America Could Go Fully Electric Right Now

[SUZNV + 1,197]

13 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

How much waste is produced, and how does this compare to the wastes from coal burning power plants?

Coal burning power plants produce CO2 and they measure that because it is gas which will affect the climate changes. And CO2 can be recycled or absorb at the 20-200 years.

Toxic waste from Lithium, Cobalt, Nickle for battery component mostly in liquid or solid forms and weren't counted in the climate changes. And these elements mining and extracting processes are so toxic that most developed countries will be unlikely to issue the permit for new mine, so it pushed to Africa, South America just like the rare earths because the environment costs are cheap there. And these toxic wastes are much much harder to deal with like CO2, currently or contain that without any solution or just put it straight to back to streams, rivers. Doesn't contribute to climate changes does not mean you are not destroying the environment. And the dispose of these old batteries. And these 3rd world countries wouldn't give a damn for CO2 emission there but the wastes and effects on the local, if they cared at all. The cost of this depends on how far and through out you want to analyze. If none bothers to calculate the cost, doesn't mean it is free. How much the cost for climate change if they keep guessing wrongly for the sea level? The cost is not CO2 as a waste, the cost is the sea level rising that affects the environment vs the cost of directly destroy the environment.

Want to know more? Google like you did before for sending other links.

And how many times of current mining scale for these minerals are needed to go fully electric? All go straight to streams or stores as liquid/solid wastes. How much more percentages of heavy metals will be in your seafood and the healthcare/social cost for that? How that can be call sustainable energies in any form? 

Any Government or stock investor simply ignores this because it does not help with the stock prices or more regulations/taxation for subsidies. Yet  they masquerade to "save the world".

Edited August 26, 2020 by SUZNV

[Meredith Poor + 883]

1 hour ago, SUZNV said:

Coal burning power plants produce CO2 and they measure that because it is gas which will affect the climate changes. And CO2 can be recycled or absorb at the 20-200 years.

Toxic waste from Lithium, Cobalt, Nickle for battery component mostly in liquid or solid forms and weren't counted in the climate changes. And these elements mining and extracting processes are so toxic that most developed countries will be unlikely to issue the permit for new mine, so it pushed to Africa, South America just like the rare earths because the environment costs are cheap there. And these toxic wastes are much much harder to deal with like CO2, currently or contain that without any solution or just put it straight to back to streams, rivers. Doesn't contribute to climate changes does not mean you are not destroying the environment. And the dispose of these old batteries. And these 3rd world countries wouldn't give a damn for CO2 emission there but the wastes and effects on the local, if they cared at all. The cost of this depends on how far and through out you want to analyze. If none bothers to calculate the cost, doesn't mean it is free. How much the cost for climate change if they keep guessing wrongly for the sea level? The cost is not CO2 as a waste, the cost is the sea level rising that affects the environment vs the cost of directly destroy the environment.

Want to know more? Google like you did before for sending other links.

And how many times of current mining scale for these minerals are needed to go fully electric? All go straight to streams or stores as liquid/solid wastes. How much more percentages of heavy metals will be in your seafood and the healthcare/social cost for that? How that can be call sustainable energies in any form? 

Any Government or stock investor simply ignores this because it does not help with the stock prices or more regulations/taxation for subsidies. Yet  they masquerade to "save the world".

The attached picture is a satellite view of a power plant in Georgia. The red box outlines one of the ash piles from the plant, generally a mixture or lime mixed with sulfur dioxide and various silicates. Coal combustion generates mountains of solid wastes.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

18 minutes ago, Meredith Poor said:

The attached picture is a satellite view of a power plant in Georgia. The red box outlines one of the ash piles from the plant, generally a mixture or lime mixed with sulfur dioxide and various silicates. Coal combustion generates mountains of solid wastes.

Whatever you've circled there isn't a pile, looks exactly like an open pit mine with terraced sides to drive down. 

[SUZNV + 1,197]

41 minutes ago, Meredith Poor said:

The attached picture is a satellite view of a power plant in Georgia. The red box outlines one of the ash piles from the plant, generally a mixture or lime mixed with sulfur dioxide and various silicates. Coal combustion generates mountains of solid wastes.

What's your point? A deflection? Did I say anything about coal as renewable? Plus the coal mine pollution will scale to 10-100 times in the future? DIY for the different of their pollution to the environment because the oceans water is shared. What goes around comes around.

Edited August 26, 2020 by SUZNV

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

46 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

Whatever you've circled there isn't a pile, looks exactly like an open pit mine with terraced sides to drive down. 

Is it even a powerplant?  It's just a mine, isn't it?

[ronwagn + 6,290]

20 hours ago, NickW said:

Especially in hot sunny dry climates

Then, likely no water available. 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, Dan Warnick said:

Is it even a powerplant?  It's just a mine, isn't it?

There's a big smokestack northwest of the red box drawn. I'm guessing power plant but whatever Meredith wanted to point out isn't right. I've flown enough planes to recognize objects on the ground. That's not a pile, that's clearly a hole. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

4 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

There's a big smokestack northwest of the red box drawn. I'm guessing power plant but whatever Meredith wanted to point out isn't right. I've flown enough planes to recognize objects on the ground. That's not a pile, that's clearly a hole. 

I don't see it.  Doesn't mean it's not there.  Pretty poor site to make a point, in any case.  That's a pretty tidy site IMHO.  If he wanted to make us feel bad, he could have chosen so many other photos on the web.

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

1 hour ago, Dan Warnick said:

I don't see it.  Doesn't mean it's not there.  Pretty poor site to make a point, in any case.  That's a pretty tidy site IMHO.  If he wanted to make us feel bad, he could have chosen so many other photos on the web.

 

I agree, tidy site and no ash pile doesn't help his case. Take a look at about 11:30 in the picture, and see the big shadow? At its base is the big smokestack. 

[Meredith Poor + 883]

2 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

There's a big smokestack northwest of the red box drawn. I'm guessing power plant but whatever Meredith wanted to point out isn't right. I've flown enough planes to recognize objects on the ground. That's not a pile, that's clearly a hole. 

"What's your point? A deflection? "

Here's the street view of your 'hole'. Look carefully under the red arrow.

In the meantime, SUZNV asks, 'What's your point? A deflection?' after he pontificates at length about the solid waste left by mining for battery metals. This is the point - vast amounts of solid waste produced by 'business as usual' - far more than produced by mining for lithium or other renewable energy metals. These piles contain sulfur, mercury, and cadmium, among other toxins.

 

[Enthalpic + 1,496]

1 hour ago, Ward Smith said:

no ash pile doesn't help his case.

The thing to the right is almost certainly a former mining hole that is now filled with waste.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Enthalpic

[SUZNV + 1,197]

3 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

Here's the street view of your 'hole'. Look carefully under the red arrow.

In the meantime, SUZNV asks, 'What's your point? A deflection?' after he pontificates at length about the solid waste left by mining for battery metals. This is the point - vast amounts of solid waste produced by 'business as usual' - far more than produced by mining for lithium or other renewable energy metals. These piles contain sulfur, mercury, and cadmium, among other toxins.

 

Yeah, let's keep it short by googling and throwing link to each other (and I don't think you did a good job for just that). And you conveniently ignored the toxic liquid waste go to the streams for the local and the facts that these toxic solid &liquid wastes will be from 10-100 times with your "clean & sustainable" energy solution? If it is business as usual so why even care for CO2 to start with? Aren't the regulations and subsidies lobbying for "clean" energy come from moral and ethical values "make money but stay responsible to the world"? 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

4 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

I agree, tidy site and no ash pile doesn't help his case. Take a look at about 11:30 in the picture, and see the big shadow? At its base is the big smokestack. 

Oh yeah, with fresh eyes today I saw it right away.  Thanks.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

3 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

Here's the street view of your 'hole'. Look carefully under the red arrow.

In the meantime, SUZNV asks, 'What's your point? A deflection?' after he pontificates at length about the solid waste left by mining for battery metals. This is the point - vast amounts of solid waste produced by 'business as usual' - far more than produced by mining for lithium or other renewable energy metals. These piles contain sulfur, mercury, and cadmium, among other toxins.

 

So your point is that this vv is better than that ^^?

I just did a search for "Lithium mine" and that photo was one of the first results.

Google Images: Lithium mine

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

3 hours ago, Meredith Poor said:

Here's the street view of your 'hole'. Look carefully under the red arrow.

In the meantime, SUZNV asks, 'What's your point? A deflection?' after he pontificates at length about the solid waste left by mining for battery metals. This is the point - vast amounts of solid waste produced by 'business as usual' - far more than produced by mining for lithium or other renewable energy metals. These piles contain sulfur, mercury, and cadmium, among other toxins.

 

Looked. I see a berm of dirt. If it were fly ash it would have a different color no? Maybe they've terraced that big hole to eventually put fly ash into it. It's just not there in either picture. 

As for environmental waste, one wind turbine has 4 tons of rare earth elements today. Those came from mines in China where the concentration is about 500 parts per million. So those 4 tons required 8000 tons of ore to be processed. Would you like to see some Google Earth views of the environmental catastrophe that mine has become? The United States has closed its only REE mine multiple times for environmental disasters. The Department of Defense has recently given the mine money to reopen because they've finally figured out that importing 100% of the elements needed in our high tech weaponry is a dumbass place to be. That's just REE. Want to talk about lithium, cobalt, yttrium, and germanium? 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

I don't even know what's going on at this one.

 

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

4 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

I don't even know what's going on at this one.

 

I know. Those are acid leaching ponds. It's the same process they use for REE and even gold. It can take as many as 200 leaching steps to concentrate the ore to a sufficient level for ultimate processing into a usable product. Those steps involve even more hazardous chemicals. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

2 minutes ago, Ward Smith said:

I know. Those are acid leaching ponds. It's the same process they use for REE and even gold. It can take as many as 200 leaching steps to concentrate the ore to a sufficient level for ultimate processing into a usable product. Those steps involve even more hazardous chemicals. 

Thought so.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,537]

America "could" go fully electric right now....I get that..it does remind me of playing 5 card draw poker and bet 10 trillion on there first draw? It is something to discuss,but for now California has drawn the first card, let us watch the game unfold for maybe next 5 yrs. Or have we forgotten Solyndra so soon.

[SUZNV + 1,197]

If we truly care about the temperature rising which makes the ice melt, then trees are the excellent choices instead of eliminate them without new planting back (and the worst reason is for mining and extracting). Especially tropical trees but any kinds of plant gonna do, better than none.

For snowy places like Canada, Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska, Minnesota don't grow trees, grow grasses, or corn farms, or soya farms so that it can be cover in snow while they can do their jobs in summer.

The way we are going with more batteries for  panel wind turbine or electric cars are no way to be sustainable in x10,x100,x1000. We will need reserve these batteries pollution for phones, for IoT devices, laptops etc. because we cannot avoid that.

 

Quote

 

Planting a tree for Earth Day may do more good if you live in Buenos Aires than if you live in New York. A new study finds that tropical trees are better at combating global warming than trees in higher latitudes.

"Our study shows that only tropical rainforests are strongly beneficial in helping slow down global warming," said study team leader Govindasamy Bala of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California.

Forests affect the climate in three different ways: by absorbing carbon dioxide (a major greenhouse gas) to help cool the planet; by evaporating water that forms clouds, also helping to keep the planet cooler; and by absorbing sunlight with their dark leaves, which warms the Earth.

Trees in snowy places like Canada, Scandinavia and Siberia absorb sunlight that would otherwise be reflected back to space by the bright white snow.

 

https://www.livescience.com/4410-tropical-trees-cool-earth-effectively.html

Regulations and subsidies for more solar and wind, much much more batteries, then spend lots of regulations and  R&D subsidies or reparations to clean up the mess of the batteries and mining for toxic wastes and social costs as the only way for the sake of cooling the earth?

"keep it simple, stupid",KISS!

Edited August 27, 2020 by SUZNV

[NickW + 2,714]

14 hours ago, ronwagn said:

Then, likely no water available. 

So why (not you) raise the issue of solar impeding plant growth. If for example the solar is placed in semi desert regions there is no  / minimal loss of plant growth. Infact the shade helps conserve water which may mean some growth of hardy plants occurs. 

[NickW + 2,714]

8 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Looked. I see a berm of dirt. If it were fly ash it would have a different color no? Maybe they've terraced that big hole to eventually put fly ash into it. It's just not there in either picture. 

As for environmental waste, one wind turbine has 4 tons of rare earth elements today. Those came from mines in China where the concentration is about 500 parts per million. So those 4 tons required 8000 tons of ore to be processed. Would you like to see some Google Earth views of the environmental catastrophe that mine has become? The United States has closed its only REE mine multiple times for environmental disasters. The Department of Defense has recently given the mine money to reopen because they've finally figured out that importing 100% of the elements needed in our high tech weaponry is a dumbass place to be. That's just REE. Want to talk about lithium, cobalt, yttrium, and germanium? 

According to this a 5MW turbine (upper end of land based models) contains 4 tons of permanent magnets of which 1 ton is composed of rare earth metals. 

https://www.peakresources.com.au/news/wind-industry-prepares-for-bottlenecks-and-price-hikes-in-rare-earth-metals/#:~:text=A 5 megawatt direct-drive,of business development at Adamas.

I don't know whether this scales proportionally for bigger turbines or whether an economy of scale exists? 

The other side to this is that once mined the metal will mostly be recycled

RE: Cobalt - I believe one of the biggest single users is the Oil and Gas industry so use of that commodity can't be solely placed  on battery manufacturers. 

 

 

Edited August 27, 2020 by NickW

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,129]

4 hours ago, NickW said:

According to this a 5MW turbine (upper end of land based models) contains 4 tons of permanent magnets of which 1 ton is composed of rare earth metals. 

https://www.peakresources.com.au/news/wind-industry-prepares-for-bottlenecks-and-price-hikes-in-rare-earth-metals/#:~:text=A 5 megawatt direct-drive,of business development at Adamas.

I don't know whether this scales proportionally for bigger turbines or whether an economy of scale exists? 

The other side to this is that once mined the metal will mostly be recycled

RE: Cobalt - I believe one of the biggest single users is the Oil and Gas industry so use of that commodity can't be solely placed  on battery manufacturers.

Cobalt is used almost exclusively for stainless steels which are used primarily in: USGS source...

Cobalt Statistics and Information

Cobalt (Co) is a metal used in numerous diverse commercial, industrial, and military applications, many of which are strategic and critical.  On a global basis, the leading use of cobalt is in rechargeable battery electrodes.  Superalloys, which are used to make parts for gas turbine engines, are another major use for cobalt.  Cobalt is also used to make airbags in automobiles; catalysts for the petroleum and chemical industries; cemented carbides (also called hardmetals) and diamond tools; corrosion- and wear-resistant alloys; drying agents for paints, varnishes, and inks; dyes and pigments; ground coats for porcelain enamels; high-speed steels; magnetic recording media; magnets; and steel-belted radial tires.

EDIT: 1 ton of or even 5 tons of Cobalt for wind turbines in a giant version using PM motors along with cobalt bearing steels for bearings etc pales in comparison to the amount required for batteries to backup those Wind turbines.  Now if we can make batteries without Cobalt...    Last I checked, TESLA batteries use ~8 parts Nickel, 1 part Lithium and 1 part Cobalt and this was a major step forward for the Model 3. 

Lets be generous: 250 Wh/kg.  Lets assume their battery pack densities increase dramatically in future. 

1 ton of batteries = 250kWh/ton or another way of saying 100kg of cobalt = 250kWh of battery storage capacity. 

1 ton Cobalt = 2.5MWh energy storage.  Of course you can only use a portion of this and max when new...

1 Megaton Cobalt = 2.5TWh energy storage. 

Yearly production of Cobalt: 140,000 tons...

We have a problem boys and girls...

Why?

Since everyone likes using California as an example: they use ~50GW/hour peak and transportation is not electrified yet, let alone chemical industry which will effectively double electricity required, but I digress... So, 50GW/hour required 24 hours a day is on the LOW side.  VERY LOW side. 

Sun dear friends only shines for a maximum of 12 hours a day in California in summer peak and winter low is around ~5hours, and they have no wind resources worth talking about.  So, California, assuming they go solar, and they are Hell Bent on going solar, need during the winter, assuming no cloudy days, will require:

24-5 hours = 19 hours of battery backup at a rate of 50GW/hour for a tidy ~1TWhours of capacity assuming everything goes perfectly...  Of course if you have a winter storm(gosh that never happens 🙄) then you need capacity for several DAYS if not at minimum 2 weeks. 

California by itself, irregardless of the rest of the world will require: 400,000 metric tons of Cobalt assuming ZERO stormy days. 

*** Does not count transportation @ 50Million vehicles which by themselves assuming 250kWh/vehicle(trucks etc will average) is 50M*(0.1 ton Cobalt/250kWh battery) =  5M tons of Cobalt or a tidy 40 years of worlds Cobalt production🙄🤣🙄🤣🙄🤣***

Reality, inefficiencies in conversion/transmission, battery degradation, storms, and we are looking at minimum probably 400k x 7days = 2.8Megatons... or a tidy 20 YEARS of Cobalt production. 

So, 40 years of production just for tranportation needs and 20 years for electrical backup needs...

Yea... that is going to happen...

To say we are going to use Lithium Ion batteries to power the world is beyond absurd.  Not even a TINY RICH portion of the world can go electric.  IT IS NOT POSSIBLE with current battery tech.  NOT AT ALL. Not with Cobalt battery tech anyways. 

EDIT: Good news!  Supposedly there are 7,000,000M tons of Cobalt reserves.  Now how deep those reserves are... is another question entirely.  So, technically there is enough Cobalt.  I suggest invading Congo and strip mining the whole place with several of the biggest strip mines in the world.  Good news, it is near Congo's borders which are the most stable portion of the nation, but it is all mountainous...  So, maybe get lucky and kiss up to Kenya/Tanzania/Zambia and hope you can get a railroad through/connected across the Eastern African Rift zone.   Hrmm, maybe that Chinese railroad into part of Kenya might be paid off after all.  Of course the most expensive part, connecting to Congo is still to be done...

Edited August 27, 2020 by footeab@yahoo.com

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,129]

As an addendum: US/Europe sources of Cobalt: 50% currently comes from recycled material...  It recycles at near 100% rate, just like Nickel, silver, gold, etc.  Cobalt, like Nickel is horrific to mine/refine and for the majority, is only done in countries without environmental regulations and it is STILL ~$30,000/ton ~ $30/kg.  Nickel is 1/3 this cost.  Copper?  1/5.  The only metals more expensive?  Gold, Silver, Platinum, and rare earths like Indium, Neodymium, Niobium, etc. 

Edited August 27, 2020 by footeab@yahoo.com

[ronwagn + 6,290]

15 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

Looked. I see a berm of dirt. If it were fly ash it would have a different color no? Maybe they've terraced that big hole to eventually put fly ash into it. It's just not there in either picture. 

As for environmental waste, one wind turbine has 4 tons of rare earth elements today. Those came from mines in China where the concentration is about 500 parts per million. So those 4 tons required 8000 tons of ore to be processed. Would you like to see some Google Earth views of the environmental catastrophe that mine has become? The United States has closed its only REE mine multiple times for environmental disasters. The Department of Defense has recently given the mine money to reopen because they've finally figured out that importing 100% of the elements needed in our high tech weaponry is a dumbass place to be. That's just REE. Want to talk about lithium, cobalt, yttrium, and germanium? 

Ward, I would love to see your information about the costs/benefits of mining for rare earth elements, uranium, coal, etc. I really now very little about the environmental costs of mining aside from a little about coal. Waste disposal and the cost/benefit to local people and health for all comes in too.

I have heard a lot of horror stories about African diamond mines, uranium mines etc. I am wondering if they are forced to clean up those sites when they are abandoned.