turntoport wrote: ↑Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:59 pm
grayw: this post is not intended to bully you, but in science great care is needed when making absolutist statements. Here's a quote from the ONiO site you provided links to:
"All life on planet earth is solar powered. All of it! There is not a single life form that does not owe its life, directly or indirectly to the sun."
Ah. the Earth's internal energy source comes from (some function of, and one we don't fully understand yet) extra-solar activity from pre-'sun' time, that provided the heavy elements and thermal energy therein. The radioactive isotopes found in Earth did not come from the sun, as far as we know: another star, probably, but that energy was and still is independent of our sun. As far as we are aware, water on earth arose as a consequence of the Hydrogen and Oxygen that formulated the as-currently known cosmos post-inflation. So the precursors to water, and energy, were in our planet's makeup from the off; hydrothermal vent life-forms indicate that the sun may well have had nothing to do with initial evolution of at least a sizable number of life-forms on our planet. In my very humble opinion, therefore, ONiO is wrong on at least one 'headline' count.
As for energy harvesting - yes, a very interesting and promising field. But the laws of thermodynamics still apply.
To the grist of your comments:
As Londiniumperson replied, technology is in early-days development for such work as chemical battery end-of-life care. But it is evolving rapidly. And is level x of Cobalt anode disposal worse than CO2 frying the whole planet? - one suspects not. And before battery end-of-life but post vehicle end of life, the batteries are likely to be used as static (domestic or commercial) energy stores, so buffering the grid when renewables over-produce: just like bev's, actually. And that buffering will be required during off-peak times, too, to allow non-diurnals such as wind, tidal and nuclear to store their unwanted energy. In the Uk, bev's may actually 'save' the national grid from failure in the near-medium term.
Regarding minerals mining: agreed, it's an issue. But it can be engineered-out if (a) the right incentives are emplaced, and (b) the corrupt 'officials' often involved are removed. We don't hear many moans about Uranium mining these days, but 3-mile island and Chernobyl (ok, the opposite of mining!) didn't exactly leave pristine footprints, either.
All things are relative here, but imho Londiumperson has a good handle on the subject; what do you think?
atb - ttp
Not taken as such. agreed that the articles are not the definitive picture. Perhaps among us there are experts in the field and have a much better understanding. i don't profess to be one. and I'm ok with that. I was just trying to highlight that there are limitations with current BEV tech and they have their own environmental considerations . I'm not suggesting that they are worse than ICE',s. Just that the bring their own issues. I drive a BEV, but wont berate anyone for not driving one, or for driving a HEV because it burns fuel as well, which is what I got from some of the comments. I feel fortunate to be in a position to have one and do my bit. I also see great benefits of HEV's around cities where ICE's have a bigger impact.
I'm open to learning more about how we can deal with the problems our EV's do create , so if you have good information to help me do more research I would definitely read it..
V2G for load balancing is on trial stage as far as I know. and out of vehicles out there, the number with the capability is small. perhaps regulation to ensure that capability would go a way to help that. Time will tell if the innovations will be implemented in time . same with disposal i think.
"And before battery end-of-life but post vehicle end of life, the batteries are likely to be used as static (domestic or commercial) energy stores, so buffering the grid when renewables over-produce" - this i found very interesting, thanks. It would also be beneficial, if in the design process, recyclability was a larger consideration. I believe Tesla's batteries are particularly hard to disassemble. Another member shared this, which may be a little less bias but from what i have researched large scale recycling is still short by a long way and highly inefficient. Bioleaching looks interesting though. i don't doubt solid state cells will be a game changer in the future.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/envi ... -batteries
As for mining, I've actually seen the impact first hand. Ghana, Mozambique, and DRC. fully agree with both a) and b). A will hit the consumer. B is much harder to facilitate in Africa and I would think in South America.