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Comment by TheJoeMan | Hacker News Reader

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How is that a half truth? If you read the article it’s clear that this discharge is fully permitted and legal. All the substances they portray so shockingly were found at barely detectable levels.

I read the whole article and I don’t really understand what is being criticized, if not manufacturing itself. Do people think it’s possible to make a massive battery factory with zero industrial waste water output? Or do they think factories should only be in poor countries where they won’t have to think about them? If batteries stopped existing most people would be very unhappy, why be unwilling to pay the full cost of those substantial benefits?

There is my question - is this really normal or not? Tesla gets a lot of hate in the press (their CEO is a jerk), but that doesn't mean everything they do is evil. If these are things that come in via their drinking water system and then go out then I'm fine (it would be better if they would filter this but it is unreasonable to ask them to), if there are things they are adding they need to take care.

Not OP but, half truth is here "remains in complete compliance with all requirements of its state-issued wastewater discharge permit" and yet... "Neither hexavalent chromium nor arsenic appears in Tesla’s TCEQ discharge permit as an allowable pollutant." Both which were found in the waste water. The original test did not test for those, so I guess what the guy was saying was true at a time?

The permit also didn’t list strawberry bubblegum. The levels of these pollutants were found to be similar to background levels. Where do you think arsenic comes from?

If the Texas regulators are asleep at the wheel then be mad at them. Businesses are guided by laws, but there’s no allegation any laws were broken. I’m no Tesla partisan but this just feels like mindless ragebait.

neat trick is to realize you dont have to pick sides.

you can get mad at tesla for dumping wastewater with stuff they dont have a permit for, and you can be mad at the regulators failing to regulate.

But there is no evidence that they are dumping stuff they don’t have a permit for. Finding 1% over background levels in a sample tells you literally nothing.

Industrial waste is called such for a reason.

> Industrial waste is called such for a reason.

Which is why you shouldn't dump it in a river used for fishing? (Or any river for that matter)

I don't think you understand that people pee lithium into their toilets too. But you didn't just read an article riling you up to being mad at the municipal sewage industry so you aren't mad at it at the moment.

Yes, and you shouldn't dump untreated municipal wastewater into rivers either? That's what we have treatment plants for. I don't get what that has to do with anything.

The treatment plants discharge water with waaay higher levels of exactly what everyone is complaining about here.

>But there is no evidence that they are dumping stuff they don’t have a permit for

well, except for the hexavalent chromium and arsenic findings. but yeah, more testing is needed, and the article is premature.

Or you can get mad at journalist-bloggers for writing unscientific selective fearmongering hit pieces catering to culture-war-polarized confirmation biases.

The discharge was described as black. Unless I’m missing something regarding the allowable discharges, it would reason they are also discharging something else which isn’t being looked for.

Industrial waste water is not typically clear and drinkable. If it were it would not have the word “waste” in it.

His operation tangibly and physically contributes more to the material advancement of humanity than most of the armchair critics in the comments do - I think that matters more for character allegations. And this first of its kind refinery in America is far better than the alternative of continuing to rely on far dirtier refineries in other countries.

FYI lithium is fine at those levels, and is even biologically beneficial, commonly taken as an OTC daily supplement at much higher doses.

They have a permit to destroy the environment and poison the water, which has more defense in the comments here than rejection of said destruction and poisoning.

The problem is a new generation of managers who aren't just rewarded for being awful; they're actually proud of it.

(Local) Governments are compliant / bought out to bend to the will of whatever company is providing them with some bucks.

Kinda like when municipalities adopt rules they don't really agree with or think serves their interest because the state says they need to to quality for grant bucks? (and of course the feds to the same to the states)

However dirty you think the sausage factory is it's worse.

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