, ferrets, weasels, and stoats were introduced to New Zealand, however, it become a sitting dinner. The population on the mainland collapsed. In the late 1800s, they tried moving the remaining birds to Resolution Island as a sanctuary. In 1900s, stoats swam to the island and wiped out the entire population there in six years. So they tried moving the increasingly rare Kakapos to Little Barrier Island. Feral cats existed on the island, and the birds were never seen again. So they tried Kapiti island. The birds held out a bit longer against the feral cats there, but died as well. The bird went extinct on the north Island of New Zealand, and they were only rarely spotted on the south. A few times they caught enough birds to try to breed them in captivity. Every attempt failed. At several times, the birds were believed to be extinct or functionally extinct.
Then, in 1977, they found a small, precarious population of kakapo on Steward Island. There were no stoats, but feral cats were killing half the population every year. They had good luck controlling the cats, but could not eliminate them, so they began transferring the birds to even more remote islands and embarking on major predator eradication efforts. They finally got them to start breeding and increasing their numbers (although early on, polynesian rats were a huge predator of chicks). The population was down to about 40 in the mid 1990s, but is now up to 122 at present.
While the efforts to eradicate predators have been pretty successful, polynesian rats still remain a big problem in places. They go through great efforts to keep the rats away from the nests, including electronic devices with IR motion sensors that make bangs and flashes when rats approach. In short, for the time being, these species are entirely dependent on humans for their survival, and until a stable population can be reached, they will continue to need our assistance. The long term goal is to have stable populations on predator-free islands.
In the mean time, if you can make it so rats, cats, stoats, etc can't smell the defenseless birds? That'd be a huge, money-saving coup that could really help restore the populations.
I do wear khakis occasionally for business casual, but I wear pants for work most of the time
Chances are, your pants are not as fancy as the pair of very fancy pants that Mr. Fancy Pants will wear.
Of course, I imagine you're all picturing the sort of woman who looks like a model and spends half the day doing her makeup and hair, rather than the average American geek girl.
You know, a lot of slashdot guys remind me of those idiots who get kanji tattoos but don't speak Chinese or Japanese. To them, they're pretty pictures with some "mystical" (and often erroneous) meaning. To Chinese and Japanese people, they're just writing. You're just writing on your body in a language you don't understand.
Bras and underwear are just clothing. I know, I know, they're naked-woman adjacent, and all that. But they're still just clothing. My first reactions when I saw this article? "I wonder how it fits. Is it an underwire that would dig into me? Is it made well -- is the wire going to start to come out and jab me?" Etc.
Right. Because attempting to rape someone is just fine in emergencies, and she'll thank you for it, apparently.
I hope your next physics lesson involves the combination "kinetic energy" and "a well-placed knee".
It's actually a brilliant ad campaign. An offensive, brilliant campaign.
Domain registrars have the same problem re, advertising that the oil industry has: they're all selling almost the exact same stuff. There's little to distinguish one registrar from another, especially for your average person who doesn't know that much about DNS. There are vast numbers of registrars out there, all of who want you to buy the same thing from them. But if you make a really offensive ad campaign, everyone starts talking about you. All of the sudden, everyone knows *your* name, not anyone else's. Sure, a large chunk of them will be too offended to ever buy from you. But of the rest, those who are only mildly offended may still buy from you, and those who aren't offended or even like it will buy from you as well. You set yourself apart by creating a scandal over something that isn't in the slightest controversial (domain names).
If you don't mind a german registrar, I use Joker.com. I used to have some problems with them, but for the last several years, it's been smooth sailing.
Okay, so go to Lake Erie, then what?
Wait, how does that fit into the analogy?
Suicide by carbon monoxide poisoning from a *Prius*? Wow, that would take bloody forever. Better bring some sudoku puzzles, a long book, etc.
Does it even count on someone who has an established history of playing video clips of the nazis when talking about his political opponents?
Since when is the point of comedy to accomplish something? I'd just love to see a stand-up comic hop onto the stage and announce to the audience, "Today, instead of telling jokes, I'm going to organize a letter-writing campaign to help free Tibet," then start passing out letters, envelopes, stamps, and talking point sheets to the audience.
I think the funniest thing would be the signs the Colbert supporters would be carrying. I'm picturing things like:
"You'll Pry My Teller-Ulam Configuration Thermonuclear Device From My Cold Dead Hands! / 'The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed!"
"Abortion Kills! / Also, Has Anybody Seen My Keys? I Think I Dropped Them Somewhere Around Here."
"I Have A Third-Grade Education And I VOTE!"
"Barack Obama Is An Incompetent Kenyan Socialist Buffoon Who's Carefully Engineering The Wholesale Restructuring Of Our Society For Militant Islam!"
"Don't Tread On Me / (pic) / Because I'm A Snake And Stuff!"
"I Don't Support Socialist Road Spending / I Took The Subway To The Protest!"
"Bring Back The 1950s!"
"There's A Gathering Storm Of Gays Coming For Your Kids. RUN! Run Like The Wind!"
Oh, and probably a lot of chalkboards. ;)
Please read the GP. Thanks.
Also, your numbers on how much lithium is used per EV is wrong. The leaf's battery pack is about 600lbs and contains 9 pounds of lithium (1.5%).
Um... huh?
Thanks, well they assume a battery technology that's not commercially available
Oh really? Then what are they putting in the Volt? Or the Leaf? LiMn2O4 is one of the most popular chemistries for EVs. Here, want to buy some?
To be fair, their wording could have been clearer. Nickel and cobalt-based li-ions currently dominate the market. But LiMn2O4 absolutely are already out on the market, and have been for years. Their main competitor is LiFePO4. Both chemistries offer much better cycle life, stability, and power than traditional cathodes, at the cost of lower energy density. They used to be a lot more expensive, but their prices have been falling, and they'll probably be cheaper within the next few years.
a maximum vehicle lifetime of 92k miles
No, they assume a vehicle lifespan of 240,000 km (pgs 2 and 4). They assume two batteries used per vehicle over it's lifespan (one replacement) -- even though most upcoming mass-market EVs are being *warrantied* for 8-10 years.
a lithium extraction technology that's low energy but unlikely to scale to widespread usage of the lithium for transportation
Huh? What they describe is the standard way of producing lithium carbonate. And energy to produce a product generally declines as you scale up, rather than increasing. And the lithium extraction is only 1.9% of the battery's energy consumption anyway. The biggest chunk is aluminum, at 15.1%. So even if you have to jump to spodumene, like they mention (you wouldn't jump straight there, by the way -- you'd first use lithium hydroxide, like is found in Nevada), it would hardly change the picture.
Lithium is just such a small part of the overall picture; the only reason people focus on it is it's in the name. As they make clear, it's the bulk metals (aluminum, copper, etc) and the roasting of the cathode that takes most of the energy of production.
and finally they don't take recycling into account but rather attribute all inputs to virgin materials.
They specifically note that recycling would *improve* the picture for BEVs (bottom of page 5 / top of page 6)
Still if you tweak the numbers towards a more realistic mix you still come out with battery powered vehicles being no worse than ICE unless the battery vehicle is primarily powered by coal.
Tweak nothing. That would take a complete rewrite with absurd bogus numbers to get a breakeven value. The comparison numbers aren't even close, and coal only increases the total energy 13.4% (page 4). BEVs blow ICEs away.
Not going to happen.