Can lithium batteries power all cars in America? 23

[Space car]

Can lithium batteries power all cars in America? The answer may be “Yes,” but we must change direction if we are to have any chance. Based on recent history, after the coronavirus pandemic is over, US new car sales will return to about 17.5 million units per year. When we get to a first year for all-electric car production, how much lithium will be needed? A lithium ion battery contains 0.3 grams of lithium per amp-hour of battery capacity, or about 0.09 kg of lithium per kilowatt-hour (kWh)

https://batteryguy.com/kb/knowledge-base/how-to-calculate-the-lithium-content-in-a-battery/

Lithium mines measure their output in kilograms of lithium carbonate. In terms of mine output, it takes 0.96 kg of lithium carbonate per kWh of battery capacity. Assume each car has an average battery capacity of 60 kWh. Multiplying by 17.5 million cars, the amount of lithium mine output needed will be 1.0 million metric tonnes of lithium carbonate for each year of new EVs
In 2020, total world mine output of lithium carbonate is projected to be about 0.7 million metric tonnes. The world is now scrambling to find more lithium. There are more problems:
• US auto sales are only about 22% of vehicle sales worldwide.
• Power companies are aggressively purchasing Lithium batteries for the grid.
Some say that science can solve the problem—"another, even better battery will be found that may not even need lithium.” Well, no, that isn’t the situation. No other element carries as much charge for its weight as does ionized lithium and the lithium ion cell produces a prodigious 3.7 volts. Current batteries obtain about 85% of the theoretical limit of energy storage for their lithium content. Future improvements will only be in battery structure, weight, and charging speed.

CONCLUSION: Power companies don’t need light-weight batteries—they MUST use something else! America must vastly increase domestic mining and processing of lithium and other strategic materials such as cobalt, nickel, aluminum, and rare earth metals needed for an electrified economy. Plus we can learn to be more thrifty. The auto industry can make more efficient electric vehicles that need only half as much battery capacity.

 

[GregLocock]

Objections without solutions are just teenage rants.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[cranky108]

I still think lithium batteries have problems that need to be fixed. Mining, production, disposal, and fire performance.
But I don't think they should power all things. That is just a pipe dream of a short sighted person.

It is also concerning that I see reports from time to time saying the cost of ownership of an electric car are more than the present de facto standard. Like maybe we as consumers are being herded into a cost squeeze, by the nanny state.

The other problem is not the technology, but we are being marketed the product that someone wants us to purchase.

And as of right now, many of us don't purchase new cars, and used electrics are no where to be seen, if they even are an option in the future (a warned out battery won't work very well).

 

the nanny state

Do you know you've pretty much discredited everything else you say?

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[EdStainless]

If I was still employed, and IF the car market was functional today, I would own one EV and one Hybrid.
I live outside of a small town. Into town is about 10-15mi round trip.
I think that between the two of us we make that trip 15-20 times a week.
And 1-2 times a week we make drives that would be at or beyond the limit of an EV range (not counting seasonal issues).
The nearest public charging is over 15mi from where I live.

I believe that the issues of materials will sort themselves out.
That is what markets do.
But we need to combat the manipulation of these markets, I should just say China.
The price of RE metals is a case in point.
The reason that Mountain Pass is closed is that the Chinese undercut the price.
The once the only significant US mine closed, they raised the prices.
A few years back they said that there would be export limits.
Work was begun to reopen the mine, and within weeks of it restarting the export restrictions vanished.
This is as bad of an issue as the distortion of markets by Western governments with various subsidies and credits.
It is keeping the week and lame cogging the market for too long.

Eventually there will be used EV market. And the "certified" cars will have either new battery packs or a warrantee on them.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
P.E. Metallurgy, consulting work welcomed

 

Objections without solutions are just teenage rants.

So what's the solution? I mean, to teenage rants?


"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[GregLocock]

My wife taught me a trick she used to use with clients with Alzheimers. Acknowledge their idea, and divert. Works well.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[cranky108]

'the nanny state' Incentives for a "governmental" preferred solution.
The president said "you can always buy an electric car", as a solution to high gas prices.

Not at all that I think gas cars should be the future, but I think a market based solution would be better.

Besides lithium batteries may not be a holistic solution. We may need alternatives.

 

So, treat my teenagers like they have Alzheimers? I know they go through a demented period around 14, but isn't that a bit harsh?

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

but I think a market based solution would be better.

So you prefer the mythical unseen hand of the 'market' to the 'nanny state'?
And how's that been working out for us so far?

Faith in an omniscient, beneficent 'market' ticks all the boxes for characteristics of bad religion. I guess my faith is insufficient to believe in that, for all the same reasons I'm not in Scientology.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[IRstuff]

The "market" is based on self-interest; and fails repeatedly to address known issues until it's forced to by outside agencies. Seat belts are ubiquitous now, but had to forced on the manufacturers despite significant pushback. Once that roadblock was breached, the market "decided" to make safety a selling point. Until something drastic happens, like a gigantic negative class-action judgement occurs, car computer systems will remain vulnerable; ditto even baby monitors

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

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Seat belts make an instructive case study in the enormous difficulty and time required to make a simple societal change that is made at extremely low cost but which brings enormous and obvious benefit.

In the 1960s the majority of folks firmly believed that a seat belt infringed on their freedom and that they would be safer being thrown out of a vehicle. Carmakers, who didn't want to spend maybe $5/belt, at first made it an optional extra, but fought regulation hard in Washington (government lobbying is basically just formalized and legalized corruption). So scientists gathered some data over a few years and showed that public perception and corporate propaganda were demonstrably very wrong. Finally, after many thousands more avoidable deaths, it was made mandatory equipment, although it took much longer (1980s) for enforcement to start.

GM is one vehicle I have never and will never own, because GM lobbied Congress for 15 years to prevent making airbags mandatory. Well since then my life was probably saved by an airbag (and belt, and crumple zone) in a compact car. If it had been the 1960s I would have gone through the windshield into a large pickup truck and would not be typing this.

What has been the benefit of these heavily resisted safety regulations brought in by the nanny state? Despite a doubling of population and miles driven, and at higher speeds, the number of annual highway fatalities has remained about constant.

Fast forward 60 years. Substitute 'mask' for 'belt' and 'in an ICU with Covid' for 'thrown out of the car', and we see that people haven't changed at all. Correction, they are now more manipulatable through (anti)social media and are far less trusting of leaders and experts.





"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[CWB1]

...there are few if any sites remaining in the US and Canada for large-scale hydro development...BTW, who are these Stateside 'greenies'?

Thousands of older "small" hydro sites have been removed stateside over the past 50 years, particularly in the northeast where population density and need for power are the greatest. Rather than allow older sites to be sold and/or remain in service, "environmental" groups successfully protested and/or sued to force their removal under the guise of "reclaiming nature" on sites that had operated for a century or more. My folks live within a rural co-op that operates a shuttered mill's 10 MW powerhouse, which non-local "greenies" did their damnedest to shut down. They're surrounded by other old mill sites that aren't as fortunate and struggling communities with high utility costs, but at least the local parks and museums all have displays of scrapped turbines.

If the greenies weren't so destructive and environmentally unfriendly I'd actually enjoy their bad ideas purely for the entertainment value. My personal favorite with EVs is the consistently repeated claim that EVs will allow humanity to stop using petroleum products, bankrupting "big oil."

 

CWB1,
Maybe you are unaware of the environmental damage caused by hydro power over the entire range of size. It is not zero carbon when entire forests are submerged.

There is also a trend for entrepreneurs (saviors of the world, if linkedin and my alma mater's propaganda can be relied upon) to build micro-power stations on every little creek, which is also damaging and which benefits only themselves. They are collectively not enough to make a dent in current energy demand. It seems to me that among micro hydro, wind, and solar, that solar is easily the least bad option.

Full disclosure: I worked to build and install hydro power equipment for several years. I've since been better educated about the side effects.


"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[hokie66]

At this time, all options need to be used, from the 'least bad' to the most bad. If not, things are going to grind to a halt.

 

If not, things are going to grind to a halt.

You say it like it's a bad thing. Some things must grind to a halt if we are to have any chance at all.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

Thousands of older "small" hydro sites have been removed stateside over the past 50 years,

50 years? Thousands?
I'm not one to demand peer-reviewed documentation (except as deserved sarcasm), but that strikes me as seriously exagerrated, and I must challenge it.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[hokie66]

Yes, it is a bad thing.

 

[geotechguy1]

Hot take: What if we re-designed cities to not be car centric?

What will be the impact of Uber or similar on number of cars needed when autonomous automobiles (and minibuses) exist?

Humans have got on simply fine for all our history without every single person needing their own automobile.

 

[BrianPetersen]

"Autonomous taxis" are a disaster for energy consumption, traffic management, etc. At least if someone has their own vehicle, it drives X km to go somewhere X km away. With an autonomous one, it still does X km, but also the distance to get from wherever it originally was to wherever it was called to before, and after.

For millennia, people lived in or near villages that had most everything they needed on a day-to-day basis, within walking distance, and people didn't work huge distances from where they lived. And those villages were in places where food could be grown or hunted relatively nearby. I don't think people of today are ready to make that sort of change (I fully admit that I'm not), and I'm not sure such a situation could support 7 billion people on this world, but perhaps at least heading towards that direction would not be a terrible thing to do.

We need walkable village or city centers, we need good and safe public transportation (bring back trolley buses!), we need neighborhoods that intimately mix shops and housing so that people can walk to get groceries or have a coffee or have their hair done or whatever (not huge residential neighborhoods where people have to drive to get anywhere).

There shouldn't be residential developments like the one I live in myself. If one side of a street is residential, the other side should have shops. If the bottom floor is commercial, the upper floors should be residential. A commercial plaza a few hundred metres away isn't close enough. They should be intimately mixed.

It is possible to live without a car in Toronto (and in most European cities). It is practically impossible in the suburbs of Toronto (where I am) ...

 

[IRstuff]

Humans have got on simply fine for all our history without every single person needing their own automobile.

Is that even relevant? Should we go back to horse and buggy? Humans didn't have much in the way of mass transit for nearly all our history either.

Humans have got on simply fine fir nearly all our history without cell phones and computers. Should we get rid of them as well?

There shouldn't be residential developments like the one I live in myself. If one side of a street is residential, the other side should have shops.

I think that if you try to actually plan something like that out, you'd find that it's not practical. You'd have way too many mom & pop shops and not enough Costcos, HD's etc. Assuming that Costco and Home Depot are plausibly distributed now, we're looking at roughly 40 square miles per Costco. Over a teensier, non-scientific sampling of Google Maps, I counted 13 supermarkets in a 20 square mile area. My company has people who live anywhere from Marina Del Rey to Riverside, roughly 67 miles, and roughly 40 miles north/south. Naturally our significant others don't work in the same place, so how would that actually plan out? Assuming that one could even juggle all of that to work, it would cost multi-trillions of dollars to replan and rebuild everything. And once you have that optimized, what happens if you have to change jobs because your company went bankrupt or was bought and moved to Tempe, or New York City?

While autonomous vehicles are inefficient for the model cited, there may be other models that make more sense, although that's unlikely. Clearly my car sits in the parking lot for 9 hrs a day doing nothing, while someone nearby could potentially use such a car for, say, 8 of those 9 hours; by such measures, we could ostensibly reduce the number of cars needed to sustain commute and local trips, thereby reducing the number of cars manufactured.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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