Oh it wouldn't be close. source: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2019/01/f58/Ultimate Fast Facts Guide-PRINT.pdf
I think I heard that the average americans energy use for their entire lifetime would be the equivalent to the size of a can of coke filled with uranium pellets.
That California is a good example of growing renewables was my point. Agree that the grid is increasingly unreliable and there’s good evidence that increased local solar production is a key part (in addition to much needed infrastructure upgrades) to solving that issue. I’ll concede that of all the transitional options, nuclear is the most attractive option, but only as a transition to true renewables for the reasons I mentioned in prior posts. Tech like nuclear fusion, advanced geo and I’ll add hydrogen are incredibly promising, but until those technologies are better developed I don’t see the utility in discussing their merits next to nuclear or solar
I think as with our conversation on hunting we can see each others side having some merits and being beneficial, while we may disagree eventually on the ultimate end goal. If that’s fair to say.
We aren’t doing a decent job at recycling plastics outside of shipping them to China. Color me skeptical of any significant progress on recycling solar panels outside of a requirement.
This is my point. Nuclear is a way to make significant advancement in a short period of time. As solar and other renewables continue to benefit from increased funding, we can limit the further impact made by less green options. Once SMRs get mature we could realistically shut down every coal plant we wanted to and replace them in years, not decades. That’s significant improvement.
This is where I’m at with EV batteries as well, I’m skeptical. There is a South Korean company that says they can do it and the long time CTO of Tesla JB Straubel left Tesla several years back to make a battery recycling firm called redwood. I think he’s primarily focusing on the copper first as the rest is more labor/chemical intensive. With recycling I’ve become more in the camp of “prove it” instead of the hand waving and nonchalant comment of “oh we’ll just recycle it” that’s usually done discussing EV batteries and solar panels.
Historically, recycling only happens under 2 general scenarios: 1. it’s mandated by a governmental entity 2. It’s profitable -with rare earth metals, it’s going to take some of 1 to get the process going, but once a process is established their intrinsic value (2) will keep it going. Very interested to see what Redwood does. They basically set up shop right next to the gigafactory in Nevada and already have the pre-existing relationship you mentioned. Wife’s friend just got hired there, looking forward to getting some intel out of her.
Haven't agreed with everything you've posted, but definitely agree here. Recycling is almost a complete lie that we've been sadly fed, at least with the actual quantity of plastic based stuff we "recycle." I can't imagine how useful old EV batteries are, but given how few there are compared to regular unleaded engines I can't imagine EV battery waste is really much of an issue right? I have my Chevy Bolt and with the battery recall I got a brand new 65 kWh battery that I intend to use for at least another 8-10 years barring any other major issues. I'd hope we aren't throwing away EV batteries at a high enough clip that it's a big consideration vs the huge positive tradeoff of getting off fossil fuel and reducing emissions.
It’s less of an issue now given the quantities yes, but last year in the US alone people bought 15 million automobiles so eventually it will be an issue with what I’d assume would be chemicals leaching into ground water supplies etc. Nothing is perfect though and every action will have its trade offs we will have to deal with. I personally prefer hybrids at this point in time as I don’t think a Hummer EV is an effective use of lithium and that will be a constrained resource going forward.
Worth noting that batteries that are no longer fit for use in a car still have plenty of capacity for things like home energy storage. It just that propelling a 2,000 lbs. vehicle (not including the 1,000 lbs. the battery weighs) for any reasonable range requires a battery with little degradation. Not so much for powering most of your home appliances.
I think a huge problem would be after they get very old then some of the cells in them could go bad which I don't think is an easy repair? This was the reason why most of the Bolts, including mine, got recalled and we were just straight up given new batteries. I agree otherwise that they should still be very useful, just have no idea if there's lots of existing retrofitting technology for this yet.
“There is also a need to do something with the battery cells that nearing end-of-life. That's where VW laid out a lifecycle plan for its current and future lithium-based batteries. While the required usefulness of a battery pack may no longer work in a car, the pack is still usable in other applications as many of the cells will still hold a charge. VW plants to utilize those packs that are no longer feasible for automotive use as energy storage at Electrify America charging stations. Doing so will allow EA stations to ease off use of the local electricity grid by utilizing its own stored energy during peak times, along with help from EA's solar power connections.” https://www.motortrend.com/news/volkswagen-ev-battery-production-recycling-electrify-america/amp/ Since it won’t require them to do anything more than take the batteries and plug them in, I’m less skeptical that this happens, but we’ll have to wait and see.
with the amount of pyrolysis plants in development by Shell/Exxon/BP/etc, this is going to change in a hurry. they're pumping billions into R&D for this and it's going to upend the recycling market in the southeast US. i've had a couple of meetings with environmental personnel at BP and Shell and if what they're leaning toward comes to fruition, it's going to be incredibly profitable for communities and businesses to site segregate out their plastics and sell them to these facilities. there's currently a big plant outside Fort Wayne doing this now, and their second plant down in South Georgia should be operational by the end of next year as well. they can't take all 1-7s plastics, but 2, 4, 5, 6 i believe are the ones they want
these plants will take in certain types of plastics (styrofoam, polystyrene, LDPE/HDPE - plastic bottles, etc) and can turn them back into a solid, liquid, or gaseous fuel source. the cliff notes of it is they heat up these plastic streams in an oxygen-free environment and the byproduct is a highly flammable liquid "oil." since plastics are derived from oil, this process turns these plastics back into a similar form of oil that has a ton of value. a lot of it is refined further into diesel and is sold overseas
Check your recyclable plastic containers. In the center of each recycling symbol, there’s a number: Most recycling programs can handle 1s and 2s.
My first thought is that this is going to release a ton of CO2 or other greenhouse gases, do you know how if that's the case or if there's been deep cost-benefit analysis on the net environmental benefit for recycling tons of discarded plastic vs. metric ton of CO2 pumped out?
wish i had an answer for this, but i don't. i'm not terribly in tune with the process, my involvement is mainly on the supply side of the plastic feedstock. my assumption is that, yeah, you're probably right
shooting from the hip I’d probably go with dumping a metric ton of CO2, but I’d be curious to see the analysis
There always will be I'm guessing, but I'd imagine being able to prevent a shitton of plastic waste leeching into the ground as well as dumping into rivers/oceans would be an enormous environmental benefit. I hope like hell that this technology will make a worldwide impact soon and this isn't something decades down the line. You may know better than me, but some company was touting that they would solve a big CO2 crisis by being able to make concrete in a more efficient way which currently results in a shit ton of CO2. Not sure how close to reality this is though in terms of large scale
I haven’t gotten into that one but I remember hearing about it though. Would be great. So much of climate tech or tech in general though feels like Elon musk esk hype with little substance, I’ve become kind of numb to it. I’m in prove it mode with a lot of it.
Exactly, I've seen so many incredible things written about how we can dramatically reduce waste/emissions with new tech for the past many years and yet each year humans emit more CO2 than the previous.
All US based kilns have CO2 reductions programs in place right now. I imagine their plan is to use more CaO instead of CaCO3(limestone.) Problem with that is, 1. You get CaO by running limestone through a kiln, and it’s dramatically more expensive than using limestone. Each kiln is different, but you’re looking at about 1-1.5m tons/year of limestone (about 45-50% CaCO3 before LoI) that costs kilns about $5/t to mine and transport to their raw mill. CaO usually runs at $30-$40/t before you even factor in the transportation cost. They will likely start utilizing additional waste or industrial byproduct streams as raw material and fuel components which allows them to “lower” their CO2 emissions. You use 50k tons/year of refuse derived fuel (RDF) and you get a 50k ton credit against your CO2 emissions that year
I could have guessed 50 other countries and not Pakistan. I knew it had mountains but never knew it had that many.
I saw a video years ago on a YT rabbit hole of how mountainous the border of India is with the rest of the world and why it was so hard for any outsiders to get to. It’s insane the regions seen by the bordering countries.
This is just an absurd chart to me, it’s also out of date German power costs are now €995 per MwH and French power prices are €1,130 per MwH. On one hand usually crises spur positive change but the other is very obviously Europeans are experiencing a lot of pain. Hopefully the winter is mild.
Growing agave in Northern California feels crazy to me. next you’ll tell me they will be doing coffee beans and bananas outside of aspen
Yea this seems like a home run idea to prevent evaporation and take advantage of available land. Really hopeful this can be a successful model for other similar areas.
Any water underneath when evaporated would be carried away by the wind. It’s like the bottom of a diving board. Plus the panels would more than likely heat up from the sun keeping the water below much cooler and preventing evaporation.
Most U.S. cement companies are already making the 1L cement that you are talking about. It will be the most common type of cement in the very near future.
Smashing a bunch of plastic into something as a solution seems absurd, but I don’t get paid $4 million and all that jazz.