The unstoppable rise of batteries is leading to a domino effect that puts half of global fossil fuel demand at risk

L4sBot@lemmy.worldmod to Technology@lemmy.world – 205 points – The Rise of Batteries in Six Charts and Not Too Many Numbers - RMI
rmi.org

The unstoppable rise of batteries is leading to a domino effect that puts half of global fossil fuel demand at risk::The unstoppable rise of batteries is leading to a domino effect that puts half of global fossil fuel demand at risk.

49

Thats a weird way to frame it.

The rise of vaccines puts viruses at risk.

As soon as I read the title I thought "did fossil fuel barons write the title because who would phrase it that way?"

The article is by Rocky Mountain Institute, which is a think tank focused on clean energy transitions. And the rest of the language in the article is much more positive - batteries will enable a shift away from fossil fuels.

So yes, very odd word choice in the title given that the rest of the article generally views fossil fuel displacement to be a good thing.

I read the title and thought "Good, but can we do more?"

The unstoppable rise of title is leading to a domino effect that puts all my sanity at risk.

This story is Analyst begging us to think of the fossil fuels.

Good.

Eh...

Batteries take "rare earth metals" like cobalt.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-24/cobalt-mining-in-the-congo-green-energy/100802588

There's an environmental cost, and a huge cost on a personal level to the people who mine it.

It's like if your house is burning down, but then a flood comes and puts out the fire.

Sure, the fire is out, but now your house is underwater. We're just switching one problem for another, not really solving anything

Edit:

Not sure why so many people think this comment is pro fossil fuels...

But I'm not going to repeatedly explain the very basic concept that with two bad things, one is sometimes less bad.

I really really thought people would already know that...

Batteries take “rare earth metals” like cobalt.

Some Lithium-Ion batteries use Cobalt, but many don't. Lithium-Iron-Phosphate, for example, is a popular variant without any Cobalt. There is a push going on to move to battery chemistries without Cobalt or to reduce the actual amount of Cobalt where it is still required.

Lithium production does still take an insane amount of water to produce

Wait until you hear about the oil refining process!

My car meme groups keep recirculating a shitty gotcha anti-EV screenshot of a post listing out how many tons of rock get processed for the minerals, the gallon-per-hour rate of the mining trucks, generators, transportation, blah blah blah as if petroleum just naturally drips put of weeds and into their gas tanks. But I guess if you dilute into the ocean and atmosphere, it doesn't really count because you can't see it.

Or in the case of Canada, to separate oil out of the ground!

Current Li-ion batteries have numerous issues, but fortunately there are several alternatives too. Bringing a new battery chemistry to production scale hasn’t been easy, but we’re taking small steps like that every year.

We may still need lithium, nickel or manganese in the near future, but the demand for cobalt (per cell) has been decreasing gradually. Who knows which alternative ends up dominating the market after a few decades

Eventually I hope we end up with sodium batteries.

But that's probably a long way off still

Sodium batteries would be a welcome change. Solid state batteries are another interesting technology that looks promising.

People think your comment is pro fossil fuels because it's literally a pro fossil fuel talking point. This is the kind of stuff they parrot. Dumb people think that having batteries somehow makes EVs equivalent to ICE when it comes to environmental impacts and will repeat exactly what you wrote while ignoring all the other facts.

You can be right and still be a mouthpiece spreading oil propoganda.

I agree that no battery is perfect. But unlike gasoline, you can use a rechargeable battery over and over, then it gets recycled.

It's a far better solution. And better batteries will come along to replace what we use now.

And petroleum products don't? I don't get your argument Lithium mining is pretty bad but nowhere near as bad as oil/fossil fuels

Fracking contaminates ground water, when you pump oil out it get replaced with what? Water, once again contaminating everything it touches. Plus this doesn't happen with Lithium mining either

Rare earths for alloys in oil pipes. Cobalt to refine fossil fuels. Noble metals in catalytic converters. "Do as I say, not as I do "

Funny how people are overly concerned about cobalt in EV batteries but never cellphone batteries.

Funny how people are overly concerned about gotcha games online rather than considering what the poster is trying to highlight or say.

Almost like I'm pointing out that they don't actually give a shit about cobalt.

I said cobalt was an issue...

Not just cobalt for EVs, even tho I shouldn't need to explain that bigger batteries take more cobalt...

Things might seem "funny" to you because you're not understanding what they're saying mate.

If you're nicer about being confused, people may be more willing to take time to help you. But this is the most help I'm giving considering what you said.

Nah, people hate nuance, it's now the age of false dichotomy. Where you either offer my position unconditional non-critical support, or you are offering my opponents unconditional non-critical support.

I said something similar about nuclear power a while ago and got a similar response.

Bruh, mentioning how much concrete it takes for a new nuke plant and how long it will keep spewing co2 in the atmosphere for curing will get you crucified lol

Like, we're way past "crunch time" on climate change, we can't afford to just do random shit without understanding all the consequences and just hope for the best.

People just want to feel like we have all these perfect solutions on standby

Yeah, I wasn't even that critical in my statement. I was just explaining how switching to nuclear power would require us to combat the NIMBY attitude that killed it in the first place, and that political capital would probably be spent more wisely elsewhere.

I'm fine with nuclear power, but as you said it's not exactly the silver bullet a lot of people claim it to be.

This is the second click bait article I've seen today from L4sBot.

Oh won't sinecure think of the oil barrons!

Wait, what's that? They're shifting their focus to plastics and the life that recycling works even though nobody wants to pay to make it work?

Well shit.

TIL: About RMI, or, the Rocky Mountain Institute. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMI_(energy_organization) So the kinda “Huh?” headline makes sense.

One of their focuses is changing energy usage patterns by changing demand.

In several sections, with minimal numbers and many helpful charts, the article takes us thru how evolving battery technology will lead to lessened fossil fuel demand.

This chart is pretty shocking, and makes IEA look like idiots. Or maybe it's malice? The IEA's founding purpose was to protect the Oil industry. Supposedly they now also work to "promote clean energy transitions"... but if that's their goal they don't seem to be doing a very good job.

Correct. You should add the label that this chart compares forecast demand for EVs vs actual demand, along with the revised forecasts.

My favorite is the IEA forecast for Solar adoption

So what's some good battery stock?

OK, but who's going to be transporting all those batteries? Lorries, that's who.