Will the World's Lithium Suppliers Slow Production of Electric Vehicles? (wsj.com) 184
Slashdot reader atcclears quotes the Wall Street Journal:
Hailed as the Saudi Arabia of lithium, this California-sized chunk of terrain [in Salar de Atacama, Chile] accounts for some 55% of the world's known deposits of the metal, a key component in electric-vehicle batteries. As the Chinese EV giant BYD Co. recently learned, tapping into that resource can be a challenge.
Earlier this year, after BYD won a government contract to mine lithium, indigenous residents took to the streets, demanding the tender be canceled over concerns about the impact on local water supplies. In June, the Chilean Supreme Court threw out the award, saying the government failed to consult with indigenous people first.... Similar setbacks are occurring around the so-called Lithium Triangle, which overlaps parts of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. Production has suffered at the hands of leftist governments angling for greater control over the mineral and a bigger share of profits, as well as from environmental concerns and greater activism by local Andean communities who fear being left out while outsiders get rich.
At a time of exploding demand that has sent lithium prices up 750% since the start of 2021, industry analysts worry that South America could become a major bottleneck for growth in electric vehicles. "All the major car makers are completely on board with electric vehicles now," said Brian Jaskula, a lithium expert at the U.S. Geological Survey. "But the lithium may just not be enough."
Meanwhile, a chemical engineering professor at Indiana's Purdue University has spent years looking for an alternative to lithium batteries, and their researchers are now testing sodium carbonate and the possibility of sodium ion batteries.
Earlier this year, after BYD won a government contract to mine lithium, indigenous residents took to the streets, demanding the tender be canceled over concerns about the impact on local water supplies. In June, the Chilean Supreme Court threw out the award, saying the government failed to consult with indigenous people first.... Similar setbacks are occurring around the so-called Lithium Triangle, which overlaps parts of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina. Production has suffered at the hands of leftist governments angling for greater control over the mineral and a bigger share of profits, as well as from environmental concerns and greater activism by local Andean communities who fear being left out while outsiders get rich.
At a time of exploding demand that has sent lithium prices up 750% since the start of 2021, industry analysts worry that South America could become a major bottleneck for growth in electric vehicles. "All the major car makers are completely on board with electric vehicles now," said Brian Jaskula, a lithium expert at the U.S. Geological Survey. "But the lithium may just not be enough."
Meanwhile, a chemical engineering professor at Indiana's Purdue University has spent years looking for an alternative to lithium batteries, and their researchers are now testing sodium carbonate and the possibility of sodium ion batteries.
EV are permanently relegated to class symbol of th (Score:3, Insightful)
Lithium prices have been going up and up for over a decade. Itâ(TM)s nearly 5x more expensive over the last few years which is what is driving the price of EV out of the range of feasible.
Total global reserves are estimated at just 14-20M tons, total annual supply is 800k tons. We have 15-20 years of lithium left or the equivalent of about 2 billion EVs, so EV will permanently be a rich person class symbol unless we find deposits in asteroids or so, in comparison, we have 300 years of oil left and thousands of years worth of nuclear fissionable product.
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Lithium prices have been going up and up for over a decade. Itâ(TM)s nearly 5x more expensive over the last few years which is what is driving the price of EV out of the range of feasible.
You should see grocery prices.
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Like gas prices, grocery prices are falling. Anyone not in a blind panic, or without a vested interest in causing a panic, could have predicted this.
Re:EV are permanently relegated to class symbol of (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, they are [cnbc.com].
Of course, my link is based on real data, not what some rando "estimates".
Re:EV are permanently relegated to class symbol of (Score:5, Informative)
"Reserves" is just a line drawn at a rather arbitrary level of cost of extraction. The world's oceans contain an estimated 180 billion tons of lithium. [science.org] Right now extraction from seawater is not cost-competitive with land-based lithium. But the premise that 14 Mtons and then we hit a brick wall is not true.
Re:EV are permanently relegated to class symbol of (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, there are other battery technologies under development. The assumption that lithium is inherently a bottleneck is dubious at best.
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Your post makes me think of all the predictions we used to hear about the world running out of oil
Salton Sea (Score:2)
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Just like peak oil in the 70s. The global reserves are based on known and financially viable sources that companies have a claim to. Nothing more. Lithium is the 33rd most abundant element on the planet, there are many sources of it, the only thing missing is demand.
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Just like peak oil in the 70s.
Hubbert's prediction was about the lower 48 states in the USA, and was actually correct.
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It was nothing of the sort. Those states stake claim to their offshore oil as well and surprise surprise proven reserves in those states have increased as well.
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Just like peak oil in the 70s. The global reserves are based on known and financially viable sources that companies have a claim to. Nothing more.
Yes. 50 years ago we had 50 years of reserves. Today we still have 50 years of reserves. It is entirely likely that 50 years from now we will still have 50 years of reserves.
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Lithium prices have been going up and up for over a decade. Itâ(TM)s nearly 5x more expensive over the last few years which is what is driving the price of EV out of the range of feasible.
Total global reserves are estimated at just 14-20M tons, total annual supply is 800k tons. We have 15-20 years of lithium left or the equivalent of about 2 billion EVs,
You don't know what "reserve" estimates mean or why they are formulated.
"Reserves" are proven deposits that can be profitably extracted at current market prices and are used to make near-term purchasing, marketing and mining decisions. They are not estimates of how much an extractable resource exists, not even how much of an extractable resource is known to exist.
Currently identified worldwide resources, as cited in the USGS 2022 lithium publication, is 89 million tons and it points out this figure is rapid
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Or there could be a near limitless supply of lithium in brine and seawater.
https://www.ibatterymetals.com... [ibatterymetals.com]
https://cen.acs.org/materials/... [acs.org]
Energy intensive? Yes. But if you have lots of cheap and renewable electricity, which is the goal for an EV market, this becomes less of an issue.
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Yeah, they've gone up so much that Lithium battery prices have went from $1000/kWh in 2010, to $140/kWh in 2022. Or some sources say $100/kWh. Yes, in 2022 the price went up a little bit, but over the decade it's increased a whopping -85% over the 10 years.
Lithium ion batteries are so cheap they're disposable, and the
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Numbers just spoil the groove by telling you it's impossible at scale.
Said literally about every resource or product ever released, yet we've scaled all others, including oil which was once though an incredibly rare and valuable resource.
Re: EV are permanently relegated to class symbol (Score:2)
Yes. And we now live on a Heinleinian fantasy future where gold costs pennies per pound and plutonium is sold at every corner drugstore.
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I mean we kinda do? We have access to all the worlds information and history at our fingertips, sitting in our pocket. We can talk to anyone on the planet in a matter of seconds. This fact alone has had a more profound effect on human development than cheap metals ever could. To a person 150 years ago we do in a fantasy future.
The markets figured out how to scale extraction of oil, aluminum, gold, water and every other resource the greater markets demanded why as a capitalist society would we believe thi
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Industrial revolution with oil and raw materials, information age with silicon and electronics etc
Yes we will probably be constrained for EV materials for the next few years but in 10 years? 15 years?
We had almost no micropocessors or personal computers in 1975 and in 1985 they were being mass produced. Can't say "it's a problem today so it's a problem forever" that has never held true.
Re: EV are permanently relegated to class symbol (Score:2)
Microprocessors are made of sand. The missing bit was intellectual property, not physical property.
Oil literally bubbles up from the ground in some places and has for millions of years. The missing bit was knowing what to do with it.
Don't confuse a lack of information with a lack of physical stuff.
It's theoretically possible that a battery that uses a more readily available chemical element will dominate in the next few decades, but it's unlikely given that cell voltages are higher for lighter elements with
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Microprocessors are made of sand. The missing bit was intellectual property, not physical property.
Sand is hardly the only physical limitation in building the supply lines of modern microprocessor ubiquity, there were thousands of developments that had to be solved but the oppurtunity for business development was there so the needs got filled.
Oil literally bubbles up from the ground in some places and has for millions of years.
The surface level and easiest to extract reserves were tapped 100 years ago but demand drove the development of more technology and labor to find and extract oil from deeper and deeper sources, even in the middle of the ocean. It's practically a joke how many times
Re: EV are permanently relegated to class symbol (Score:2)
Public transportation is unworkable without high density.
The desirability of density alone is a subjective thing. Some people enjoy the bustle of the city, others wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. It may be cheaper to live in a tiny box apartment with shared laundry facilities (or even shared kitchens and baths) for efficiency, but that's not the driving factor for many.
This is why many (myself included) actively and voluntarily choose to live in low density suburbs where the neighbors don't bother us
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No reason they have to be tiny boxes, it's stilly to think otherwise that any large amount of city dwellers live in tiny studios with shared facitilies, worldwide but especially the US. That's the same as me saying all sububan dwellers live in garbage mcmansions that are identical and devoid of trees, shopping and culture like Edward Scissorhands.
That's great that you like the suburbs, I am not advocating forcing people out but that doesn't mean we shouldnt make sustainable cities with good mass transit no
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You mean like train tracks with an overhead catenary?
Re: I want slot car EV's. (Score:2)
Because you need to change lanes in arbitrary locations, have personnel walking around during maintenance, construction, accident/disabled vehicle cleanup, trash cleanup, etc.
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Let's complicate the concept by several orders of magnitude rather than leverage technology that has been developed for a century because you don't want to coordinate your schedule better. Enjoy your traffic jams.
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Well, that's exactly what we've done. Science has given us everything we need for a golden age of universal prosperity ... we just lack the moral courage to realize it.
We live in a world of absurd abundance. Scarcity in this age is completely artificial. We have more than adequate resources to provide for every person on earth. We have for decades. The only problem left to solve is distribution.
Ideology is certainly a problem, but it's nothing like you're thinking. It's twisted right-wing ideology tha
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> past performance is not indicative of future results
Oil will become a rare and valuable resource once again in the future. That is mathematically certain. Whether it happens within one or two lifetimes, that remains to be seen.
My bet is one lifetime at most.
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Demand for oil will drop significantly as we switch to electric vehicles, renewable energy, and bioplastics.
That is, if we had any sense.
Before you bring up the headline, we also have promising new battery technologies that can dramatically reduce our need for lithium. That is a problem that science and engineering can and will solve.
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> That is, if we had any sense.
Therein lies a big part of the problem.
Fossil fuels are 80% of all primary energy consumption. Personal vehicles are about 5% of that. After the EV battery problem, a bunch of other remain.
> That is a problem that science and engineering can and will solve.
I agree, I'm just not convinced it will be soon enough, for reasons unrelated to the headline, and that a lot of hardship that can be avoided (and could have been avoided) will come to pass.
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Batteries are more than just a problem for EVs. They're a critical part of renewable infrastructure. We're not where we need to be, but we're getting there.
Re:EV are permanently relegated to class symbol of (Score:5, Informative)
There's already a battery recycling industry, and they last way longer than 5 years.
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As expected.
And it will grow until "limited resources" as the OP said are probably not a problem anymore.
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The loss isn't necessarily linear. But if your EV had that little range when it was new, it was either a gen 1 Leaf or someone's compliance car. In the former case, you did get a bit of a bum deal. In the latter, you're a sucker. Either way, the batteries keep getting cheaper, and there are already battery upgrades available for many older EVs like yours.
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Given batteries only last 5 years
What is the source of this 'information'. Or do you actually think people drive 100,000 miles per year?
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Well, ignorance, given i was thinking more on things like phone batteries rather than car batteries.
But even if you get 10 or 20 years, it's still going to the trash unless we recycle it.
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OK, so it makes vehicles like 5% more expensive, but if 5% higher price tag makes a car unpurchasable for you, maybe even the original price was not something you could afford.
I think potatoes have gone up more than that this year.
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Average cost of potatoes per pound in USD (FRED):
July 2021 - 0.879
July 2022 - 0.928
That's about 5%, though I expect prices to drop significantly in the next few months. Prices for potatoes tend to be highest in the summer anyway and there were other confounding factors this year. I don't expect that 5% increase to stick around for long. It never does.
"But prices never go back down!"
Sept 2012 - 0.661
Sept 2013 - 0.847
That was a massive 28% increase.
Sept 2015 - 0.613
More than 7% below the what it was in Sep
There are responsible producers in Chile (Score:5, Interesting)
There are responsible producers of lithium in Chile. BYD never should have been given a contract to begin with, instead the permit should have been denied and BYD should have been connected with the local companies. These protests by The People of Chile reflect this. Lithium can be extracted from salyars very cleanly, safely, and with low energy investiture, but you can't trust BYD [senecaesg.com] to do any of that. And in fact, the grant was held up for a time over the environmental concerns [senecaesg.com]. It's also of critical importance to note that while you can use salt water brine to extract lithium, the extraction rate is lower, so critical supplies of fresh water are often used [nrdc.org].
Reminder: environmentalists are stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
When you look up lithium mining online you'll invariably come across Friends of the Earth and their big campaign against lithium mines because lithium mining is devastating to the environment.
Phew we dodged a bullet there. Better stop this EV crap then, we all know there's no environmental impact to oil mining. Thanks "Friends" of the Earth.
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When you look up lithium mining online you'll invariably come across Friends of the Earth and their big campaign against lithium mines because lithium mining is devastating to the environment.
Yes, people protest lithium mines. They protest nuclear power. They protest hydroelectric power. They protest wind power. They protest tidal power. They protest oil and gas. They protest biofuels. They protest pipelines and transmission lines to move energy around.
It is amazing we have progressed as far as a civilization as we have. I generally just ignore all the protesters. Almost universally they have nothing useful to offer humanity.
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Could we see EV's that are cost-competitive with subcompact gas cars like the $15K Mirage? Yes [wired.com]. Efficient cars take fewer resources of all kinds, including lithium.
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https://electrek.co/2022/04/22... [electrek.co]
Re: Reminder: environmentalists are stupid (Score:2)
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Maybe then you might appreciate how people don't see your Mirage, despite how economical it is for you personally, as a virtue.
Caring what other people think is called vanity. That is not a virtue either. Best plan is to just ignore them.
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> Only true when the grid is not powered by hydrocarbons.
Which is both technically and realistically possible possible. There's no technologically feasible way to run an ICE car off of anything other than hydrocarbon fuels, though... at least none that don't require even higher levels of renewable energy grid commitment than EVs would.
> Nobody is stopping YOU.
And herein lies the tragedy of commons [wikipedia.org].
> Citation required
You're at least aware that there are severe and prolonged droughts around the world
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Which is both technically and realistically possible possible.
The world isn't powered on what's possible. What is possible does not move vehicles, plow fields, heat buildings or run factories. It doesn't even pedal bicycles.
In a decade from now even in two decades I don't believe it is credible to expect there to be substantive changes in global energy mix. Coal, oil and gas do most of the heavy lifting today and there is no credible reason to expect this to change dramatically anytime soon despite all of the green investments and public attention.
If a picture is w
Alternate sources (Score:2)
Nope. (Score:2)
Despite Chile having most of the lithium, they extract very little of the lithium we use. Most lithium we use is extracted from Australia which has an obscene amount. Since the value has increased, mining around the world will be expanding their operations. Chile can hold out as long as they wish.
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As noted, Chile literally has the majority of the world's lithium. It's also in salyars where it's convenient to extract it by brining. Australian lithium comes from open pit mines, which increases the ecological impact (over what is necessary, anyway, not what BYD is doing.)
Sounds like a good outcome to me (Score:2)
I don't know, everything in the article sounds reasonable. The landowners and those affected by the mining operations should get both a say in mining practices and a large cut of the profits. These are their natural resources and their health risks after all. They ought to negotiate terms that make the resource extraction worthwhile to everyone involved and if companies find that too onerous then the lithium should be left alone.
Theres no problem here, just things working the way things ought to work. Nobod
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And yet you use the term "landowners", you clearly think someone has a "natural right". Wouldn't landowners have a "natural right to a resource on their own terms just because it is there"? Who determines the "landowners" anyway?
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Who determines the "landowners" anyway?
The democratically elected Chilean govt. Also, the Chilean courts mediate between interested citizens & parties. Chilean citizens have rights. Apparently, this is a democracy functioning as it should.
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> Who determines the "landowners" anyway?
I don't know. But for argument, I guess the larger the group of people who live and have been living on the land are those that are more the "landowners" compared to smaller groups of people who have less been living on the land.
CA Salton Sea has 10x US lithium demand (Score:2)
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Came to say this. We just need to tap the Salton Sea, which is already a giant disaster.
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What with the extreme environmental conditions, I can't imaging how they could mine there safely. Unless it's done by robots or enclos
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That's awesome, but it's in California, where they will not even let companies desalinate seawater
Superkendall lying, what else is new? (Lying about California is one of his favorites). There are at least 12 desalination plants in California, including the largest in North America (Carlsbad Desalination Plant) and 10 more are planned.
Not enough lithium??? (Score:5, Insightful)
"All the major car makers are completely on board with electric vehicles now," said Brian Jaskula, a lithium expert at the U.S. Geological Survey. "But the lithium may just not be enough."
The first oil well was stuck at Pottsville PA or some such place back in 1860 or so. At that time Saudi Arabia did not even exist. Some nomadic bedouins roamed the deserts in camels in the Arabian peninsula. King Saud had not even been born. Did anyone imagine the amount of oil that was going to be discovered?
And Oil was created by a biological process, under certain circumstances. Before the evolution of microbes that could rot the soft bodied marine animals. Coal was formed before the emergence of microbes that could rot wood. Lithium on the other hand is a simple inorganic element, abundant, can not be created or destroyed, mostly found as water soluble salts. They are abundant in sea water, but right now people find it cheaper to extract it from salt flats. No one will be able to claim monopoly of the supply of lithium as is the case with oil.
Just wait we will find cheaper and cheaper ways to get it. Every metal used to be expensive before a wide spread use was found. As soon as it is needed we will find ways to get it. Aluminum used to be so expensive, only the Emperor Napoleon could afford Aluminum cutlery. Titanium, tungsten, iron, copper, all of them were super expensive at some point in history.
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Really it's a mistake to jump the gun and push EVs with batteries that can't be recycled, we're going to have a massive toxic waste problem with the road we're on.
Lithium is being recovered from EV batteries right now as we speak.
Wall Street Journal (Score:2)
Fuck off with paywalled sources. Can't read it, then the issue doesn't exist. Fake news. Or provide readable documentation.
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More like Paywall Street Journal, right?
Not Building Batteries for Recycling (Score:2)
Fully EV vehicles are not necessary (Score:2)
Consider that the typical US commuter drives about 16miles (26km) each way (https://itstillruns.com/far-americans-drive-work-average-7446397.html). In Canada it's around 12km (7.5mi). (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Average-commuting-distance-in-Canada-and-Ontario-12_tbl2_265050835).
Hybrid vehicles have ranges from 30-60km (18.5 - 36mi). They require less lithium because they have smaller batteries, and they provide flexibility to use gasoline for long distances (which people don't travel nearly as oft
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PHEV seem like low haging fruit unless they are not cheaper than EVs.
This seems like a good analisys
https://insideevs.com/features... [insideevs.com]
Coup (Score:2)
Re:Blame leftists... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fun part is that it's the exact opposite. One of the key reasons why US has shale as developed as it does, while Europe has little to none is because right wing attitudes to ownership of land in US guarantee land owners get a piece of the pie of whatever valuable geological resources their land has when they're extracted.
In most of EU, land owners get nothing, because ownership of land doesn't extend to geological resources. Hence land owners get nothing but bad sides of resource extraction and therefore protest extensively against pretty much every extraction project.
And most of the land in Europe is owned by indigenous people.
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Re:Blame leftists... (Score:4, Interesting)
I actually wondered if I should note that "shale rock is different story entirely" to pre-empt this silly red herring about "but they've been extracting this stuff for a really long time", but I figure no one would be so silly as to try it.
And you actually went there. I guess I stand corrected on how low people will go when it comes to green ideology. Heck, in your religious fervour, you didn't even care to look where the primary extraction of today is going. Hint: it's in Estonia, where they burn shale rock in their Narva power plants. The ash deposits from those plants are big enough to be seen from orbit with naked eye. No magnification necessary. Because they don't actually extract shale oil. They extract shale rock. Then the rock is put into a plant where large amount of special sand grinds the soft shale rock open releasing the oil wtihin, which is then burned to heat steam.
Now for reality check that doesn't match green ideology: Europe has massive shale deposits. The primary problem to their extraction is the same problem as with all mining in Europe today. Government claims ownership of all geological resources, regardless of private land ownership. As a result, there's a long and well entrenched culture of opposition to any and all mining projects on local level, because locals get all the problems of mining and almost none of the benefits. Unlike in US, where geological findings promise a massive payout to locals, because they are the ones who own the resources rather than the government.
The other problem is that European shale deposits formed differently from North American ones. As a result, they are typically only about five layers or so, when in US it's >10 layers. That means there's less oil to extract per well. This would have precluded European shale from being economical ten years ago provided locals weren't anti-mining to the extreme.
Today with 4D seismic and multilateral drilling advances, they're extremely economical (not to mention effective at alleviating geopolitical pressure of dependence on Russia for hydrocarbons) if you could get locals not to oppose it and regulatory framework without massive state bureaucracy requiring ridiculous amount of permits for every well in the name of green ideology and not hurting Mother Gaia with evil dark sludge. Never mind that shale oil is actually more of a light brown and very much a liquid.
Fun part: one of the best shale oil locations currently known... is under Paris. And that is one massive. Here's a handy map: https://www.researchgate.net/p... [researchgate.net]
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End of story.
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Except that of course, "fracking damages the environment so much!" is a green myth. There's some damage that is far less than most mining efforts, which is easily outweighed by benefits.
And as for "but muh Germany wouldn't allow it", Germany is the promised land of one of the most damaging mining activities known to man. Strip mining lignite.
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Except that of course, "fracking damages the environment so much!" is a green myth.
womp womp [nrdc.org]
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I base my opinions on observable reality. I recommend researching more points where you disagree with me. You may find that reality tends to be heavily biased to agree with me in most cases.
I will grant that there are cases where my observations are either out of date or incomplete. Errare humanum est. But I am also a fairly rare individual in that I actually actively seek data reliable observations that would allow me to change my mind.
And this baffles ideologues.
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Red herring? It never stops with you, does it? Are you allergic to honesty?
Let's examine your nonsense. On leasing farmland: You'd need to be okay with your land being turned into farm land for the pittance you'd get from leasing it. Even that's assuming 1) your land is suitable for farming and 2) you can find someone who wants to lease it. Odds are against you here.
There aren't typically many farms that would want whatever unused land you have, and farmers aren't exactly shy about contacting you when
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Chilean lithium belongs to the Chilean people. That's what democracy looks like.
How does the lithium belong to the Chilean people? Did they create it? They just seem to have accidentally been sitting on it.
I am truly baffled at what you think "democracy" has to do with anything involved. Does lithium vote?
Considering that there are a lot more people in the world than exist in Chile, perhaps the rest of us could vote to extract their lithium? You seem to have confused democracy with some kind of inherent property rights to territory that may nominally belong to some nebulous concept of
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Re: Blame leftists... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want people to obey the law and respect your property rights voluntarily, shut up and pay whatever it takes to feel they/their kids have a future, are better off in the current system than otherwise.
If they don't, they will over throw the current system of govt in which you are at the top. They may do better in the new system, or not. But you will definitely be worse off. If you try to enforce your property rights by force, you will find policing costs a lot more than current taxation. And productivity plummets and you are way worse off. It is in your best interests to perpetuate the system in which you thrive. So pay up and suck it up. They have nothing to lose. What about you?
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For sure giving them money will incentivize them to work hard to lift themselves and their children off the public dole. They'll definitely go from being net negative contributors to helping us colonize Mars so we will get a return on our investment.
You say this sarcastically but the actual evidence in history shows when you pull people out of abject poverty they do in fact contribute to the greater economy more. This statement is literally "feels over reals".
This belief in some totally fair and even meritocracy is the actual fantasy utopia.
You can live in the USA and pay nothing in taxes if you want, most people especially those in the >100k absolutely prefer the life where they do pay taxes though.
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The fact that you chose to focus on the 100k (which i was quoting from the person I was responding to) and not the broader point tells me you are either ignoring the braoder point or just don't want to engage. The actual number isn't the issue being discussed and pedantry is incredibly boring.
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And when the Democrats increase taxes on corporations, those taxes just get passed through to you in the form of higher priced goods and services.
That's not how things work. That's just a lie to get you to vote against your best interests. Taxes don't work like your electric bill. Not even a little.
Before we get into how taxes work, let's deal with pricing: If corporations could raise prices and get more money, they would have done so already. Understand that their goal is always to maximize profitability. That means prices are already set at the optimum level. If they raise prices, they'll lose money. This is basic supply and demand.
Remember:
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The flip side is that tax cuts for the wealthy almost always leads to bubbles that end up crashing the economy.
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95% of all federal taxes are paid for by people making over 100K.
A made up figure.
A household income of 87K is the 60th percentile, and that top 40% of households takes in 75% of income, and pays 85% of all Federal taxes, for a slight degree of progressitivity.
Maybe you mixed up your talking point cards and forgot that you were only talking about one of the Federal taxes (the inaccurately named "income tax" given that the payroll taxes are also based on income).
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as long as we can grow crops to turn into ethanol that will be the way to go
Feeding all the world's people on the crops we grow now is a challenge. Feeding all the world's vehicles as well is going to require massively larger quantities. Solar panels and wind farms have to be a better option, either via batteries or hydrogen.
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I don't think anyone would disagree with that but we can't go calling EV's a "fad" when there are more and more on the road every year while they are getting cheaper but I have been reading about cellulosic ethanol for two decades now with no real progress on scaling the process.
If we could pull that fantasy off of producing billions of gallons of ethanol produced from a cheap feedstock like algae or kudzu or any of the other waste plants I had read about "this is the next big fuel tech" it would be great b
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Fads grow and grow, that is how they become fads. The truth is that The world's population is 7.75 billion and growing. The population that has a modern electrical power grid of actual (if dubious) quality is under 1.5 billion; many places have electricity, but in most places nothing like Europe's or North America's grid... and even these are getting creaky. And even the better power grids will be crushed if all vehicles go electric. And nobody stops to think about that. It's why it is a fad. Once people '
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population that has a modern electrical power grid of actual (if dubious) quality is under 1.5 billion
This is just plain wrong. China alone has 1.5B under a modern electrical grid. Japan, Korea, Vietnam, large portions of India, South Africa, Brazil etc. Don't be so eurocentric.
better power grids will be crushed if all vehicles go electric
Nowhere is going all electric in the next 50 years. At a very optimistic pace we would replace 1% of fleets with electric per year and we won't hit that number this decade. Grids will have to adapt to fit changing needs.
Hydrogen will work because we already have well established fuel supply chains that work for the whole world
Nothing about existing gasoline and diesel supply chains can apply to hydrogen. Hydrogen is far more leaky, ne
There is no fad here. (Score:2)
The only possible fad here is Lithium Batteries, but work is happening to find a more suitable chemistry. Just give it some time. -famous last words.
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There is more than enough lithium to go around, we have barely even begun to extract it from Chile, where most of the convenient surface lithium in the world is located.
Ethanol is a crap fuel for a bunch of reasons.
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Re:Can I just have old school bikes and cable cars (Score:5, Insightful)
So your mom does your grocery shopping? Bicycles are not an option to go miles to the grocery store for four member family.
I use train during week but for supplies on weekend need the car. Basement dwellers living on mom's dime or incels living alone two blocks from the grocery store don't get a vote
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So your mom does your grocery shopping? Bicycles are not an option to go miles to the grocery store for four member family.
Having more grocery stores closer would help, but I know people who do exactly what you say is impossible. You need the right bicycle and to be fit enough, and be prepared to do it. I used to do it using panniers for myself, but if you are doing it for a family you need a bicycle trailer or to get the whole family to go.
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I think "going three stores" seems to be part of a bigger problem, going by bicycle or car is not going to fix the problem that your groceries will sit in the sun for far longer than they should be.
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If there was a bicycle escalator to get from the bottom of the hill to my university, I'd ride my bike. Until then, I drive.