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Comment by lotsofmangos | Hacker News Reader

Read article. The smelter they are using is hydroelectric and the 1000 miles air battery range is only used on long journeys as mostly the car runs on lithium.

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I think... you might want to read up on aluminum smelting, which converts alumina (Al2O3) into aluminum (Al). The process involves passing a large current between two graphite (carbon) electrodes via the alumina.

Al2O3 + carbon => Al + CO2

Edit: I can only guess that the down votes are for not providing a source? Here you go:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting

It doesn't matter if the smelter runs on fairy dust or hippie juice. Reducing aluminum oxide to aluminum produces CO2 no matter the energy source.

It seems that you can significantly reduce carbon emissions of aluminum smelting if you use energy source that does not emit carbon dioxide.

From http://aluminium.org.au/climate-change/smelting-greenhouse-p...

The smelting of aluminium is a very energy intensive process – and over 80 per cent of smelting greenhouse gas emissions are indirect (electricity-related) emissions. The remaining emissions come from direct (on-site) emissions plus the emissions associated with the production of alumina.

That's true but the direct emissions are still very substantial. It only seems small in comparison because smelting uses so much electricity to begin with.

I read the article. Hydroelectric is not free -- to scale up to powering the automotive industry requires more dams with massive ecological impact -- and you left out the part out greenhouse gases and the transportation of heavy batteries over hundreds or thousands of miles per recharge.

1K miles could be easily used up on a couple roundtrips. That's not even 2 roundtrips between SF and LA.

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