Will the Green Mafia object to Lithium mining when they find out coal mines
are where it's located and the same people own that property? and use the same equipment? ah clowns will be clowns i guess
61 Replies
3y
I was just thinking if the US wants to eliminate something that the rest of the world loves and will never eliminate. My vote would go for the sport soccer.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
given how many kids that aren't all that great at soccer are on travel squads and drive all over God's green earth every weekend. Think of all the greenhouse gasses we'd eliminate if they just played with friends in the woods like we old guys did as kids.
(In response to this post by OrlandoHokie)
3y
Play in the woods and get poison ivy. The horror.
(In response to this post by Tafkam Hokie)
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Fatman
3y
Lithium is abundant as hell isnât it? Makes sense to repurpose people and equipment with expertise in mining coal to have them get into the money printing business of producing and processing Lithium in the US. No reason the US canât be a powerhouse in this area and with the recent build back better offering rebates for cars that are built in the US with non-chinease components, there has to be insatiable demand for US lithium as well as iron-based battery chemistry used in some of the lower performance/lower cost EVs. Iron is literally everywhere.
Your note also implies that coal mining capacity would be reallocated to a preferable activity(Li) rather than sticking to last centuryâs fuel source. Thatâs a win in my book.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
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MVIII
3y
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
experienced in mining ? and probably own the minng rights and the lithium is in the coal seams ?
(In response to this post by MVIII)
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MikeVT85
3y
Strategery . . . . on the lowest order.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
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TheNuke
3y
For 10m barrels, that's 200m gallons of gas. There have to be more or less 200m cars/trucks on the road, that a whopping 1 gallon per vehicle.
(In response to this post by MikeVT85)
3y
day.
Releasing 10-15M barrels of oil doesn't even get you to dinnertime.
(In response to this post by TheNuke)
3y
I understand oil is a global market but that seems a bit odd when we are begging others for oil.
(In response to this post by Tafkam Hokie)
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Fatman
3y
The Is hasnât constructed a new refinery since the Carter admin. Our refining capacity is built to accept higher sulfur oil, so we like oil from Russia and North Europe and we have to export some of our sweet crude to places that can refine it.
The USâ lack of a coherent energy strategy is really sad and it took decades of mismanagement to get to this point.
(In response to this post by vt90)
3y
SPR for the past several months and it has had almost no impact on gas prices. Keep in mind we are also exporting some of these releases to China and other companies. Yet we will have to buy oil back from somewhere (Russia, Venezuela, OPEC) to replenish the hundreds of millions of barrels we have used/exported for the current 'emergency'.
(In response to this post by TheNuke)
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Fatman
3y
Itâs shameful that every one of our Presidents has gone around kissing the Saudiâs behinds begging for favorable drilling. The strategic oil reserve isnât going to move the needle and Saudis align themselves with Russia and exacerbate the global loss of Russian supply.
The US private sector isnât going to invest much more in long term projects for fossil fuels given lack of long term ROI.
It took us decades of poor planning and dependence on cheap Russian/Saudi supply, we arenât going to get out of that whole overnight. I do think in 10 years the US and the EU will be dramatically less reliant on fossil fuels and the a-holes in Russia, Saudi, Iran, etc who supply it.
(In response to this post by vt90)
Was in South Africa last May and they complained about the effects
of the Chinese buying old mines and then going after the lithium with ZERO care about the environmental effects to the local population.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
US fishing boats were required to leave certain tuna grounds because it was where dolphins mingled with tuna and got caught up in the nets.
The US boats were replaced with Chinese and other asian country boats, and while the US boats would catch dolphins, as a general rule, they attempted to free them and release them, the new boats that took over for them didn't, just killed them and took them back for food. So, net effect of dolphin safe tuna? More dead dolphins.
(In response to this post by AirborneHokie96)
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MikeVT85
3y
the opening of 27 coal-fired power plants. Necessity rules over fairy tales. (LINK)
Link:
LINK
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
making upper middle class dopes feel good about themselves. It has almost nothing to do with practical solutions to real environmental problems.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
Ignoring inconvenient truths about EV's is a near religion.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
superior way to propel a vehicle. The only reason we've had ICE instead of electric vehicles for a hundred years is because gasoline is a vastly superior source of portable energy. But the electric motor itself beats the hell out of an ICE.
It definitely still requires some advancement in battery technology: in cost, in size/weight, in availability of raw materials, in charging time, in safety. But I'm honestly looking forward to most cars being electric, and not for any environmental reasons. I want the quiet, the zero maintenance, the instantaneous torque, and the Spies Like Us centrifuge-esque acceleration, with a side order of marginalizing all the nations in the world whose only contribution to society is they have oil, and have a predisposition to hate us.
(In response to this post by Vienna_Hokie)
E
EDGEMAN
3y
(a) electric motors that propel the vehicle down the road, and (b) ICEs that run as generators to provide that electrical power? You shouldn't need a huge battery bank.
** Edited by EDGEMAN at 10/18/2022, 1:27:28 PM
(In response to this post by Tafkam Hokie)
3y
they are referred to as Diesel Electric Locomotives
(In response to this post by RJHokie)
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RJHokie
3y
Electric motors can be much more powerful than ICEâs.
(In response to this post by Vienna_Hokie)
3y
(In response to this post by Tafkam Hokie)
3y
(In response to this post by mancunian)
3y
of the 'Green Mafia' as the OP phrased it is NOT to fix the energy problem. It is to gain money and power making it an issue. The sad/scary part about it is that the entity that stands to gain the most from increased reliance on solar, wind, and lithium is China. So even if they were somehow successful in reducing climate concerns by 1-2%, we are empowering our greatest adversary and the one we already owe trillions of dollars to. We are borrowing money from China to fix a problem we can't fix and they mine/manufacture the goods we need to fix this unfixable problem. So they make themselves richer twice while we get poorer.
And I am not a climate denier - It is a problem that requires a global approach. The US contributes less than 11% of 'greenhouse gases'. China and India together are over 30%. Unless there is an approach that includes pretty much the entire earth, we are simply putting in a 'no peeing' zone in a public pool. China is a much larger threat to both our Country and the planet in general than the climate is right now.
Doesn't sound like money well spent to me.
** Edited by vt90 at 10/18/2022, 1:49:47 PM
(In response to this post by MP4VT2004)
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Fatman
3y
China is pivoting further towards state control, communism doesnât work. The US can compete in the industries of tomorrow; EVs, solar, nuke, etc.
The US is home to the most valuable auto maker in the world, which happens to be the leader in EVs.
The BBB bill provides rebates for EVs that donât have compounded in China. There is no reason the US canât mine and refine Lithium and other components. China has more foresight and invested in the future before the US, but there is massive Venture funding of EV, Nuke, Solar. Thatâs the USâ superpower, we will be highly competitive.
The unit cost of batteries is falling like Silicon-chips did in the 80s-2010s. The economics indicate that EVs will see big time price drops over the next decade, just like $/unit compute power fell with Mooreâs law. Even setting aside environmental considerations, the cost/efficiencies of EVs doom the era of ICE cars. Fossil fuels have highly variable costs that increase over time, they are on a trend that is opposite of Mooreâs law.
(In response to this post by vt90)
E
EDGEMAN
3y
...we're walking right into their trap. We've outsourced our manufacturing to the point that we don't make a lot of our critical components or medicine. The fact that "big pharma" is getting so rich from the COVID vaccines, and I don't see them building any infrastructure in America. They just continue to outsource to maximize profits. I understand that part, but we're approaching the point of a military confrontation with Communist China when they invade free China. All they have to do is stop exporting drugs and other components to the US.
If you want a real world example, look at how Europe decided to source the majority of their fuel from Russia. The exact same thing is going to happen to us...it's just a matter of time. Meanwhile, our "leadership" has their heads in the sand.
(In response to this post by Fatman)
3y
If something can be bought from China and shipped here for less than it could be made here, we simply choose to not do it here. While that's a perfectly rational choice in the short term, it also means there are a ton of critical things to society there is zero incentive to produce domestically. At least until China decides to either cut off the supply or hike prices once we are dependent on them and all our expertise and capacity to make it here has withered away.
(In response to this post by Fatman)
3y
Once you run an ICE to make electricity, then you would probably need some kind of battery or capacitor to store the energy so it can be metered to the motors, then you have to convert the electricity back to rotational energy...that's a lot of efficiency losses in the system. I expect you would burn more gasoline that way than just running the ICE output through a transmission and directly to the wheels.
Although that is what almost all modern trains do (diesel generator running electric motors).
(In response to this post by MP4VT2004)
3y
...that electric motors are more efficient than ICE engines. I agree with that from the perspective of the amount of electrical energy that is converted to torque at the wheels vs. the amount of stored energy in gasoline that is converted to torque at the wheels. However, as you just described, to generate the electricity, you've got to convert some other form of energy, which involves efficiency losses. If we're talking about strictly renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, or nuclear, then EVs make a lot of sense. But we all know that the technology/storage capacity does not currently exist to power a world full of EVs with no carbon-based fuels used in the generation of the electricity. So my post was kind of poking at the idea that electric motors are more efficient...they definitely are with respect to converting stored energy to usable power, but the energy has to come from somewhere. Also, I understand that you were talking about a day when the technology exists to charge EVs using renewable sources, so I'm picking at nits here.
(In response to this post by Tafkam Hokie)
3y
I never said anything about charging EV's using purely renewable sources. It's still a net positive for the environment to generate electricity with a natural gas powered power plant, then operating cars off electricity. I'd like to get to where we have zero use for the Middle East, or Venezuela, or Russia, or any other politically instable part of the world that just happens to be sitting on a bunch of oil. But I do think there is a place for petroleum products in a more environmentally friendly future. There are things you can do at a centralized power plant that aren't scaleable or practical at the level of an individual car in terms of clean burning and carbon capture that still makes you come out ahead.
And I also said electric motors are superior, but didn't say anything about their efficiency. I've honestly never looked at the numbers re. efficiency of an EV vs. and ICE once you take the entire supply chain into account. When I say superior, I mean you get vastly reduced moving parts, virtually zero maintenance, a ridiculously steady torque curve, and acceleration performance you would need a legit supercar to have any hope of matching. I want an EV not for tree-hugging environmentalist reasons, I want an EV for good old fashioned redneck muscle car-type performance reasons.
(In response to this post by MP4VT2004)
3y
the huge smokestacks of the Dutch Gap power plant is Chesterfield County, Va. There is usually a mile long coal train waiting to be unloaded at the power plant. Coal powered Teslas...perfect.
(In response to this post by Vienna_Hokie)
3y
except maybe for strip mining. Really just objections to the burning of coal.
But I try to not hang out with the lunatic fringe much.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
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EDGEMAN
3y
(In response to this post by Tafkam Hokie)
3y
(In response to this post by Tafkam Hokie)
3y
equipment being used to mine for lithium. So in that case, it's operating a mine without burning what you are mining.
I don't think the Green Mafia would object to repurposing a coal mine (and it's equipment, employees, and owners) to mine for lithium. But that's assuming they are rationally trying to stop pollution and CO2 emissions and not just virtue signaling.
(In response to this post by HokieNoVA)
3y
why did she make it if she didn't want us to eat it
(In response to this post by HokieNoVA)
3y
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
"If carmakers and state governments want to reach a zero-emissions future no later than 2035, the world will have to open at least 74 lithium mines, 62 cobalt mines, 72 nickel mines, 97 natural graphite mines and 54 synthetic graphite plants, as Benchmark illustrates."
Link:
300+ new mines needed.
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)
3y
Brazil to really start ramping up.
Hell in Chile in the Atacama Desert, lithium is literally scooped out of holding pond.
(In response to this post by HokieJay)
3y
(In response to this post by Major Kong)
3y
and it will pay off for the big time down the road.
(In response to this post by Major Kong)
3y
in Nevada. The thing about lithium in the US is it's more of an extraction than actual mining. There are Spodumene deposits in the US in CA & NC but as far as I know there are no plans on mining them (hard rock mining).
The water metrics for lithium extraction are pretty daunting especially in dry and arid climates.
(In response to this post by vt90)
3y
we like our bacon, but don't want to think about the pig it came from...
like our steak, but only want to see cows on the hillside as we drive down the road
want our EV's to save the planet, but don't want to see the pools of heavy metal and contaminated drinking water from producing the batteries
(In response to this post by Major Kong)
All we really need is a 100% Covid kill rate to get that pesky emission
problem under control. You go, Boston University! Weâre all counting on you!
(In response to this post by HokieJay)
3y
(In response to this post by HokieJay)
3y
Lithium is 3, so there's twice a much lithium as there is coal, right? đ
(In response to this post by bigbadbird)