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Comment by mdgrech23 | Hacker News Reader

There's a lot of bullshit in this space. There isn't enough lithium in the world to move everyone over to electric. 80% of grid still runs on coal so it's not clean either. I'll also head for heavy duty towing electric is not where's it at, and forget EV 18 wheelers. The simple truth is gas is a precious resource and we are wasting it. We need more public transportation and more sane use. Notice I didn't say EVs. They create another set of problems.

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> isn't enough lithium in the world to move everyone over to electric

Source?

> 80% of grid still runs on coal

30% globally [1], 11% in America [2].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_energy_supply_and_cons...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States

That appears to be total energy, rather than grid specific (per the parent).

This is probably a better reference (the gist is the same of course, coal was 19.5%):

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=427&t=3

"In 2022, about 4,243 billion kilowatthours (kWh) (or about 4.24 trillion kWh) of electricity were generated at utility-scale electricity generation facilities in the United States.1 About 60% of this electricity generation was from fossil fuels—coal, natural gas, petroleum, and other gases. About 18% was from nuclear energy, and about 22% was from renewable energy sources."

EIA has a nice flow graph that shows energy sources and sinks here: https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/monthly/pdf/flow/total_...

Coal was about 10% of total US energy production in 2022, 27% of total US electricity production.

The idea that because EVs need electricity from the grid, and the grid itself is not perfectly clean at this moment in time, is somehow a flaw or a problem is absurd on its face. An electric car can, over the course of its life, continue to get cleaner and cleaner energy as the grid it pulls from gets cleaner and cleaner. That's a win all around. It's also the entire fucking point. Any gas-burning cars produced can only burn gas and will never be cleaner (save for some fanciful conversions).

Trucks. Trucks. Trucks. You keep ignoring trucks. They get every god damned thing done and cannot operate on electric until lighter and more energy dense batteries are developed. A lot lighter and a lot more energy dense by several factors.

We have the mystical 50mpg car everyone dreamed about thirty years ago. No one will buy them. They need a truck.

So because trucks cannot be electric at the moment (doubtful, btw, but let's accept this premise), we should not try to electrify other parts of the global fleet? Every little bit helps, plus the research that goes into that will create these lighter and more energy dense batteries you speak of.

> There isn't enough lithium in the world to move everyone over to electric.

There is [1].

> I'll also head for heavy duty towing electric is not where's it at, and forget EV 18 wheelers.

Heavy duty, long distance hauling is something where trains excel at. It's one thing for short-distance distribution (i.e. in a city) where it's infeasible to serve industry and local distribution by rail, but everything else? We figured that stuff out almost a century ago.

[1] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/li...

Geologically, yes.

As for actual availability, it would take the world's entire supply of Lithium produced per year, just to allow for half of new cars sold in the US alone be electric. That's how far behind our Lithium mining is, and as your own article says, scaling that out without environmental disasters or human rights abuses will be a challenge (and, potentially, infeasible).

There were 6 million EV's sold in China in 2022. There were only 3 million gasoline vehicles sold in the US in 2022 so there is obviously enough Lithium refinery capacity for the entire US market at least.

Wrong.

“It is estimated that the U.S. alone will need 500,000 metric tons per year of unrefined lithium by 2034 just to power EVs. The U.S. produces just a fraction of that today. The current global production of lithium in 2020 was about 440,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE, contains about 18% of pure lithium), and not all of that is in pure enough form for batteries, according to Chris Doornbos, president, and CEO of E3 Metals Corp, a lithium extraction firm located in Calgary, Canada, which plans to produce battery-grade lithium hydroxide.”

As he said, we are not just below the amount necessary, but much of what is produced can't meet spec.

https://www.onecharge.biz/blog/u-s-role-in-global-lithium-ba...

In your first comment you said "the world's Lithium". Now you're saying "US produces". That's a massive difference. US production rounds to about 0% of the world's production. The vast majority is done in China, Chile and Australia.

Point to where because I don't see your argument.

"it would take the <world's> entire supply of Lithium produced per year, just to allow for half of new cars <sold in the US> alone be electric"

"It is estimated that the <U.S. alone will need 500,000 metric tons per year> of unrefined lithium by 2034 just to power EVs... <current global production> of lithium in 2020 was about 440,000 metric tons..."

I guess you're saying that Chinese cars take < 1/8 of the Lithium that American cars would? Which implies that your source thinks the average American car will need an F-150 Lightning sized battery?

It's too bad our technology for mining and battery production is permanently stuck in time, never to advance again. Otherwise, we could safely assume minor issues like this would be resolved in due time, given the neccesary investment, as countless thousands of similar issues have been resolved in the past.

One single mine in Nevada that covers ~6000 acres, which is large but not incredible by mine standards, will more than 10x US lithium production, and will 1.5x world production, all on its own.

No, the Thacker Pass Lithium Mine would theoretically increase entire world production by 25% at most when running at maximum capacity. That's assuming, of course, that the indigenous tribes and environmental activists who hate the project don't win legally.

I do expect that EV 18 wheelers will have their biggest strength in areas where distances traveled aren't always particularly large.

Transporting gasoline and diesel to stores perhaps...

Mining has a very long history of finding more of a resource when more became in demand. I'm sure they will find more lithium, and invent more creative ways to mine difficult deposits we already know about. It's usually a bad bet to bet against that. Exhibit A is "Peak Oil," which was that oil supplies peaked in the 70s and the world was going to run out of oil.

Side note, I wish I knew how to invest in these kinds of realizations so I could actually make money on them instead of just rambling on forums, lol!

Queue "it's already priced in" in 3, 2, 1...

Even ignoring that your facts are wrong, even the high energy use at construction, the bad energy mix in electricity used to power EVs combined with the charging inefficiencies and the fact that EVs are considerably heavier, etc. ICE cars are still worse in terms of carbon emissions. And the size of the gap will only increase from now on.

Why would you forget about EV 18 wheelers? https://jalopnik.com/tesla-semi-wins-range-test-against-volv...

There's way more than enough lithium to more than double the fleet MPG, though, by mandating > 45MPG for all light vehicles, which effectively mandates hybrids.

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