Open Thread - Thurs 5 Sep 2024 - Materials, Energy, Batteries
I was reading this article (Circular Battery Self-Sufficiency) by Cory Doctorow, a person I know more about in relationship to his work with open source software and the EFF, about battery recycling and climate change and suddenly I found some reasons to be optimistic about the future. Maybe there aren't very many reasons, but they are there! Yay!
Doctorow starts off by acknowledging the difficulty it is going to take to transition to renewable energy, but says it's not insurmountable. It's going to require a lot of politics AND a lot of engineering, and reconceiving our relationship to energy and materials. Instead of energy being scare and materials being abundant, energy is everywhere (sunshine!, tides!...) and materials are scare. What a change it's going to take to get humans to accept that though!
Here comes the sun... (from here).
Here's a couple of things Doctorow highlights in his article:
Copper Use: Although electrification will require a lot of copper - for wire and so on, the demand is being addressed by engineering and it's being reduced very quickly. Copper usage has remained flat despite the recent surge in electrification - EVS, etc. So practical engineering is working as fast, or faster, than demand, to reduce copper (and other mineral) needs.
'Battery tech is taking off!' - there are some really interesting and new approaches to storing energy (batteries) such as using old mines as gravity batteries. Yes, old mines. During the day excess renewable energy is used to hoist a platform full of tons of rock up a 530m mineshaft. At night, the platform slowly lowers, powering a turbine and releasing its potential energy. Apparently
The world has sufficient abandoned mine-shafts to store 70TWh of power – that's the daily energy budget for the entire planet. What's more, every mine shaft has a beefy connection to the power grid, because you can't run a mine without a lot of power
sez Doctorow.
Also, recycling batteries is, definitely, a great thing. Estimates are that with recycling and reuse, we will reduce mineral mining (like lithium) to ZERO by 2050. We will need about 125m tons of minerals to be excavated to permanently satisfy the world's requirements for energy storage. That's a lot. But, it's only 1/17th of what we extract and use in fossil fuels for just road transport every year!
Ok, check out the article if you have time - there's a lot in there. And thanks for reading this post. Here's the open thread - remember, everything is interesting if you dive deep enough, so tell us about where you're diving!
Comments
Happy Thursday!
Gonna be a hot one here, in the Pac NW, according to the weather people. We'll see if it happens or not. Hope it's nice where you are, early Fall and just nice.
I have to admit this headline made me laugh: 'Kamala Harris has thrived in debates - will her tactics work on Trump?' Maybe she has 'thrived' but I'll never forget Tulsi Gabbard taking her down in that early debate... the one which made Kamala quit running for Pres... that one. Note: don't bother reading the article, it's very politically masturbatory and boring, but I found the headline hilarious. Isn't it illuminating how, even though she quit, TPTB have made it so she's got a decent change of being President anyway? Sheez.
Ok, enough depressing stuff. Hope your day is great and tell us all about everything that's going on!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good morning
Sima, thanks for the post
but doctorow has lined
up a Lot of shiny balloons
and I’ve got a needle
125million tons of minerals equates
to the earth being completely ravaged
@500,000tons of rock dug up for
Each Ton of minerals extracted
let alone the water needed for said extraction
or all that mining running on Diesel Fuel
I quit smoking hopium long ago
Doctorow should go into rehab
Enjoy the heat
Winter is coming
Ya got to be a Spirit, cain't be no Ghost. . .
Explain Bldg #7. . . still waiting. . .
If you’ve ever wondered whether you would have complied in 1930’s Germany,
Now you know. . .
sign at protest march
Just wondering...
where those numbers come from? I can't find them, but I only did a quick search with DuckDuckGo.
Have a good one!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Hey, good morning
.
.
One of the newer battery concepts is using salt instead of lithium.
For the sodium-ion batteries, Northvolt is using Prussian White as a cathode, Haas said. It is an iron-based pigment that was first synthesized by a painter in Berlin in 1704. In 2012, John Goodenough, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for lithium-ion batteries, discovered that it’s a promising cathode material, as its structure can incorporate sodium ions. Since Prussian white is only composed of carbon, nitrogen, and iron, it is relatively affordable. The anode material is hard carbon made out of biowaste, such as shells and wood. The new manufacturing process is resulting in a lower carbon footprint for the product and reduced fire hazards during use.
.. In contrast to lithium, which is more geographically limited, sodium from brine is available in many parts of the world ..
for more info --
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/next-gen-battery-tech-reimaginin...
cheers!
Wow, sodium-ion is interesting!!!
And another hopeful and promising tech. Very cool! Thanks for the link and the video!
Have a great weekend
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Unfortunitely
the acceptance to change won't come until every last penny of profit has been milked out of the fossil fuel industry. It may not matter. The way things are going the psychopaths in charge are likely to blow everything to hell in a nuclear armageddon before the end of the month.
I'm great at multi-tasking. I can waste time, be unproductive, and procrastinate all at the same time.
And this is the complete truth
Ain't It? No change until all the money is out of the fossil fuel industry. Bleh. I think it's the truth, and so depressing, but I'm gonna try to change anyway, if I can.
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Heh, heh, heh. Good morning Sima. Projected temps here
only 88, but the projections have been low all week, so we shall see. Gonna treat it like a hot-hot day in terms of chore scheduling anyway.
Batteries - pld news, I forget how old, is to use old tech. What means this. Proponent said if you want super battery look for opposite ends of electronegativity scale and try to make something work using the elements there, but do you need such a battery? For cars and camers and cell phones, maybe, but not for your house, or factory or whatever. Eschew the rare earths and find common shit low on the electronegativity scale and use those vastly more common materials to build much larger non-portable batteries. He was building shipping container sized batteries for use in industrial sites. I think it may have been a saltwater or sodium ion product, can't recall because I have no space for one so I read it and forgot it.
Now some
Scott Ritter is ending his cooperation with RT and Sputnik, thanks to the sanctions and such imposed by the fascist US Gedankenpolizei.
https://sputnikglobe.com/20240905/french-mps-sign-resolution-demanding-m...
hokay, be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Good comments
about batteries. I think the gravity battery is like the ones the proponent talks about. Low on electronegativity scale.
As for Macron? Him, resign? Hahahahah. Can wish!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Just another normal day of Israel committing war crimes
without facing any consequences as the west led by the US turns a blind eye.
Related:
The Cradle article doesn't name names but you can believe that non of the world leaders are part of the Global South.
Why destroy those vehicles?
Why? Dang it. As for the ICC prosecutor, I think I can name the world leaders, starting with USA, Britain, France... heh.
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
This is closer to Sima's opening topic.
I gotta agree, in many ways.
Sometimes governments are good. Not here, at this time, though.
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Have you read Doctorow's novel
Walkaway?
And, if so, what did you think?
“One of the things I love about the American people is that we can hold many thoughts at once” - Kamala Harris
I haven't read it...
yet. But now I gotta get a copy and give it a read :). Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so
Good afternoon, sima!
I am late to the party today. This has been a very busy week at the office. Hectic might actually be a better description.
Cool 81, heavy rain last night and this afternoon. Should be cool 81 for the weekend and no rain.
If we truly wanted to drift away from lithium, we could figure it out, but that is such a golden opportunity to invade this or that country and steal it.
Only when it is all gone and $ on it made will be become innovative.
Meanwhile, I spoke with a client who moved to the Cumberland Gap part of TN, and she said it was a beautiful part of the country. Farmer's markets, lots of farms, extremely low taxes. She said TN and TX were "cousins". I am tempted to check it out.
Thanks for the OT, chica! Give Nikko a hug for me, please!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Here, 81 is not cool...
However, I don't find it that hot. With rain and humidity though? Eeep.
Hope the hectic week at the office is slowing down for a good weekend! Cumberland Gap sounds nice, very nice. I dunno, maybe I'm too old to move, but I want to move to Europe soonish.
Have a great weekend!
If you're poor now, my friend, then you'll stay poor.
These days, only the rich get given more. -- Martial book 5:81, c. AD 100 or so
Nothing ever changes -- Sima, c. AD 2020 or so