Facebook Follies of Friends and Families

[crazy canuck]

I don't understand your argument. The math put forward in the analysis you quoted is not wrong because it is difficult to be precise about the future.  It is clearly wrong because it makes the wrong assumptions. There is no point in calculating how many raw materials it will take to replace all cars in one year. That is never going to happen. Actually the fact that it is a close run thing to replace all cars in one year makes a gradual transition not only feasible but easy.

Its looking just at the UK and amount needed to replace all 31 million cars in one year.

In a typical year globally 70 million+ cars are sold.

It's not rocket science to convert the numbers over to a realistic scenario away from the theoretical. The actual numbers are WORSE than those presented.

Yes, but the point you are missing is that 70 million electric cars are not going to be sold this year and so it makes no sense doing an analysis based on the production of raw materials this year.  Mining exploration, development and production are all fine tuned to meet current needs.  Not future needs.

[crazy canuck]

It's not rocket science to understand that numbers based on the assumption that technology will not change over time are presented purely as emotional props, not serious intellectual data.

I agree, but even if technology does not change over time (which is an unrealistic worst case horrible hypothetical) the analysis still makes no sense as it assumes that increased demand will not create the economic impetus for increased resource development.

[alfred russel]

Presumably battery and electric motor tech isn't static, and in fact will see raw materials costs decline over time, and possibly be replaced by more sustainable raw materials.

I mean you could equally accurately say, "presumably raw material costs will explode over time as the market shifts toward battery and electric motors, and demand increases for scarce resources."

Over a century ago, someone saying, "presumably gas powered tech isn't static, and oil costs will decline over time, possibly replaced by more sustainable raw materials" maybe you will eventually be proven right, but oil interests are doing okay at the moment.

[mongers]

Yes... A usual deflection. Don't worry about it as inevitably  super tech will be along to save us.

Climate change is a problem in the here and now. We are already beyond the point where we can stop it completely. We need to do all we can to minimise the damage. Just continuing exactly as we are confident everyone will have an electric car in 20 years then problem solved is just avoiding taking the real action that is required.

Josq. I'm sorry to say this, but that's straight up hypocracy on your part, given you're someone who seems to jump on a airplane every other month.

[Admiral Yi]

The number that got me was the last one, 70% of Europe's cobalt consumption just to supply new vehicle purchases.  Just in the UK. 

[crazy canuck]

The number that got me was the last one, 70% of Europe's cobalt consumption just to supply new vehicle purchases.  Just in the UK. 

Think a little bit more carefully about how that figure is calculated

[Josquius]

Yes... A usual deflection. Don't worry about it as inevitably  super tech will be along to save us.

Climate change is a problem in the here and now. We are already beyond the point where we can stop it completely. We need to do all we can to minimise the damage. Just continuing exactly as we are confident everyone will have an electric car in 20 years then problem solved is just avoiding taking the real action that is required.

Josq. I'm sorry to say this, but that's straight up hypocracy on your part, given you're someone who seems to jump on a airplane every other month.

1: not that commonly at all. July was a weird month with a necessary work trip shortly before my summer holidays.
2: where feasible I avoid flying. The trouble is the current world is setup to make this infeasible where it really shouldn't be.

More broadly than me, the problem isn't people flying around on low cost flights. They should try to curb this and seek to avoid it where remotely possible but that's very minor stuff for tackling climate change. You're not going to get many people who take you up on that to a large degree .
The problem is that people are incentivised to take cheap flights due to the expense and crap service of travel by rail.

It's not rocket science to understand that numbers based on the assumption that technology will not change over time are presented purely as emotional props, not serious intellectual data.

I agree, but even if technology does not change over time (which is an unrealistic worst case horrible hypothetical) the analysis still makes no sense as it assumes that increased demand will not create the economic impetus for increased resource development.

Which again is leaning into the fallacy of "we will just mine more and it will be cheaper". These are finite resources found only in certain areas and there's increasing political opposition to mining in many of these places.

It's daft to just hand wave away any concerns about the availability of raw resources by saying "we will just mine more!"
Obviously the analysis doesn't account for future growth. Its ridiculous to read it and dismiss it with an "ah but 1000kg more copper will be made next year" or the like.
 The numbers account for what they can and present the immense scale of the future growth needed. A level which any rational person can see stretches feasibility.
This confidence that problems will just solve themselves is what got us in this mess in the first place.

The number that got me was the last one, 70% of Europe's cobalt consumption just to supply new vehicle purchases.  Just in the UK. 

Think a little bit more carefully about how that figure is calculated

There's no problem with it.
The most efficient electric cars require x cobalt.
Europe consumes y cobalt.
There are z cars in the UK.
Simple maths to work out the percentage there and see its pretty damn big.

[Jacob]

Josq. I'm sorry to say this, but that's straight up hypocracy on your part, given you're someone who seems to jump on a airplane every other month.

Don't worry, technological advances will soon give us electrical planes at affordable prices.  Resource production will inevitably expand to meet requirements to support environmentally responsible flying.

[grumbler]

There's no problem with it.
The most efficient electric cars require x cobalt.
Europe consumes y cobalt.
There are z cars in the UK.
Simple maths to work out the percentage there and see its pretty damn big.

There's enormous problems with it.
1. The most efficient electric cars require X cobalt TODAY
2. Europe consumes y cobalt TODAY
3. There are z cars in the UK TODAY, but only about 400k of them are electric TODAY
4.  Simple maths tell us that the UK's consumption of cobalt for EVs TODAY is a small fraction of the EU's consumption of cobalt.

Now, if you want to project the use of cobalt by UK EVs into the future, you also have to project the production of cobalt into the future.  Your projection of cobalt use by EK EVs should also include the understanding that future batteries, such as solid-state batteries, will not consume the same materials and that current cobalt production is sufficiently small-scale that, left unchanged, it won't deplete currently known reserves by half for 7,000 years.

The whole "cobalt panic' thing is intellectually unsound.

[The Larch]

Out of curiosity, I've taken a look at cobalt production on wiki. Apparently worldwide cobalt is mostly obtained as a by-product of copper and nickel mining and smelting, so its global supply is thus directly related to the demand for copper and nickel. Some direct extraction takes place, but it's relatively uncommon as pure cobalt deposits are rare in nature. Currently the largest cobalt production and reserves are located, by far, in DR Congo. The cobalt employed for EV batteries seems to come largely from this direct extraction method.

So, it seems to me that global lack of cobalt is not really an issue on a purely technical level. Direct extraction, which seems to be the method preferred by the EV battery industry, seems to have plenty of untapped potential. There are other issues, though, of a more ethical consideration, as mining in DR Congo is a notoriously dirty affair, so empowering the cobalt mining industry there might contribute to worsening issues such as corruption, child labour, environmental protection, and so on.

[grumbler]

Agree that the conditions in DRC are shit, but don't see cobalt mining as the reason.  It's not like things are fine there for everyone but the cobalt miners.  Increased mining seems most likely to move people from impoverished unemployment to impoverished employment.

[crazy canuck]

Out of curiosity, I've taken a look at cobalt production on wiki. Apparently worldwide cobalt is mostly obtained as a by-product of copper and nickel mining and smelting, so its global supply is thus directly related to the demand for copper and nickel. Some direct extraction takes place, but it's relatively uncommon as pure cobalt deposits are rare in nature. Currently the largest cobalt production and reserves are located, by far, in DR Congo. The cobalt employed for EV batteries seems to come largely from this direct extraction method.

So, it seems to me that global lack of cobalt is not really an issue on a purely technical level. Direct extraction, which seems to be the method preferred by the EV battery industry, seems to have plenty of untapped potential. There are other issues, though, of a more ethical consideration, as mining in DR Congo is a notoriously dirty affair, so empowering the cobalt mining industry there might contribute to worsening issues such as corruption, child labour, environmental protection, and so on.

As the demand for cobalt rises the price of cobalt rises.  As the price rises, It becomes more economic to mine copper in order to obtain the byproduct of cobalt. I don't wanna get too far into the weeds but mine life is entirely a function of the cost of extracting the ore.

They were very few mines in BC Which shut down because they run out of ore. 
It's just that the cost of extracting the ore does not make the operation viable.

In short, when the price justifies the operational expense, There will be more cobalt available for purchase.

[Berkut]

This analysis doesn't account for changing technology.

Presumably battery and electric motor tech isn't static, and in fact will see raw materials costs decline over time, and possibly be replaced by more sustainable raw materials.

I don't know if we will ever get to complete replacement, but the perfect cannot be the enemy of the better. This is a process, and what matters is that we keep getting better, and do that as quickly as possible.

Not sit here and imagine that the effort cannot work because we cannot imagine anything ever changing from the current bottlenecks.

Yes... A usual deflection. Don't worry about it as inevitably  super tech will be along to save us.

Climate change is a problem in the here and now. We are already beyond the point where we can stop it completely. We need to do all we can to minimise the damage. Just continuing exactly as we are confident everyone will have an electric car in 20 years then problem solved is just avoiding taking the real action that is required.

I am in favor of actually doing things to help the problem, you are apparently in favor of not doing things because the things done cannot perfectly solve the problem.

Who is deflecting?

[Syt]

Interesting that they decided to photoshop DeSantis' face onto a movie character who's a sadistic slaveholder who loves French, but hey ...



(Tbf, they probably used it because of how the image's popularity in crappy memes)

[Josquius]

[
I am in favor of actually doing things to help the problem, you are apparently in favor of not doing things because the things done cannot perfectly solve the problem.

Who is deflecting?

That's completely the opposite of what is being said here.
The original problem mentioned which started all this was the rise of a new Conservative attitude of people who (claim to) believe in climate change but who don't think we need to do anything as inevitably just switching to electric cars will be enough.