https://omny.fm/shows/odd-lots/what-so-many-people-get-wrong...
They also cite the Jevons paradox in a discussion of the possible counterintuitive outcomes:
The only valid argument is a quantitative one, and in that regime, EVs powered with a tiny fraction of coal, like the grid in Germany, are a massive win.
But I will say that I'm not surprised to see yet another pro-nuclear, anti-other-clean-tech take. These two things seem to go hand in hand.
Most of the lithium needed for electric vehicles is going to be mined and that is not an environmental friendly process.
No one's talking about how they're going to power electric vehicles in the United States... It's a ticking time bomb for energy infrastructure in the United States. They should be pursuing everything all at once,not reducing because you always need a backup.
Coal is a minor component of Germany's power, and even if it were bigger, EVs are a big win on pollution even when largely powered by coal.
And as for lithium being "dirty" have you bothered to even compare it to other sources of mining? Such as for the massive amount of stew that goes into cars? Or the absolutely massive amounts of waste and destruction that happens to extract oil to power cars?
Citing "environmental damage" but not acknowledging right away that it's far far far less than the alternatives is simply playing rhetorical games.
We must be far more logical and realistic and pragmatic if we want to take care of the environment. Above all, factuality is important.
> More than a third (36.3%) of the electricity produced and fed into the grid in Germany in the third quarter of 2022 came from coal-fired power plants (third quarter of 2021: 31.9%).
https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2022/12/PE22_518_433.html
And that number is from before the last nuclear reactors were turned off.
Yeah, I suggest you start posting some facts because that's quite a claim. Lithium uses a f** load of water to be mined, more so than copper more so than gold or zinc.
(Water Use in Industries of the Future: Mining Industry" by the U.S. Department of Energy)
The water footprint of lithium production" by M. Northey, T. Mudd, and D. Werner, published in ScienceDirect: This research article provides a detailed analysis of the water requirements for various forms of lithium mining, including both brine-based and hard rock mining. The authors estimate that the water footprint of lithium production can range from 100 to 20,000 liters of water per kilogram of lithium, depending on the specific extraction method used.
"EVs are a big win on pollution even when largely powered by coal." This is a common misconception because the power generation for these cars has to come from somewhere... If the power generation for these cars is coal or oil where that energy is being generated is polluting those people. You are correct that it is way better for the environment in terms of driving emissions, but the emissions used to generate the power are often ignored and unless it's done, the healthy mix of alternatives such as wind, hydro, solar geothermal and nuclear, it's absolutely Ludacris suggest that EVs are cleaner without taking into account where the power is being generated.
So prices currently look set to rise. Higher oil prices make renewables look relatively more attractive though, so its a bit reflexive
As (if?) likelihood of a demand collapse increases, I imagine some fraction of potential suppliers with ~easy/cheap oil left would have a healthy incentive to open up the supply for as long as it takes to force everyone with ~hard sources to wind down, leaving them to price-set the long-tail?
Hopefully the price of any PoW crypto is sufficiently low that it doesn't make marginal economic sense for any players to extract-and-mine?
As EVs get cheaper to buy, and more importantly, to run, the petrol-fueled vehicles start to become uneconomical. As use declines, availability of fuel declines, as petrol stations become more unprofitable. Further encourages EV adoption. Range anxiety now comes to petrol-powered vehicle owners as it is now for EV owners, further incentivizing the switch.
While the general impression is that this will be gradual, I think it will be a gradual decline, then sudden, as the overall inconvenience and cost levels cross. Then some minor precipitating event changes the overall mindset, and petrol-powered cars become a perceived liability, and those still stuck with them will barely be able to unload them.
As the decline happens, OPEC will surely try to manage the price of oil, but with demand declining, one of two things will happen. To the extent that they keep the price high, they speed the transition away from oil. They are also much more likely to fail, as the US is now a major producer, and has every incentive to work against OPEC. Plus, their friends are gone. Teh car companies figured out in the 2008 price spike that the oil industry is NOT their friend as that economic crash and oil price spike forced them to look over the cliff of doom as auto sales nearly stopped dead. Then we saw Russia's blatant attempt to use their oil & gas supply to blackmail the world into yielding to their genocidal invasion of Ukraine. No rational businessman now thinks that the oil industry is a reliable supply partner, and will cut them out of the equation at the first opportunity. The oil industry and countries may have some good days ahead, but beyond the intermediate term, they are absolutely screwed.
This is of course assuming the current price is somewhat competitive.
(Instead, right now that oil is just more profitable to extract as the consumer price pays for extracting even the more expensive oil.)