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Hydrogen can be renewable as long as there is water available, as well as solar if the sun shines, and hydro power as long as there is water to move the turbines.
And it takes more electricity to MAKE hydrogen from water or hydrocarbons than you get OUT of it in a fuel cell. So it's still more efficient to use the electricity directly in a battery. I used to be a big proponent of hydrogen over a decade ago before the advent of good batteries and efficient EVs.
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Biodiesel can also be renewable, and so fish, and plants.
But can it scale up easily to cover all our driving needs? Or even HALF our driving needs? So far as we've seen, no.
Until recently there has been no reason to recycle the laptop and phone batteries that make up the bulk of lithium batteries. BUT with the advent of EVs, it becomes economically viable to do so, though there have been almost zero EV batteries that needed recycling yet, as very few have reached end of life yet.
Presently, high rate Level 3 (DC fast charging) stations are mostly either around big cities or along the biggest interstates. There are also more of them in "blue states" than in "red states". I can understand this makes sense in the early years - that's where the customer demand will be the highest in the early years, so companies get the best return on their investment. But over time, there will need to be more high performance public charging infrastructure along lesser highways and in red states. You can't expect to get widespread adoption unless you provide widespread support.
But my main point stands as follows: why shifting from a non-renewable resource (oil), to another non-renewable resource (minerals and plastics)? Will batteries be cheaper as the minerals and plastics become scarce? Will fuel become cheaper as oil become scarce?
As it is now, building batteries from such minerals is not any more sustainable than what oil is to ICE vehicles. A battery is nothing more than a container to store electricity (it does not produce electricity). The same for the fuel tank of an ICE vehicle (the fuel is not produced in the tank).
I have nothing against ICE nor EV. I am old enough not to worry about it since it won't affect me one way or another. But I do understand that at the moment investing in EV for a short period of time can be profitable, at least until the fastest "superpower (s)" get ahold of the mining grounds. That's how the market will be controlled.
You shift because it's a lot less material used and the overall emissions is much lower over the lifetime of the vehicle. For the US, aside from lowering emission overall and lowering emissions at the tailpipe that greatly benefits people residing in densely trafficked area, you also shift because the materials are available from a lot more sources and the energy is available from a lot more sources.
Lithium is extremely common even here in the US and isn't under any realistic constraint. Almost all consumer EVs use some form of lithium-ion battery (though it's possible that we can shift to zinc-based batteries). There are different chemistries for lithium-ion batteries in EV use today with NCA, NMC, NCMA, and FePO4 and so demand and supply shifts as will technology advancements will probably help nudge automakers to opt for one chemistry versus another. Meanwhile, mining grounds for these various materials are also distributed all over the globe. Keep in mind, the sum total of hundreds of pounds of material are used per vehicle battery pack will be in use on average over more than a decade and have a realistic second-life use for another decade after before recycling--unless prices are high enough for the recycled materials in which case they might go straight into recycling.
The alternative of ICE vehicles that uses the other non-renewable resource you're talking about (oil) means distributing and using thousands of pounds of material per vehicle per year and there is currently no reasonable pathway to "recycle" the oil that's burned and meanwhile that oil is probably more economically used to generate electricity for EVs which is partly why all these high mileage gas vehicles are often hybrid vehicles with batteries and electric motors.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-23-2021 at 08:25 AM..
You don't see Teslas all over the place? I know a few people that have a Tesla. Of course, they also still have a ICE, too.
Our neighborhood as hybrids, Volts, Prius, etc.
We just bought a 2500 Diesel. It is grand. :O)
It depends a lot on region with the West Coast, the Northeast, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada, Arizona, Hawaii, Florida, and Texas and larger metropolitan areas having a greater proportion of EVs.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 03-23-2021 at 09:37 AM..
Oil companies have cut capital investments (new wells, new fracking) due to the pandemic, which could lead to lower output, a spike in oil prices and
"We think this will lead to a tipping point, accelerating the switch to electric vehicles in many more countries around 2023-24,” said Per Magnus Nysveen, senior partner at Rystad Energy, a consultancy in Oslo. “We will start to see that this starts to dig into global oil demand in a very significant way.”
"All the growth in transportation is being eaten by electricity,” said Harry Benham, chairman of Ember-Climate, a British energy transition think-tank. “Oil and gas companies have got no ability to defeat electricity as a transport fuel.”
so the night before last i forgot to plug in my car. its the 2nd time ive done it since i got the car in september. i have enough charge for 2 days but not by much. just to be sure, i put it in chill mode (i hate putting it in chill mode) and turned off HVAC, music, dimmed the screen and left my phone off the charger. made it home last night with about 30 miles of charge left.
there are charging stations i pass on my way to work, so i could do that but i dont want to.
so the night before last i forgot to plug in my car. its the 2nd time ive done it since i got the car in september. i have enough charge for 2 days but not by much.
Interesting. If I don't plug my Bolt in (or my Volt before it), it texts me to remind me that it was scheduled to be plugged in. Which is annoying with the Bolt since we usually don't drive enough since Covid that we only really need to plug in once a week... I've only forgot to plug in a couple times, early my ownership of the Volt, back 2013. But the Bolt often intentionally doesn't get plugged in.
Interesting. If I don't plug my Bolt in (or my Volt before it), it texts me to remind me that it was scheduled to be plugged in. Which is annoying with the Bolt since we usually don't drive enough since Covid that we only really need to plug in once a week... I've only forgot to plug in a couple times, early my ownership of the Volt, back 2013. But the Bolt often intentionally doesn't get plugged in.
that would probably be helpful for me since i do plug it in every night. i dont know if i have the option to get that notification.
i drive from 100-120 miles every work day. so daily charging is a must.
i just looked to see if that notification is available. i dont have that option. it does seem like it will give you a notification if your car is parked and not charging but only if it is below 10% charge.
Last edited by CaptainNJ; 03-25-2021 at 11:21 AM..
so the night before last i forgot to plug in my car. its the 2nd time ive done it since i got the car in september. i have enough charge for 2 days but not by much. just to be sure, i put it in chill mode (i hate putting it in chill mode) and turned off HVAC, music, dimmed the screen and left my phone off the charger. made it home last night with about 30 miles of charge left.
there are charging stations i pass on my way to work, so i could do that but i dont want to.
My evening routine is “plug in car, lock garage door”
We typically don’t drive enough in two or three days to need the 230+ miles we charge it to, but it is nice to have it at that level all the time.
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