Most ridiculous green proposal

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,555]

7 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Actually the article states the amount as $1,000 more for a car. As long as the sticker also includes how much more they will spend in gasoline costs it sounds like a fine idea. 

Perhaps the sticker could also explain that the automakers who agreed to the new restrictions did so to get their 2008 bailouts and are now not living up to their agreement. The most notable company that did not take bailout money is Ford, the lead company in the agreement with CA to keep using our standards. The F-150 is going to remain a CA emissions vehicle.

Oh and there are 14 other explicit CARB states and a total of 23 states that have filed suit to *keep* CA emissions.  

 

Ohh you just keep digging a deeper grave. 

Lmao yes Ford did walk away your correct, Mulally walked away from EV/ Hybrids. The father of ecboost and saved Ford.

Obama bailed out GM, who in turn built factories in China. Odd how much green tech roles out of China...

Time for a glass of wine...this conversation is getting old. 

I'll be back....lol a f 150 in California..peace out.

[Wombat + 1,028]

I hope nobody here finds this ridiculous:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-US-Army-Doubles-Down-On-Battery-Technology.html

[Jay McKinsey + 1,491]

58 minutes ago, Wombat said:

I hope nobody here finds this ridiculous:

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-US-Army-Doubles-Down-On-Battery-Technology.html

Oh you have to pull out that best quote "The DOD—one of the largest single consumers of energy globally—aspires to eliminate all fossil fuel dependency."

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

14 hours ago, Guy Daley said:

Brilliant move on that purchase.  You just happened to be in the right place at the right time and that asset will pay dividends for as long as you have it. OUTSTANDING investment.  congrats.  

Actually, you can pick up these old 2500 gallon tank propane trucks pretty much everywhere in the USA.  A BIG batch of them were made in the 80's and they are all wearing out and the replacement batch all made pretty much... NOW are all 7000gallon tank gargantuan beasts which means fewer trips to pick up Propane and more customers served per operator per day.  The Trick is the ability to get these older certified 2500 gallon tanks filled, but since mine is still on the truck and I know a guy, no problem.  Otherwise you will have to take it off the truck and put it on a concrete pad like everyone else which is what most everyone is doing.  There are tens of thousands of these old propane trucks around.  Heck, guy I got mine from was tearing his hair out trying to get rid of them(he had 70 or so) as normal channels do not know how to list them for him to get rid of them. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

11 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

The ban on diesel trucks is set for 2045.  It will be phased in:

But just 10 years from now, half of all new trucks and vans sold in California in classes 4 through 8—which includes everything from the package delivery van to the biggest garbage trucks—will have to be ZEVs. And by 2035, CARB says that 55 percent of all class 2b-3 trucks, 75 percent of all class 4 through 6 trucks and vans, and 40 percent of all class 7 and 8 trucks and tractors sold in the state have to be ZEVs.

And just what Nickel magical mine is going to open up for all of this?  Hrmm?  I mean common, TESLA right now cannot increase battery production because it is pinched by Nickel.  Philippines, Indonesia, New Caldonia, Australia, Brazil, Canada are all restricting their Nickel mines with ever increasing environmental regulations(Philippines lost 50% of their Nickel production due to said regulations).  Those countries account for +++75% of the worlds Nickel Reserves by themselves.  The Whole world is saying they will stop ICE production... uh huh, 100Million cars a year currently and do remember India/China/SE Asia/Africa are JUST starting to own autos which is 3/4 the worlds population, so right there is a 1-->2 Billion Vehicles required all by itself, and each TESLA 3 has 35kg of Nickel in it.  That right there is 70Mt of NIckel.  Farming truck/delivery truck will require 4X as much per and there goes another 100,000,000 of those vehicles.  According to TESLA semi truck requires roughly 15X as much as a Model 3 for another 10million vehicles.  Farming equipment even more as they have to run all day often for 20 hours at a shot during planting/harvest.  So, even in perfect world, this is well over 100Mt of Nickel. 

Nickel is mostly used for steel currently and there is NO replacement for Nickel in steel production/use.  None.  Do not worry!  Total worldwide nickel production from mining is a massive... 2.7Mt...  and Total Nickel world reserves stand at 90MT...    Sweet, no problem, lets just turn 100% of our world Nickel reserves into a brief 10-->20 year joy ride to meet all these nations so called "goals" according to their "brilliant" politicians. 

Give you a hint: Your utopia needs a different battery.  If its not made from Hydrogen, Silicon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Aluminum, Iron, Calcium, SOdium, Chlorine, Magnesium  as at least one or two of its main components, you got Shit dude unless you wish to pretend you get your utopia but the other 8 Billion people get squalor.... Guess what they will do?  Trample you and hang your pretentious ass high. 

[Wombat + 1,028]

2 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Oh you have to pull out that best quote "The DOD—one of the largest single consumers of energy globally—aspires to eliminate all fossil fuel dependency."

Yeah, not like there is any strategic value to their mission?!? It's not like China or Russia would ever dare to try cut the fuel supply of US forces in a conflict?!?

[Wombat + 1,028]

9 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

And just what Nickel magical mine is going to open up for all of this?  Hrmm?  I mean common, TESLA right now cannot increase battery production because it is pinched by Nickel.  Philippines, Indonesia, New Caldonia, Australia, Brazil, Canada are all restricting their Nickel mines with ever increasing environmental regulations(Philippines lost 50% of their Nickel production due to said regulations).  Those countries account for +++75% of the worlds Nickel Reserves by themselves.  The Whole world is saying they will stop ICE production... uh huh, 100Million cars a year currently and do remember India/China/SE Asia/Africa are JUST starting to own autos which is 3/4 the worlds population, so right there is a 1-->2 Billion Vehicles required all by itself, and each TESLA 3 has 35kg of Nickel in it.  That right there is 70Mt of NIckel.  Farming truck/delivery truck will require 4X as much per and there goes another 100,000,000 of those vehicles.  According to TESLA semi truck requires roughly 15X as much as a Model 3 for another 10million vehicles.  Farming equipment even more as they have to run all day often for 20 hours at a shot during planting/harvest.  So, even in perfect world, this is well over 100Mt of Nickel. 

Nickel is mostly used for steel currently and there is NO replacement for Nickel in steel production/use.  None.  Do not worry!  Total worldwide nickel production from mining is a massive... 2.7Mt...  and Total Nickel world reserves stand at 90MT...    Sweet, no problem, lets just turn 100% of our world Nickel reserves into a brief 10-->20 year joy ride to meet all these nations so called "goals" according to their "brilliant" politicians. 

Give you a hint: Your utopia needs a different battery.  If its not made from Hydrogen, Silicon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Aluminum, Iron, Calcium, SOdium, Chlorine, Magnesium  as at least one or two of its main components, you got Shit dude unless you wish to pretend you get your utopia but the other 8 Billion people get squalor.... Guess what they will do?  Trample you and hang your pretentious ass high. 

Actually Footeab, Australia has a virtually inexhaustable supply of Nickel, but most of it is Nickel Hydroxide, not the lucrative Sulphate variety. When the price hit $120,000/tonne approx 12 years ago, we invested heavily in it, but China and Japan stopped adding it to their steel and just made "pig iron" instead. The arse fell out of the market and BHP lost billions. Even now, it is not profitable to mine. Price would have to head North of $40,000/tonne to get us interested. The current price suggests the market is still over-supplied, would take many millions of EV's before the market got tight enough to justify any investment.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,491]

17 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

And just what Nickel magical mine is going to open up for all of this?  Hrmm?  I mean common, TESLA right now cannot increase battery production because it is pinched by Nickel.  Philippines, Indonesia, New Caldonia, Australia, Brazil, Canada are all restricting their Nickel mines with ever increasing environmental regulations(Philippines lost 50% of their Nickel production due to said regulations).  Those countries account for +++75% of the worlds Nickel Reserves by themselves.  The Whole world is saying they will stop ICE production... uh huh, 100Million cars a year currently and do remember India/China/SE Asia/Africa are JUST starting to own autos which is 3/4 the worlds population, so right there is a 1-->2 Billion Vehicles required all by itself, and each TESLA 3 has 35kg of Nickel in it.  That right there is 70Mt of NIckel.  Farming truck/delivery truck will require 4X as much per and there goes another 100,000,000 of those vehicles.  According to TESLA semi truck requires roughly 15X as much as a Model 3 for another 10million vehicles.  Farming equipment even more as they have to run all day often for 20 hours at a shot during planting/harvest.  So, even in perfect world, this is well over 100Mt of Nickel. 

Nickel is mostly used for steel currently and there is NO replacement for Nickel in steel production/use.  None.  Do not worry!  Total worldwide nickel production from mining is a massive... 2.7Mt...  and Total Nickel world reserves stand at 90MT...    Sweet, no problem, lets just turn 100% of our world Nickel reserves into a brief 10-->20 year joy ride to meet all these nations so called "goals" according to their "brilliant" politicians. 

Give you a hint: Your utopia needs a different battery.  If its not made from Hydrogen, Silicon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Aluminum, Iron, Calcium, SOdium, Chlorine, Magnesium  as at least one or two of its main components, you got Shit dude unless you wish to pretend you get your utopia but the other 8 Billion people get squalor.... Guess what they will do?  Trample you and hang your pretentious ass high. 

Bwahaha! You are always hilarious! Unlike your precious fossil fuel molecules, elements like nickel are 100% recyclable, so they only have to be mined from the Earth once. And we have the cost of nickel which tells you the association between supply and demand:

Gee, tell me again how there is a shortage of Nickel?

[Wombat + 1,028]

Just now, Wombat said:

Actually Footeab, Australia has a virtually inexhaustable supply of Nickel, but most of it is Nickel Hydroxide, not the lucrative Sulphate variety. When the price hit $120,000/tonne approx 12 years ago, we invested heavily in it, but China and Japan stopped adding it to their steel and just made "pig iron" instead. The arse fell out of the market and BHP lost billions. Even now, it is not profitable to mine. Price would have to head North of $40,000/tonne to get us interested. The current price suggests the market is still over-supplied, would take many millions of EV's before the market got tight enough to justify any investment.

PS: Russia is the worlds largest producer of Nickel. Company is called Norilsk Nickel or something like that.

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

8 hours ago, Boat said:

Tech reducing the price point and increased popularity will be the actual mandate in the end no matter what the politicians say. That’s what will drive demand for a transition and the extent of it

Agreed Boat

it comes down to the consumer at the end of the day.

As a Brit I am interested to hear from those Californians on this site (or others) regarding the impact of renewables on their power supply and what the benefits other than the obvious reduction in carbon footprint this has had on the State. Or are we talking massive subsidies on green projects to get to the current levels of renewables supplied and unfair additional regulations imposed on utilities that promote fossil fuel/nuclear? How has this affected cost to the consumer compared to other States and is the power supply maintained as it should be or are there outages/blackouts??

Has the whole Green mantra been pushed onto the people of California willingly or is it just a political decision where the people have no say??

Lot of questions I know, and sorry for the rambled way I've asked them, just off the top of my jumbled head!

@Jay McKinsey as a guy who backs renewables I would be interested in your perspective too, so this remains a balanced discussion.

Cheers

[Wombat + 1,028]

5 minutes ago, Wombat said:

PS: Russia is the worlds largest producer of Nickel. Company is called Norilsk Nickel or something like that.

PSS: Just dig this up:

https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/base-metals-investing/nickel-investing/top-nickel-producing-countries/

and this:

https://www.bing.com/search?q=global+nickel+reserves&cvid=5e5f9a6414224cfaa7b610ad48c257af&pglt=43&FORM=ANNTA1&PC=U531

but I should point out there is a big difference between reserves and resources. It is safe to assume there is a couple billion tonnes of resources, whereas reserves are just what has already been drilled for. As I say, there has been very little exploration these last few years.

[Rob Plant + 2,756]

26 minutes ago, Jay McKinsey said:

Bwahaha! You are always hilarious! Unlike your precious fossil fuel molecules, elements like nickel are 100% recyclable, so they only have to be mined from the Earth once. And we have the cost of nickel which tells you the association between supply and demand:

Gee, tell me again how there is a shortage of Nickel?

Jay you dont have many who agree with you on this site, but in your defence you always try to back up your claims with data.

I think for the world to truly get to where you wish it to be then there needs to be big improvements in battery storage and that is new tech that we have no idea how long, if ever, it will take to develop. However I have faith in humanity that this will be overcome at some point in the relatively near future (10-15 years) as there is a huge pot of gold for whoever does succeed, that is why there are so many different tech companies desperately trying to develop a miriad of projects currently, (my hope is for a graphene battery). Just in the UK we have 580 projects either in operation, approved or well on the way to being approved https://www.renewableuk.com/news/517015/Governments-announcement-on-battery-storage-will-boost-investment-in-new-technology-.htm

We already have the worlds largest offshore wind farm https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1072

I just think that current renewables don't cut it frankly, and the Green mantra with climate change is the worlds biggest money making hoax ever (Covid 19 apart).

The green renewables have been rushed into service in many ways and they need big improvements before they can think about replacing NG and nuclear in my opinion.

Welcome your thoughts.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Rob Plant

[Guy Daley + 49]

5 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Actually, you can pick up these old 2500 gallon tank propane trucks pretty much everywhere in the USA.  A BIG batch of them were made in the 80's and they are all wearing out and the replacement batch all made pretty much... NOW are all 7000gallon tank gargantuan beasts which means fewer trips to pick up Propane and more customers served per operator per day.  The Trick is the ability to get these older certified 2500 gallon tanks filled, but since mine is still on the truck and I know a guy, no problem.  Otherwise you will have to take it off the truck and put it on a concrete pad like everyone else which is what most everyone is doing.  There are tens of thousands of these old propane trucks around.  Heck, guy I got mine from was tearing his hair out trying to get rid of them(he had 70 or so) as normal channels do not know how to list them for him to get rid of them. 

Tens of thousands of these old propane trucks around?  Not around here.  We've got an abundance of old farm trucks (north central KS).  I suppose, it all depends on where you live and I wouldn't want to go interstate to chase one down.  Like I said, smart move because propane is dirt cheap NOW.  For how long, who knows.  

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

11 hours ago, Jay McKinsey said:

elements like nickel are 100% recyclable, so they only have to be mined from the Earth once. And we have the cost of nickel which tells you the association between supply and demand:

Ah, how quaint you started in 2011 when there was a giant spike... Can tell you are an "economist" and not an engineer.  As I was not talking about total use 10 years ago, but 10 years in the FUTURE.  And you ignored world reserves have doubled since 2011 and the Doubled number is the one I used.  Why?  Reserves are tied directly to $$$/Ton.  Cost spiked, reserves doubled... who knew... Reserves are tied to economics...  But not according to economists.....

And no, nothing is 100% recyclable, Nickel is highly recyclable and is running about 85% currently making less pure alloys which are then combined in even less pure uses for steel making.  One thing you utopian dreamers refuse to acknowledge.  ALL recycled material  is NEVER used in its original form but always in less pure uses where impurities introduced in the sorting/recycling process are not as important in the secondary material uses. 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

12 hours ago, Wombat said:

Actually Footeab, Australia has a virtually inexhaustable supply of Nickel, but most of it is Nickel Hydroxide, not the lucrative Sulphate variety. When the price hit $120,000/tonne approx 12 years ago, we invested heavily in it, but China and Japan stopped adding it to their steel and just made "pig iron" instead. The arse fell out of the market and BHP lost billions. Even now, it is not profitable to mine. Price would have to head North of $40,000/tonne to get us interested. The current price suggests the market is still over-supplied, would take many millions of EV's before the market got tight enough to justify any investment.

No one cares about a couple million EV's and that is not the topic of discussion.  It takes a decade to bring a Nickel mine online and all these countries claim they will eliminate ICE by 2030/2040... So, lets assume you can use a calendar and can count to 10 without taking off your socks... Which means hundreds of millions of vehicles if not a Billion or 2 Billion Vehicles not a couple million.  Which brings up my previous calculation using TESLA's numbers for Nickel content in their vehicles.  Need for world Production for ONLY vehicles and no grid storage, uh hem, NO grid storage, to increase by 100MT verses the current 2.7MT... a "small" 3700% change... So, Australia with its supposed "infinite" supply of Nickel needs to get cracking...   Elon Musk has been begging for Nickel production; so has every single car manufacturer.  

You might want to start listening to Eurythmics "sweet dreams"  

 

Edited October 29, 2020 by footeab@yahoo.com

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

Great song.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

9 minutes ago, Dan Warnick said:

Great song.

😃  Yes, annoying my minions in the office currently playing it... Ah, back to work. 

EDIT: To Wombat.  Oh yea, and Australia has the largest reserves of Nickel on the planet of the Sulphide stuff... Dear Wombat... Australian production has nothing to do with Hydroxide vrs Sulphate... So, while I do not know for sure, I would say the COST of Australian Nickel was way too high due to Environmental regulations of the Sulphide mines and NOT the Hydroxide deposits as YOU claim.  Same reason Phillipine production has tanked recently. 

Edited October 29, 2020 by footeab@yahoo.com

[Richard D + 86]

11 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Jay you dont have many who agree with you on this site, but in your defence you always try to back up your claims with data.

I think for the world to truly get to where you wish it to be then there needs to be big improvements in battery storage and that is new tech that we have no idea how long, if ever, it will take to develop. However I have faith in humanity that this will be overcome at some point in the relatively near future (10-15 years) as there is a huge pot of gold for whoever does succeed, that is why there are so many different tech companies desperately trying to develop a miriad of projects currently, (my hope is for a graphene battery). Just in the UK we have 580 projects either in operation, approved or well on the way to being approved https://www.renewableuk.com/news/517015/Governments-announcement-on-battery-storage-will-boost-investment-in-new-technology-.htm

We already have the worlds largest offshore wind farm https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1072

I just think that current renewables don't cut it frankly, and the Green mantra with climate change is the worlds biggest money making hoax ever (Covid 19 apart).

The green renewables have been rushed into service in many ways and they need big improvements before they can think about replacing NG and nuclear in my opinion.

Welcome your thoughts.

I am old enough to remember  a despicable UK Prime Minister called Harold Wilson. In the 1960's,he agreed with the vicious National Union of Mineworkers that British coal mining would be subsidised with taxpayer money and that a fleet of coal-fired power stations would be built to burn it. The cost crippled the economy and the Trent valley became known as Sulfur valley from the pollution coming from the power stations along the River Trent. The valley was frequently filled with cloud from the water evaporated in the cooling towers. As with the strutting union leaders of the 1960's we are now being shafted by people who are only concerned with promoting their own interests at the expense of the public. In the UK,I remember that we were asked to agree to paying extra on our electricity bills for the renewable energy content. Only a handful of consumers agreed to pay extra,so it was then made compulsory.

[Richard D + 86]

29 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

No one cares about a couple million EV's and that is not the topic of discussion.  It takes a decade to bring a Nickel mine online and all these countries claim they will eliminate ICE by 2030/2040... So, lets assume you can use a calendar and can count to 10 without taking off your socks... Which means hundreds of millions of vehicles if not a Billion or 2 Billion Vehicles not a couple million.  Which brings up my previous calculation using TESLA's numbers for Nickel content in their vehicles.  Need for world Production for ONLY vehicles and no grid storage, uh hem, NO grid storage, to increase by 100MT verses the current 2.7MT... a "small" 3700% change... So, Australia with its supposed "infinite" supply of Nickel needs to get cracking...   Elon Musk has been begging for Nickel production; so has every single car manufacturer.  

You might want to start listening to Eurythmics "sweet dreams"  

 

Australia has nickel sulphide deposits,not nickel sulphate.

[markslawson + 1,061]

Okay, I'll add in an $A16 billion ($US11.2 billion) project to run an undersea power cable from Australia to Singapore, in order to transmit green power. Is there enough demand in either Singapore or the adjacent Malaysia to justify such an expensive connection and would either country  be willing to buy power from it? For that matter where is the green power to send over this cable to come from? The top end of Australia is sparsely populated and the bulk of the renewable projects are at the other end of the continent. It is madness yet there are those who take it seriously.

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,194]

2 hours ago, Richard D said:

Australia has nickel sulphide deposits,not nickel sulphate.

Australia has both is my ignorant brief reading of the subject...

According to this: https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/membership/esg-and-nickel-wading-through-the-issues/

Sulphide vs Laterite Processing Routes

Nickel is produced from two primary resource types, sulphide ores and oxide ores more commonly referred to as laterites. Sulphide deposits tend to be located outside of the tropics (although there are a smattering of deposits in South America, South Africa and Australia). Sulphide deposits are predominantly exploited in Russia, Canada, Scandinavian countries, China and Australia. Laterites are distributed in the tropics with Indonesia, Australia, New Caledonia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Cuba, Brazil and other countries hosting the majority of the laterite resources.

Approximately 70% of the world’s nickel resources are in the form of laterites with the remainder in sulphides. However, until the late 1990s 70% of global nickel production was from the exploitation of sulphides.

Another source: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/battery-grade-nickel-supply-will-suffer-as-major-nickel-discoveries-slump

Our analysis of nickel discoveries has identified 50 major discoveries made from 1990 to 2019, containing 96.4 million tonnes of nickel in oxide and sulfide deposits. Three were discovered in the past decade and account for only 7% of the total nickel discovered — a sharp decline from the 1990s, when new nickel discoveries were much more common. Nickel sulfide deposits (currently the most reliable source for class 1 nickel) account for only 19%, or 18.1 Mt, of the nickel in these discoveries. Given the forecast demand increase for battery-grade nickel in the upcoming years, the pool of quality assets that can easily produce class 1 material is shallow.

SO, 18Mt... of battery grade Nickel.... Ouch.... Need 100Mt...

[Jay McKinsey + 1,491]

14 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

Jay you dont have many who agree with you on this site, but in your defence you always try to back up your claims with data.

I think for the world to truly get to where you wish it to be then there needs to be big improvements in battery storage and that is new tech that we have no idea how long, if ever, it will take to develop. However I have faith in humanity that this will be overcome at some point in the relatively near future (10-15 years) as there is a huge pot of gold for whoever does succeed, that is why there are so many different tech companies desperately trying to develop a miriad of projects currently, (my hope is for a graphene battery). Just in the UK we have 580 projects either in operation, approved or well on the way to being approved https://www.renewableuk.com/news/517015/Governments-announcement-on-battery-storage-will-boost-investment-in-new-technology-.htm

We already have the worlds largest offshore wind farm https://www.azocleantech.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=1072

I just think that current renewables don't cut it frankly, and the Green mantra with climate change is the worlds biggest money making hoax ever (Covid 19 apart).

The green renewables have been rushed into service in many ways and they need big improvements before they can think about replacing NG and nuclear in my opinion.

Welcome your thoughts.

'Rob, thanks for noting that I back up my claims with data.

As to your question in your other post, California is very pro renewables, nothing has been foisted upon us. Quite the opposite, renewables are a growing industry that we are proud to be one of the world leaders in. It is a money making exercise for us.

You can think climate change is a hoax but air pollution certainly isn't and that is what initiated our move toward renewables. Then it became clear that regardless of the original investment motivation, we had discovered exponential tech whose cost curves were responding just like Moore's Law. So we are applying the exponential business model that we pioneered here in Silicon Valley to renewable tech. The rest is our mode of capitalism, a new market entrant with better, lower cost tech disrupting the old fashioned incumbent.

The investments made in renewables are leading to exponentially decreasing costs and increasing capabilities. We don't get to some ideal solution of which you desire without working our way along the cost / investment curve, refining and developing the technology is integral to the process as we go. The mistake that so many here make is to think that we should just work out the solution in a lab and then unleash it on the world. Reality is that the way you develop that solution is by delivering incrementally better and lower cost solutions to the market and eventually we will get to the tech that solves all the market needs. The renewables of today just need to be good enough to move us along to the next marginal unit of the market and they are doing a superb job of it. Then we will move onto the marginal unit after that...

Today's renewables are beginning to replace new NG build and since coal peaked in 2008 two thirds of its replacement has been NG and one third solar wind. Batteries are currently the key player in moving us along to the next marginal unit. However the most important thing is that the investment function has shifted dramatically to renewables. Yesterday's investment curve is today's economic reality and today's investment curve is tomorrow's economic reality. 

 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,491]

1 hour ago, markslawson said:

Okay, I'll add in an $A16 billion ($US11.2 billion) project to run an undersea power cable from Australia to Singapore, in order to transmit green power. Is there enough demand in either Singapore or the adjacent Malaysia to justify such an expensive connection and would either country  be willing to buy power from it? For that matter where is the green power to send over this cable to come from? The top end of Australia is sparsely populated and the bulk of the renewable projects are at the other end of the continent. It is madness yet there are those who take it seriously.

Mark, it is well publicized that they are planning on building a massive solar farm in the north where the cable goes out to sea. https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2020/05/27/sun-cable-to-build-darwin-megabattery/

Singapore based independent electricity retailer iSwitch, one of the city-state’s top 3 retailers and its largest green retailer, has pledged its support to be a foundation off-taker for the solar energy produced by the proposed Sun Cable project. https://www.pv-magazine-australia.com/2019/10/01/singapores-largest-green-energy-retailer-pledges-itself-to-sun-cable-project/

 

[Jay McKinsey + 1,491]

29 minutes ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Australia has both is my ignorant brief reading of the subject...

According to this: https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/membership/esg-and-nickel-wading-through-the-issues/

Sulphide vs Laterite Processing Routes

Nickel is produced from two primary resource types, sulphide ores and oxide ores more commonly referred to as laterites. Sulphide deposits tend to be located outside of the tropics (although there are a smattering of deposits in South America, South Africa and Australia). Sulphide deposits are predominantly exploited in Russia, Canada, Scandinavian countries, China and Australia. Laterites are distributed in the tropics with Indonesia, Australia, New Caledonia, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Cuba, Brazil and other countries hosting the majority of the laterite resources.

Approximately 70% of the world’s nickel resources are in the form of laterites with the remainder in sulphides. However, until the late 1990s 70% of global nickel production was from the exploitation of sulphides.

Another source: https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/battery-grade-nickel-supply-will-suffer-as-major-nickel-discoveries-slump

Our analysis of nickel discoveries has identified 50 major discoveries made from 1990 to 2019, containing 96.4 million tonnes of nickel in oxide and sulfide deposits. Three were discovered in the past decade and account for only 7% of the total nickel discovered — a sharp decline from the 1990s, when new nickel discoveries were much more common. Nickel sulfide deposits (currently the most reliable source for class 1 nickel) account for only 19%, or 18.1 Mt, of the nickel in these discoveries. Given the forecast demand increase for battery-grade nickel in the upcoming years, the pool of quality assets that can easily produce class 1 material is shallow.

SO, 18Mt... of battery grade Nickel.... Ouch.... Need 100Mt...

You are apparently unaware that not all batteries contain nickel. Tesla's LFP battery that they are using for grid applications and some vehicles uses neither cobalt or nickel.

[Jay McKinsey + 1,491]

4 hours ago, footeab@yahoo.com said:

Ah, how quaint you started in 2011 when there was a giant spike... Can tell you are an "economist" and not an engineer.  As I was not talking about total use 10 years ago, but 10 years in the FUTURE.  And you ignored world reserves have doubled since 2011 and the Doubled number is the one I used.  Why?  Reserves are tied directly to $$$/Ton.  Cost spiked, reserves doubled... who knew... Reserves are tied to economics...  But not according to economists.....

And no, nothing is 100% recyclable, Nickel is highly recyclable and is running about 85% currently making less pure alloys which are then combined in even less pure uses for steel making.  One thing you utopian dreamers refuse to acknowledge.  ALL recycled material  is NEVER used in its original form but always in less pure uses where impurities introduced in the sorting/recycling process are not as important in the secondary material uses. 

Oh how quaint, can tell you are not an economist. I started 10 years back because anything before that is considered historical and needs to be adjusted for inflation. The chart you present does not adjust for inflation and is thus unrealistic and meant to mislead. And why does it end in 2013? Maybe because it wouldn't show that nice increasing price line if it were current? Try again.

btw  adjusting for inflation the 1983 price needs to be increased by 161%

 

Edited October 30, 2020 by Jay McKinsey