Digging holes in the Earth's crust isn't going to be green, regardless of what you are digging out. Is an iron mine green? A bauxite one? How about the fossil fuel industry? At least with lithium, once you have it, you have the potential to recycle it. A fossil fuel car will require most of it's body weight in fuel every year, for the life of the vehicle.
s_nz,
Dec 25, 6:02am
Can't let perfect be the enemy of good.
Swapping out a decent chunk of our light vehicle fleet for EV's would go a decent way to our country meeting the emission reductions it has agreed to. And swapping out imported oil for domestically produced power would be good for our economy / trade balance too.
Of course getting rid of the cars all together would be better, but I don't really see us changing our urban form required for car free lifestyle to be viable outside a few small pockets of our country.
Changing to electric cars when our cars come up for renewal (assuming off street parking / charging is available and viable EV's exist) might not have the environmental gain of going car free, but is an improvement and has a minimal impact on ones lifestyle.
apollo11,
Dec 25, 6:07am
If people are truly concerned about the environment, the best thing they could do is dig a deep hole, crawl in and pull the dirt in around themselves. And if possible plant a sapling to feed off the nutrients. Civilisation takes resources, and until we are in space and mining asteroids, digging holes in our planet is how we get those resources.
neell,
Dec 25, 7:18am
No they aren't but they don't claim to be. I've worked in tin, iron ore, magnetite, gold/copper mines also at an alumina refinery, Also off shore gas platforms plus automobile manufacturing. Steel, aluminium and copper are 100% recyclable. Batteries have a long way to go to make electric vehicles truly viable. It will eventually happen but not until I'm long gone which is a pity as EV's would be fun to drive hard out. They have incredible torque which is why locomotives are diesel electric and so are the haul trucks at mines.
apollo11,
Dec 25, 8:29am
I think it's going to take time too, but it's better to grind away at possible solutions while we have the fossil fuel reserves to do so than to try to do it because the world is grinding to a halt I guess. How common is it to dig for lithium? I thought most of it was lithium carbonate extracted from evaporation ponds. There are other chemistries that might be able to take some of the pressure off lithium supplies too like sodium cells. They might not be as energy dense, but for applications where weight isn't an issue they might be OK.
neell,
Dec 25, 8:32pm
The people that are pushing EV's and banning ICE cars are usually the ones clocking up the most miles. The muppet Green Party MPs are a good example.
apollo11,
Dec 25, 9:12pm
I love the celebrities who tell us we shouldn't eat meat for the good of the planet - from their private jets.
Brine extracting of lithium. Lithium obtained from salars is recovered in the form of lithium carbonate, the raw material used in lithium ion batteries. The production process is fairly straightforward and requires only natural evaporation, which leaves behind not only lithium, but also magnesium, calcium, sodium, and potassium
neell,
Dec 25, 10:59pm
See post #85.
apollo11,
Dec 25, 11:10pm
Lithium is a commonly used metal. Are you suggesting that the Aussie mines wouldn't have been dug if not for electric cars?
neell,
Dec 25, 11:17pm
Is that a serious question?
apollo11,
Dec 26, 12:42am
At present only 40-ish percent of lithium is used in lithium batteries, and only a percentage of those batteries will be used in ev's. Lithium is only a trace element in lithium-ion cells (@3%). I'd be far more concerned about the nickel, copper and cobalt they require and the environmental impact of those mines than lithium.
serf407,
Dec 26, 2:21am
Tesla looking to make cobalt free batteries. How many children have been harmed in the manufacture of evs so far?
Probably not as many as those harmed in the manufacture of billions of smart phone batteries, or laptop batteries, and everywhere else li-ions are used. How many baby dolphins have choked to death on oil spills lol.
gunna-1,
Dec 26, 9:03am
Yep, you are missing the short term fix from fumes up ur nostrils for other environmental catastrophes, i wait with glee to see what disater produceing millions of ev veichles will create, but for the past 40 years people have been whineing about dungers with shot engines, "fixed" dirty belching unserveced bongo vans full of bog, "gone' noisy smokey trucks, still here, co2 produceing cars, still here, hmm how to fix it, i say scrap the exhaust emissions law and tell people to harden up, as for co2, and climate change, people are probably panicking about there insurance premiums and property values ugh.
bill-robinson,
Dec 26, 6:34pm
saw some CO2 numbers the other day, it has risen by 2 from 212 to 214 PARTS PER MILLION. man has survived in concentrations up to 3000 parts per million CO2 is not a problem it helps the plants grow.
gunna-1,
Dec 26, 7:09pm
Removing lead from petrol was the only good thing to happen, it only cost people with pre 80s cars a 1$ tube of valvemaster to keep them running, with ev,s there is going to be highly toxic car fires, and major recycleing issues, allso when they pick up in numbers the ammount of chargeing energy they are going to consume will be massive, nuclear power plant anyone?.
harm_less,
Dec 26, 8:14pm
You need to get out more. Current global CO2 levels are above 412ppm, https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/ and just because humans can survive in areas of extreme pollution doesn't mean it's good for them long term. The highly poluted Asian cities (e.g. Beijing, New Delhi, Dakah) are proof of this.
gunna-1,
Dec 26, 8:22pm
Co2 is a gas, you are talking about pollution, with highly populated areas burning wood and coal, its a population issue, whats there life expectancy, if it is above 40 they are doing well compared with a few hundred years ago, what is the matter?. - . - .
bill-robinson,
Dec 26, 8:49pm
and you need to study history.read up about smog in the Uk and the summer version in Los Angeles. ev's will not help they just provide a different type of pollutant. we all pollute, think about that
apollo11,
Dec 26, 9:05pm
There is a scientific argument in less 'conventional' circles that the world was slowly starting to suffer from 'carbon deficit', as more and more carbon was being sequestered away from the natural carbon cycle. Perhaps humanity is releasing this locked away carbon too quickly, but I don't believe that it is as bad as some make it out to be. As far as climate change goes, there has always been climate change. Sea levels have been rising for 15 000 years. The people of Doggerland (now 100m underwater) weren't huge polluters.
s_nz,
Dec 26, 9:29pm
Your C02 numbers are wrong (or very outdated). Todays CO2 level in NZ is 411.4ppm Source: https://niwa.co.nz/climate/research-projects/carbonwatchnz/dailyco2measurements The main issue with with increasing CO2 levels is their impact on the climate. It causes general warning, and more extreme weather events. We are already seeing more severe droughts, floods, storms etc in NZ. If you have visited or seen photos of the west coast south island glaciers, the difference in 20-30 years is startling. There is also a tipping point where the northern permafrost melts releasing a lot more warming gas to the environment, and when the polar ice-caps melt we loose large areas of reflective white ice, meaning the planet will collect more heat. Causing further warming.
We are somewhat well placed in NZ, in that we are a fairly wet & rich country. But climate change is going to major issues with food supply in large poor area's of the world, and the associated sea level rise i going to cause major issues too. Here is a map of the urban area's projected to become flood prone in NZ in the next 30 years:
Human health impacts of high CO2 levels seem to kick in at around 1000 (which we already hit in places like poorly ventilated classrooms, packed aircon trains etc.). This is well below the 450ppm max target set by the pairs agreement, so the climate is more of the critical limit than human health. That said, the designers of things like classes and trains will need to include more ventilation as ambient CO2 levels rise.
gunna-1,
Dec 26, 9:48pm
Years ago there was rumors that climate data was being fudged by measuring next to hot road surfaces, not sure if its true or not, but it had me thinking, the amount of heat black tar seal generates into the ground and the air, allso roof,s painted dark colours, all that heat goes up, and the ocean acts as a heat sink, if the methane comes rushing up from the ocean it will be a disaster, and tree coverage is low due to all the farms, so there goes some of the plannets shade, and co2 is nothing compared to what chaos a massive methane cloud is capable of.
bill-robinson,
Dec 26, 9:49pm
go out and find, then publish the real cause of this GW/CC instead of bleating about a little rise in CO2 we know some good comes from CO2 but verry little from rubbishng it.
Since the public registrations are closed, you must have an invite from a current member to be able to register and post in this thread.
Have an account? Login here.