[HN Gopher] How Australia became the world's greatest lithium su...
___________________________________________________________________
How Australia became the world's greatest lithium supplier
Author : hhs
Score : 95 points
Date : 2022-11-11 15:23 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| hyperionplays wrote:
| Shame Australian's see little to no benefit, all of the profits
| are off shored and there are little royalties paid back to the
| Australian people.
| doorman2 wrote:
| It's not like they're giving the lithium away for free?
| asdff wrote:
| After you account for the environmental costs, they are
| probably paying people to remove it from their country
| [deleted]
| doorman2 wrote:
| Isn't that true of almost everything humans do? When I get
| a tank of gas, I'm basically paying to have a bigger
| problem in the future. I do so because it solves a problem
| I have in the present.
| gizajob wrote:
| But all Australians are free to go and earn $200,000pa working
| in the mines in WA...
| [deleted]
| savoytruffle wrote:
| Australia sure has a lot of empty land. Must be something down in
| there.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| Terra Nullius right cobber
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I always think of it as the land of snakes, spiders and salt-
| water crocodiles. However, this reputation may be slightly
| exaggerated:
|
| https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/why-does-austr...
| olivermarks wrote:
| Rare earth mineral and lithium extraction is going to be the
| greatest disaster the world has ever seen because ocean floors
| will be plundered - the damage to the planet whether at sea or on
| land will be unprecedented.
|
| It is surreal how naive people are about both this plus the huge
| lithium batteries high temperature fire risks and associated high
| voltage electrocution.
|
| There is a reason we went from high pressure steam power to a
| lower pressure oil and gas based economy after the Victorian era.
| AnotherGoodName wrote:
| The alternative is gas. 100x more energy dense than lithium and
| it hasn't been great for the environment to say the least.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Chile is already being ruined. Pay close attention to the
| lithium triangle as it expands and the state the planet is
| left in after being mined
|
| https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-
| li...
|
| Why is lithium extraction bad for the environment? Any type
| of resource extraction is harmful to the planet. This is
| because removing these raw materials can result in soil
| degradation, water shortages, biodiversity loss, damage to
| ecosystem functions and an increase in global warming.
|
| But when we think of extraction, we think of fossil fuels
| like coal and gas. Unfortunately, lithium also falls under
| the same umbrella, despite paving the way for an electric
| future.. Lithium can be described as the non-renewable
| mineral that makes renewable energy possible - often touted
| as the next oil.
| tuatoru wrote:
| > Chile is already being ruined.
|
| By copper mining. Lithium is unnoticeable in comparison.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Lithium is non-renewable (we have a finite supply of it),
| but it's also not a consumable so this is rather less of an
| issue. Lithium in batteries is more comparable to steel in
| car bodies than fossil fuels.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Cars used to be made of steel and were very recyclable.
| More recently they are mostly made of plastics and alloys
| that are not easily recyclable.
|
| Lithium is extremely hard to recycle.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > Cars used to be made of steel and were very recyclable.
| More recently they are mostly made of plastics and alloys
| that are not easily recyclable.
|
| 50/50, actually.
| olivermarks wrote:
| There is still some steel in the core load bearing areas
| of modern vehicle but they are predominantly alloys. I'd
| say around 60% alloys, 35% plastics and 5% steel would be
| an average
| tuatoru wrote:
| Let's all just make up numbers when we could find them
| with 15 seconds' effort.
|
| https://transportgeography.org/contents/chapter4/transpor
| tat...
|
| Ferrous metals 65%.
| olivermarks wrote:
| 1 Ferrous metal blends with other materials are
| increasingly the main components of vehicles. MMC etc.
| Where body shops used to straighten collision damage on
| jigs to pull out damaged steel chassis, bodyshells etc
| the modern composites are very hard to repair, containing
| all sorts of materials including steel, alloys, plastics
| etc. They are also hard to recycle.
|
| 2 How old is that graphic?
|
| 3 Manners
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| But it isn't lost or scattered into the atmosphere. It's
| kept well contained in a nice container which can be moved
| around easily with a forklift. The metals can be
| reprocessed and turned back into more batteries.
|
| Even first generation Leaf batteries are still being sold
| for reasonable sums of money so we haven't even reached the
| stage were we are recycling them in ernest yet.
| olivermarks wrote:
| The recycling processes and costs are astronomical and
| environmentally damaging.
| https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/are-lithium-ion-
| batteries-...
|
| As lithium batteries degrade they become more unstable
| and fire prone. I'm sure you're familiar with what
| happens to your laptop battery as it ages - shorter and
| shorter life, swelling etc.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| You're thinking of a particular kind of battery with a
| flammable electrolyte. Other popular chemistries (LFP
| being the most obvious) aren't anywhere near as fire-
| prone.
|
| And of course, laptop batteries get worked -much- harder
| and treated to much harsher environments than any EV
| battery.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Teslas use LFP batteries
|
| https://youtu.be/J6eS6JzBn0k?t=77
| kortilla wrote:
| > Why is lithium extraction bad for the environment? Any
| type of resource extraction is harmful to the planet. This
| is because removing these raw materials can result in soil
| degradation, water shortages, biodiversity loss, damage to
| ecosystem functions and an increase in global warming.
|
| Are you trying to argue that using fossil fuels is better
| for the environment? It's not clear if you're using this
| opportunity to complain about mining in general or if
| you're arguing that we are better off with petrol cars.
| asdff wrote:
| If we develop a proper biofuel then we are going to wish
| we still had carbon powered cars imo. The issue with
| carbon fuel is that it gets put into the atmosphere and
| not recaptured, thus warming the planet and disturbing
| ecology. Once a method is used to capture this carbon
| organically, however, then carbon just becomes a
| transient used delivery device and a store for solar
| energy that powers the underlying photosynthesis to
| restructure atmospheric carbon into solids. A tree trunk
| or a pound of green algae becomes a fungible unit of
| energy. Everything changes.
| Choco31415 wrote:
| They're directly quoting text from the article. See the
| section " Why is lithium extraction bad for the
| environment?".
| antihero wrote:
| Or renewables and mass transit
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > There is a reason we went from high pressure steam power to a
| lower pressure oil and gas based economy after the Victorian
| era.
|
| First, steam is not a fuel. Second, where did you get the idea
| that steam pressure is higher than what we see with oil and gas
| fueled machines?
| olivermarks wrote:
| Steam energy was what powered the industrial revolution, and
| is now a major enabler of the production of electricity.
|
| https://petrotechinc.com/how-does-a-steam-turbine-work/
|
| Unfortunately we are burning huge amounts of wood to produce
| electricity in this way. I prefer small modular nuclear
| reactors if we want to be environmentally efficient.
| https://www.wbdg.org/resources/biomass-electricity-
| generatio....
| someweirdperson wrote:
| > and associated high voltage electrocution.
|
| I am not aware of any cars using high voltage [0] yet. But of
| course getting zapped by low voltage is bad enough.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_voltage
| olivermarks wrote:
| https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-
| releases/Pages/NR20210113.as...
|
| Risks to Emergency Responders from High-Voltage, Lithium-Ion
| Battery Fires Addressed in Safety Report
|
| Actions sought by the NTSB in the four safety recommendations
| issued Wednesday include:
|
| Factoring the availability of a manufacturer's emergency
| response guide, and its adherence to International
| Organization for Standardization standard 17840 and SAE
| International recommended practice J2990, when determining a
| U.S. New Car Assessment Program score. Continued research on
| ways to mitigate or deenergize stranded energy in high-
| voltage lithium-ion batteries. Continued research on ways to
| reduce the hazards associated with thermal runaway resulting
| from high-speed, high-severity crashes. Manufacturer
| emergency response guides modeled on ISO standard 17840 and
| SAE International recommended practice J2990. Incorporation
| of vehicle-specific information in emergency response guides
| for: Fighting high-voltage lithium-ion battery fires.
| Mitigating thermal runaway and the risk of high-voltage
| lithium-ion battery reignition. Mitigating risks associated
| with stranded energy in high-voltage lithium-ion batteries
| during emergency response and before a damaged electric
| vehicle is removed from the scene. Safely storing an electric
| vehicle with a damaged high-voltage lithium-ion battery.
| Providing information and available guidance to first
| responders and other crash scene workers about fire risks
| associated with high-voltage lithium-ion battery fires in
| electric vehicles. Fires in electric vehicles powered by
| high-voltage lithium-ion batteries pose the risk of electric
| shock to emergency responders from exposure to the high-
| voltage components of a damaged lithium-ion battery. A
| further risk is that damaged cells in the battery can
| experience thermal runaway - uncontrolled increases in
| temperature and pressure - which can lead to battery
| reignition. The risks of electric shock and battery
| reignition/fire arise from the "stranded" energy that remains
| in a damaged battery.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Thank God these two electric vehicles didn't catch fire and
| set the gas lines on fire when they crashed this week
|
| https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tesla-Prius-crash-
| int...
| seanmcdirmid wrote:
| Is a Prius considered an electric car now? But a Prius
| and a Tesla crashing into a horn sounds like something
| that would only happen in SF.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Prius's don't burn as hot as full BEVs but if their
| batteries are compromised in a wreck it gets pretty fiery
| https://abc7.com/pacific-coast-highway-car-fire-
| pch/1051638/
| someweirdperson wrote:
| SAE is using terms differently, abusing, re-defining terms
| that have been in use for a century. This mixed use of the
| same word for different things can be extremely dangerous.
| olivermarks wrote:
| Not as dangerous as the free pass LFP batteries have been
| getting despite trapped energy, thermal runaway and very
| high heat fires that are extremely hard to control and
| extinguish. There needs to be far, far more oversight of
| the battery industry.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Where in that link were LFP batteries mentioned? One of
| the advantages of LFP over nickel-manganese-cobalt
| chemistries is lower heat evolution when punctured or
| ruptured. Do you have other evidence for your claim of
| very high heat fires from LFP batteries?
| olivermarks wrote:
| https://www.ntsb.gov/news/press-
| releases/Pages/NR20210113.as...
|
| https://youtu.be/tuVxwmnhqP4?t=385
| philipkglass wrote:
| I didn't watch the video, but neither this NTSB press
| release nor the longer report it points to contain the
| terms "LFP" or "phosphate."
| rr808 wrote:
| Australia is like the Saudi Arabia of mining. Such a big
| continent with very few people. Politically stable and smart
| enough to exploit itself and keep most of the profits. The lucky
| country indeed.
| dalyons wrote:
| Mmm idk about keeping most of the profits - we could have done
| so much more in that regard over the last two decades. Missed
| opportunity to create something like Norway's national oil
| wealth fund. Instead of offshoring most of the gains.
| spoonalious wrote:
| There is one: https://www.futurefund.gov.au/
| hyperionplays wrote:
| it got raided by successive governments and the royalties
| we charge are tiny relative to other nations.
|
| For example: Australian Gas consumers pay more to use
| natural gas in Australia, than people in Japan, using
| Australian LNG.
| consumer451 wrote:
| > For example: Australian Gas consumers pay more to use
| natural gas in Australia, than people in Japan, using
| Australian LNG.
|
| Would it be fair to call that blatant corruption, or
| could some argument be made that it is not?
| rr808 wrote:
| I'd have to see a source for all three of those claims to
| believe it.
| Grimburger wrote:
| The future fund exists solely to pay public servant
| pensions and even then by it's own account it won't be
| enough to fund expected liabilities, the average person
| will never see a cent of it.
| [deleted]
| rospaya wrote:
| > The lucky country indeed
|
| Great book. Written in the 60s but it still holds today.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lucky_Country
| robbiep wrote:
| The true quote that coined that term is
|
| _Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people
| who share its luck. It lives on other people 's ideas, and,
| although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders
| (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that
| surround them that they are often taken by surprise._
|
| Maybe we're a bit better now (particularly after the last
| election) but it doesn't really mean what everyone thinks it
| means. Basically, historically, we have failed upwards. Still,
| there are very few places I'd desire to live in
| golemiprague wrote:
| photochemsyn wrote:
| This is a surprisingly comprehensive and well-written article,
| worth reading. For example, the authors note that the majority of
| Australia's lithium ore is refined to metal in China, although
| there's a push for local Australian refining. For more details on
| the current state of lithium battery production globally, this is
| good:
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31850-y
|
| (Jul 2022) "Tracing the origin of lithium in Li-ion batteries
| using lithium isotopes", Desaulty et al.
|
| This in particular is interesting, using a blockchain to track
| sourcing:
|
| > "Major car manufacturers like BMW group, Tesla, and Volvo
| recently announced that they will increase the transparency of
| their supply chains for EV batteries, and ensure responsible and
| sustainable sourcing of raw materials. Some companies (BASF,
| Volkswagen, Fairphone) have started a partnership for sustainable
| lithium mining in Chile. Carmakers also explore the usefulness of
| blockchains for improving the scrutiny of supply chains. A
| blockchain is the control of chain-of-custody systems, based on
| the shipping documentation that is included in online databases,
| to allow real-time raw materials tracking and electronic tagging.
| However, document-based traceability systems can be falsified,
| and must be independently controlled and audited to provide
| credibility."
| SnowHill9902 wrote:
| How does "blockchain" prevent a document from being falsified?
| samatman wrote:
| I wish Australia the best of luck in escaping the resource curse,
| by moving up the value chain.
|
| Relative to China.
|
| I'd like this post to be more sarcastic than it is, really, I
| would.
| acchow wrote:
| > resource curse
|
| The service sector makes up 62% of the Australian economy.
| robocat wrote:
| Australia's service sector makes up ~20% of exports - the
| resource curse is related to import/export, not internal
| measures.
|
| Total exports 2019-20: 383G$ goods, 92.3G$ services
| https://www.dfat.gov.au/publications/trade-and-
| investment/tr...
| acchow wrote:
| Wikipedia has an articel on the Resource Curse:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
|
| It is about having "less economic growth, less democracy,
| or worse development outcomes than countries with fewer
| natural resources". Australia is an advanced services based
| economy. No one would consider them as an example of a
| country under a "resource curse"
|
| By your measure, Japan also has a resource curse because
| services makes up 22% of exports?
| robocat wrote:
| Here is a more interesting graph https://www.rba.gov.au/e
| ducation/images/explainers/trends-in... from [1] which
| shows Australia's resource exports increasing drastically
| by percentage over the years, and the percentage for the
| other export sectors declining (agricultural, services,
| manufacturing, other). That graph seems to show services
| have dropped to ~12% of exports which is stunning.
|
| Whether that graph says anything about Australia and the
| resource curse is graduate level analysis - I don't have
| any opinion either way.
|
| I felt your reply was a strawman, or putting words in my
| mouth? I only pointed out a figure with no implication of
| analysis, because your figure of internal services was
| completely irrelevant. Note even countries with the
| resource curse still internally have cafes, and concerts,
| and mining support crews.
|
| PS: NZ probably isn't doing much better. Service exports
| seem lowish, and half of our service exports is tourism:
| https://oec.world/en/profile/country/nzl#trade-services
|
| [1] https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers
| /trends...
| acchow wrote:
| I think I skipped a few steps in my first comment. Let me
| break it down.
|
| 1) Countries are considered to be under a "resource
| curse" if they are unable to reach advanced economy
| status because of hindered growth over long periods of
| time caused by an abundance of resources. If a country is
| an advanced economy, it is not under a "resource curse"
|
| 2) One measure of how advanced an economy is is the GDP
| per capita. I don't think this is really sufficient tho
| because you can imagine a country that is so abundant in,
| say, oil that they do nothing but extract oil and STILL
| reach a GDP per capita of $30k. They can do this all
| without any advancement of their economy, and they can
| use imports to satisfy their desire for consumption.
|
| 3) So I actually prefer an alternative measure of
| "advanced economy" - the majority of the economy is
| service based.
|
| Because Australia meets criteria 3, it is an advanced
| economy. (Australia also has a high GDP per capita, in
| case criteria 2 is more convincing to you).
|
| You could propose that Australia will become resource
| cursed in the future if its other sectors stop growing
| over long periods and resource extraction continues to
| grow - eventually to the point that the services sector
| no longer represents the majority of output. I think this
| is possible but unlikely. And it would take a very long
| time....
| samatman wrote:
| No, Japan makes stuff.
| samatman wrote:
| Give it enough time and you can all provide services to the
| Chinese, in exchange for technology and goods.
|
| I'm sure they need services, and not just raw materials they
| can turn into products and sell to everyone, rather than
| Australia in particular. But you'll service them with
| services.
|
| Australian services, to be clear. Very in-demand trade good.
| Much like raw lithium, and batteries, that way. Everyone
| wants Australian services.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33562725.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| It's not a uniquely Australian issue. India also exports a lot
| of iron ore to China to be made into steel and sold back. This
| was also how imperialism was funded - take raw materials
| (cotton) and sell back finished goods (clothes).
| varispeed wrote:
| Why lithium is not considered in the same category as fossil
| fuels? I mean, it is technically used as a fuel that you need to
| keep "energising" and it becomes "spent" after nth "energising'.
| Whereas e.g. diesel comes "pre-charged" and is "spent" after
| first use? I read conflicting articles which one is more
| environment friendly.
| dalyons wrote:
| Because it doesn't become "spent", you can just recycle it back
| into new batteries at nearly 100% recovery.
| varispeed wrote:
| How the process of recycling looks like in terms of energy
| needed to perform it, use of chemicals like solvents in the
| process - can these be recovered too?
|
| I see I am being downvoted. It's like walking on eggshells
| asking these questions these days.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Alright, I'll foolishly take a stab.
|
| It feels that you are arguing in bad faith. Because
| transitioning to lithium/electrification is not perfect, we
| should just shutter the idea entirely? Will it take more
| energy/metal/resource extraction to transition away from
| fossil fuels? Yes. Will the be some amount of novel
| environmental damage (different from what happens for the
| petroleum economy)? Yes. Long term does it seem the best
| possible option available to humanity? Yes.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Lithium car batteries can be cycled 1500-2000 times. Fossil
| fuels get 1 cycle. 3 orders of magnitude is a categorical
| difference.
|
| [1] https://www.midtronics.com/blog/do-electric-car-ev-
| batteries...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| And then when you're done, the lithium in the battery is
| recycled into a new one.
| asdff wrote:
| Thats just because we don't care about reusing spent carbon.
| If we wanted to sequester all carbon into trees that we use
| again for fuel, for example, you can cycle atoms of carbon
| infinitely, and therefore power your vehicle purely from the
| sunlight energy that structures the chemistry of your woody
| carbon fuel without needing to build and replace solar panels
| every few decades.
| advisedwang wrote:
| There are quite a few technologies that attempt to use
| chemical energy storage, but none of them are as well
| developed as electricity/batteries:
|
| - The hydrogen economy. Currently hydrogen generation is
| very expensive and there's no distribution system yet
| because of H2's physical properties.
|
| - Biodiesel. Looks promising, but basically limited by
| inputs.
|
| - Fuel cells can potentially be run reversibly, so you
| could have the same chemical medium being converted back-
| and-forth with a charger instead of lithium. I'm not very
| familiar, but I understand physical and chemical
| constraints mean this mode is difficult to manufacture and
| operate in practice.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| The flipside of electrification of vehicles is all the extra
| metal they need to mine, which is highly environmentally
| destructive.
|
| We don't even have the metal supplies to fully electrify car
| production, not even close, although I see South America is going
| to ramp up production substantially soon.
| beefield wrote:
| > We don't even have the metal supplies to fully electrify car
| production,
|
| Okay, I need to say that you are not even wrong. Yep, I am
| slightly irritated on this blatantly false claim that has
| started popping up. If you think your claim has any merit,
| could you please provid the metal that you think we are
| lacking, estimat the amount needed and compare that amoun to
| the amount in earth's crust. If you get anything but
| infinitesmally small needs compared to what here is, please
| explain why that metal can't be replaced.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| Lung cancer rates are higher near major roads due to air
| pollution from cars. Fossil fuel cars basically means every
| highway is a superfund site. We just don't talk about it.
|
| Given the choice between toxic waste at a mine and toxic waste
| in millions of homes, I'll take the mine.
| asdff wrote:
| Most of that localized pollution comes from stuff like tire
| dust which is increased as we buy new heavier vehicles to do
| the same old getting around. The big win with fuel air
| quality was the move away from leaded gas and the clean air
| act, for decades now the major sources of pollution from a
| car have not been from the tailpipe.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| How much of that pollution is coming out of the tail pipe vs.
| off of the brake pads and tires?
| kibwen wrote:
| Keep in mind that EVs with their regenerative braking use
| their brake pads effectively never. Modern EV brake systems
| actually have to deliberately _not_ use their regenerative
| braking once in a while in order to exercise the brake pads
| and make sure that they don 't rust into uselessness from
| utter disuse.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| It's also important to wonder how much of the pollution is
| leaked fluids and burnt motor oil.
|
| A while back I saw a video on youtube of someone mining
| road dust for platinum of all things.
|
| Evs will be a likely improvement for the health of those
| near roads.
| tuatoru wrote:
| Most. PM2.5 is the danger, particulates of 2.5 microns or
| less. Polycyclic aromatics and oxides of nitrogen.
|
| Tire scrub and brake pads produce larger particles that
| wash into stormwater drains and poison downstream aquatic
| life.
| patall wrote:
| I am optimistic as well but let's not forget the asphalt
| (major pollutant during construction and repair), breaking
| and tire degradation that each contribute to this.
| 8ytecoder wrote:
| It's a classic false dichotomy. There are plenty of options
| in between - from plug-in hybrids to funding public transit.
| In my ideal world, I'll drive a sports hybrid for fun and
| take a well maintained public transport to work.
| MonkeyMalarky wrote:
| Afghanistan has something like $1T worth of lithium reserves.
| Who gets access and how it ends up being exploited remains to
| be seen but that country is not going to become some forgotten
| backwater anytime soon.
| Victerius wrote:
| Afghanistan is landlocked. To its north is Russia. To its
| east is China. To its south are Pakistan and India. And to
| its west is Iran.
|
| Fun neighborhood. Nothing could go wrong with the above
| countries fighting for their share of Afghanistan's mineral
| resources.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >Afghanistan is landlocked
|
| Which is not that great if you intend to export raw bulk
| goods (e.g. ore). You really want to have ports for that.
| The extra few percent efficiency of ship vs rail makes a
| huge difference because margin is so thin.
| asdff wrote:
| One of its neighbors will build out rail lines to their
| borders so they can take the position of lucrative
| refiner and exporter of a massive lithium reserve that
| only their infrastructure has good access to.
| newyankee wrote:
| India does not share land border with Afghanistan ,
| although Afg and Indian people apparently share warm
| relations (not Taliban)
| rootusrootus wrote:
| > India does not share land border with Afghanistan
|
| I'm guessing India would claim that it does. Pakistan
| would argue otherwise.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Reading about the line of control that splits Kashmir is
| pretty interesting.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karachi_Agreement
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| Localised environmental destruction is such a pittance compared
| to global environmental catastrophe that its comical people
| even bring it up.
| dsfyu404ed wrote:
| >Localised environmental destruction is such a pittance
| compared to global environmental catastrophe that its comical
| people even bring it up.
|
| While every environmentalist ever talks about "the greater
| good" they pouted and whined and tossed the plate on the
| floor when there was nuclear energy on it. You'll have to
| forgive the general public for not taking you (as a group) at
| your word.
| strbean wrote:
| I think the issue with nuclear energy is the combined
| threats of local destruction and global environmental
| catastrophe. They may be overblown, but mining lithium to
| make electric cars doesn't increase the risk of nuclear
| weapons proliferation, for example.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| But it's not an either/or. The mining and transport of metals
| also releases carbon dioxide.
|
| To give an example every day I see convoys of trucks coming
| from Zambia to South African ports. These should be
| transported by train!
|
| The solution is smaller, more efficient cars, electric bikes,
| public transport and things like that, not expensive 3 ton
| Tesla cars.
| lob_it wrote:
| Abandonded mines (with the environmental carelessness) and
| the coming revelation of abandoned oil/gas operations leaking
| greenhouse gases is just a slice of history on repeat.
|
| https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/aba.
| ..
|
| It looks like insufficient bonds and bankruptcy just shifted
| cost burdens for cleanup to government.
|
| https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/cleaning-abandoned-coal-
| mi...
|
| https://apnews.com/article/business-mountains-environment-
| an...
|
| Most of the issues with abandonded mines can be confirmed in
| several countries, but the profits from pump and dump do
| afford positive GDP (superfund cleanups, etc).
|
| The ROI while in operation keeps it going and keeps the "we
| need renewables now" crowd focused on (someone elses) goal(s)
| :)
|
| The oil and gas industries have already started transfering
| ownership to smaller companies to bypass obligations, so the
| cycle continues, with new lithium mining just coming on the
| heels of two other unresolved climate catastrophes.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > It looks like insufficient bonds and bankruptcy just
| shifted cost burdens for cleanup to government.
|
| That's the goal of capitalism, privitise the profits,
| socialise the losses.
| kortilla wrote:
| No it isn't. Where does such a statement even come from?
|
| That's like saying the goal of socialism is to starve
| everyone.
| nawgz wrote:
| You're the one making a non-sequitur. Capitalism is an
| ideology about maximizing profits. You can make a lot
| more profit if you externalize all your costs. "Privatize
| the profits, socialize the losses" is a way of saying
| that corporations have a lot of magical legal devices
| that let them avoid responsibility for externalities they
| themselves created once the revenue stream is no longer
| flowing.
|
| Can't you think of time and again examples of this? For
| instance, all fossil fuel using companies are
| participating in this exercise in real-time today; they
| certainly are not paying anything for the massive
| pollution damage they are creating. Corporate fraud never
| leads to meaningful punishment of the executives and they
| often make a profit even after "punishment".
| lob_it wrote:
| A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between
| two cats.
|
| Benjamin Franklin (with a hint of Einstein) :p
| sophacles wrote:
| In capitalism, attempts to change the status quo are
| always met with "but this will hurt profits!"
|
| In socialism, attempts to change the status quo are not
| met with "but fewer people will starve this way"
|
| Whether or not the GP is correct, it's silly to feign
| ignorance of how this idea could come about.
| lob_it wrote:
| I actually only looked at north america, knowing that it
| happens in every country that mines. Capitalism is not
| the scapegoat.
|
| https://e360.yale.edu/features/china-wrestles-with-the-
| toxic...
|
| The psuedo-environmentalists getting played like a
| 2-bit....crypto investor (not my 1st word choice, but
| still relevant) is funny though :p
| asdff wrote:
| Capitalism exists in every country today. You would not
| have chinese billionaires today if they were not a
| capitalistic country. They are socialist in almost name
| only these days; they are clearly not interested in
| redistributing wealth or favoring the health of the
| collective over the wealth of the elite. IMO there aren't
| many great examples of socialist governments, since many
| of the historical examples we've seen have been from a
| powerful elite using the mass appeal of the socialist
| message solely to put themselves in charge of an
| authoritarian state and use that position to further
| their own personal interests, versus to focus on
| collective benefits.
| andrewmutz wrote:
| > The flipside of electrification of vehicles is all the extra
| metal they need to mine, which is highly environmentally
| destructive.
|
| The environmental destruction of climate change is almost
| certainly worse
| it_citizen wrote:
| Do you have a reliable source for the lack of supply?
|
| Ideally with a detailed breakdown for each potentially
| problematic material.
|
| I keep seeing claims that go both way on that matter. But none
| were backed by serious research.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Ultimately, scarcity is determined by cost. Here's the cost
| history: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
|
| The cathode accounts for just over half a battery's cost:
| https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-
| of-a...
| cscharenberg wrote:
| In 8th grade I read a book on Zinc and it projected the
| world's supply would run out by ~1985. The book was published
| in like 1970 and I was reading it in 1994. Since then I've
| had a big of skepticism of "it's running out" when it comes
| to raw industrial materials.
| throwanapple wrote:
| I came across this before:
|
| - The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth
| (https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/16_2021.pdf)
| beefield wrote:
| Just to note, that is making pretty questionable
| assumptions to get to the conclusion that there are not
| enough metals. For example, they assume that there is a set
| need of cobalt/nickel per kWh of lithium batteries, which
| obviously is completely false (see LFP chemistry). They
| also use 2018 reserves as the yardstick, completely
| oblivious to the fact that already by 2021 the lithium
| reserves had _increased_ compared to 2018 by more than what
| their own numbers say a generation of EVs need.
| keewee7 wrote:
| >highly environmentally destructive
|
| Is there any reliable information on this?
| jeffbee wrote:
| If you think 10kg of lithium in a Tesla is a lot of extraction,
| you're never going to believe how much steel and aluminum is in
| a car.
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| Yes that's why we need to move to small, efficient, reliable
| cars and public transport.
| jeffbee wrote:
| 100% true. But objections to resource extraction for
| lithium should just be ignored. There are literally 1000x
| larger extraction sites for other purposes, especially iron
| and aluminum, but also table salt, laundry soap, etc. There
| are nation-sized areas of America that have been scraped
| flat for oil and gas production. The land sacrificed for
| lithium extraction is so far down the list of important
| environmental issues that it can't even be ranked more
| precisely than "tied for last place".
| gadflyinyoureye wrote:
| Keep in mind that you have to move your population to
| higher density housing. Essentially to really prompt public
| transit in the US you will have to introduce draconian laws
| that prevent the creation of single family houses and their
| future sales. This is if you work from the idea that we
| only have 9 years left until we can't prevent the climate
| damage.
| surfaceofthesun wrote:
| Is that necessarily true? I'm a more optimistic about
| gradual densification. Across the US, we've seen an
| increase in offices moving to the periphery of cities
| [1]. I think we keep reinventing mini-cities in the
| suburbs and will eventually end up with an American-style
| polycentricity, especially in the South and West [2].
| Remote work will increase these pressures.
|
| Let's look at the sprawling suburbs of Houston, Texas.
| These suburbs have necessities covered within 10-15
| minutes by car. If you look at this map [3] and this one
| [4] of a newer neighborhood in Katy, TX (about 30 miles)
| from downtown Houston, you'll notice a few points:
|
| * The schools and stores are already close to the
| neighborhoods. Biking to the store takes ~12 minutes vs 8
| mins driving * It's ~4.5 mi (7km) to the park & ride.
| Biking takes ~22 mins vs 12 mins by car. * There's
| several food places, dentist offices, and doctors offices
| along the way.
|
| This neighborhood is following the same developmental
| pattern as the earlier neighborhoods, which some
| iterative refinements. Of course there is still some low
| handing fruit that could be addressed: * This area could
| add bike lanes whenever they did planned road expansions
| (which is often) * Add safe bike and pedestrian
| over/underpasses for the freeways & busy intersections *
| Connect existing paths that connect neighborhood
| amenities (i.e. parks, schools) to inter-neighborhood
| paths * Prevent commercial and industrial site boundaries
| from harming neighborhood inter-connectivity
|
| These fixes would allow an extremely car-dependent area
| more "transit options" at very little cost. These would
| not require rezoning, rule changes (i.e. parking
| minimums), or forced increases in density. The market
| repeatedly identifies that people want the same things
| basic things nearby. But the chosen zoning and local car-
| centric ordinances perpetuate this car centrality.
| Parking minimums set a floor on store size, which limits
| store density, which undermines convenient access by any
| means other than cars. Builders don't know how the
| commercial sites are going to be used and exactly what-
| for.
|
| Within the neighborhoods, access to locals schools and
| parks are considered in the planning stages. That's why
| it's common to see schoolchildren riding their bike or
| walking home from school in groups -- sometimes with
| chaperones / crossing guards. It's designed to be
| convenient, for example adding shortcuts between streets
| to the school [5]. Making these slightly larger to
| explicitly accommodate bikes, especially for accessing
| nearby essentials is not a tough sell. This is largely a
| consequence of builders' presumptions about homeowners'
| expectations/preferences. It has taken a while, but these
| same builders are finally starting to run fiber alongside
| or instead of coax to these newer neighborhoods -- a
| convenient selling point post-covid.
|
| Regarding densification, there are already apartments [6]
| built nearby the highway, adjacent to these new
| neighborhoods. Changes that would require more effort
| than the points mentioned above include: * Allow duplexes
| and small apartments to be built within the neighborhoods
| * Apartments and duplexes [7] are currently like
| standalone "communities," isolated from the surrounding
| neighborhoods * Let small shops and offices be built
| within the neighborhoods, not just immediately adjacent
|
| Note that a lot of these zoning changes only require
| changing builder presumptions. Often they're building in
| unincorporated areas. You can see an increasing mix of
| home-types and nearby shopping in very new communities
| like Bridgeland [9]. There's even a "desired path"
| emerging behind this Lifetime Fitness [8]. This path
| isn't even possible in the older neighborhoods.
| Basically, builders are rezoning large areas (often
| displacing cows), so better inter-mixing of stores and
| community centers (for transit stops) can be done ahead
| of time.
|
| That's why I don't think the changes required for more
| transit are so significant. Transit agencies are already
| using existing parking (e.g. stores and theaters) for
| park & rides. To be clear, I personally know people
| taking park-and-rides to work at Oil & Gas companies
| because it's more convenient. Expanding access to these
| facilities, adding some transit interconnections between
| suburbs, and expanding to important non-office
| destinations (malls, community colleges, and airports)
| are low-risk expansion opportunities. Adding compelling
| optionality can be a means to build support for more
| expansive projects later on. I think if builders thought
| adding autonomous trams through their master planned
| communities would help make them more money, they'd do it
| in a heartbeat.
|
| If you look at a older part of the suburbs (south of
| I-10), you see the same sidewalks and shortcuts for
| access to the school. But somehow they haven't extended
| the walking/biking infrastructure to the shopping center
| _across the street_ from the high school [10]. Even
| further south, you see the same thing [11]. Sidewalks
| will connect you to the park, but it 's impossible to
| that Target from the neighborhood _directly adjacent!_
| These shortsighted mistakes are (slowly) being remediated
| with each new neighborhood built. We can achieve
| substantial emissions reductions by enabling families to
| get by owning only 1 vehicle instead of 2, especially if
| those vehicles are EVs or Plug-in hybrids. Hopefully we
| 'll even see more innovations like shared heating /
| cooling for whole neighborhoods, like this one in Austin
| [12], while we aim for ever-lower emissions.
|
| --- [1]
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2022/10/06/moving-
| off... [2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/
| 23998083209512... [3] https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Sto
| ckdick+Junior+High+School... [4] https://www.google.com/m
| aps/dir/Stockdick+Junior+High+School...
|
| [5] https://www.google.com/maps/@29.8434568,-95.7820818,1
| 21m/dat... [6] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Brea+Lux
| ury+Apartments/@29... [7] https://www.google.com/maps/pla
| ce/Greenbrae+Ln,+Cinco+Ranch+...
|
| [8] https://www.google.com/maps/@29.9310744,-95.7259749,1
| 13m/dat... [9] https://www.google.com/maps/place/Bridgela
| nd,+Cypress,+TX+77... [10] https://www.google.com/maps/pl
| ace/LaCenterra+at+Cinco+Ranch/... [11] https://www.google
| .com/maps/place/Meadow+Lake+Park/@29.59629... [12]
| https://www.whispervalleyaustin.com/why-youll-want-to-
| live-i...
| xyzzy123 wrote:
| I know this is a low value comment before I write it, but I
| just cannot see any possible future where americans buy
| smaller cars. This level of societal innovation feels
| inaccessible now.
|
| In the face of severe climate and weather events, I can
| hear the buyer still thinking "yes, but the larger model is
| safer in a storm or fire..."
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Steel and aluminum prices didn't rise 12x in the last 2 years
| [1]. It doesn't matter how much that lithium weighs on a
| scale. It matters how much it weighs against your wallet.
|
| 1. https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium
| jeffbee wrote:
| I thought we are talking about the sizes of holes in the
| ground, not the cost.
| nawgz wrote:
| Doesn't it seem likely the cost of the material directly
| relates to the size and difficulty of creating said hole
| in the ground?
| jeffbee wrote:
| No, that doesn't seem likely to me at all. Lithium prices
| are high because the industry is not very well developed
| and the demand is skyrocketing. Borax is co-located with
| lithium deposits (in some places) and is extracted by a
| similar process at similar scales and it costs 100x less
| than lithium. And for some reason nobody looks at the
| gigantic land scar at a borax mine and starts screaming
| about the environmental cost, because there's no oil
| billionaire astroturf fund dedicated to whining about
| boron.
| bombcar wrote:
| Open pit mines are huge and the biggest ones are for
| boring things like iron and copper:
| https://www.mpirecruitment.au/news/the-worlds-deepest-
| bigges...
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