Assoc Prof Simon Michaux - The quantity of metals required to manufacture just one generation of... on HackerTube: recommended by 1 Hacker News commenter across 1 month, 2022–2023.
lecture · intermediate · dated
Associate Professor Simon Michaux presents estimates of the metals needed to build one generation of renewable technology to replace fossil fuels. He argues current production and reserves fall far short, with copper a key shortfall.
Cited in energy transition threads for ballpark numbers on mineral demand, though some commenters criticize its assumptions.
“Long video, but informative.”
12 Hacker News comments link this video. Each one links back to its thread.
▶ this video Long video, but informative. TLDR: We don't have enough minerals (including reserves) to completely switch our energy from ff to renewables, assuming our current energy consumption flatline, and our renewable technology efficiency and mineral consumption remain the same.
in “Our climate change debates are out of date” · View on HN
While obviously an opinion piece,these kinds of deranged articles are dangerous IMO. Between the two authors, one is a spokesman for a free-market thinktank, the other is a pop scientist known for writing books on the debunked parallel universe theories. This kind of "oh we'll figure it out" kind of attitude is why every major nation's plan for climate change includes the imaginary technology of carbon capture. We have about 20% of mineral reserves required for a full green energy conversion.[1] These type of think tank grifters(I'm sorry I cannot think of a better term for these people) have a single goal, to throw us all over the cliff of climate change while enabling their patrons to extract as much value from us on the way down. Due to this prevailing "we'll figure it out" opinion, every major country in the world has increased their carbon emissions, continues to destroy environments, and overall has done very little to counter pollution, emissions, and fossil fuel usage as a whole. Oh you're going to mine at the bottom of the ocean? Sure, that sounds about as likely as Musk actually sending himself to Mars. But here's the thing, we didn't figure it out! The polar vortex jet stream has been interrupted, we've broken an extremely important meteorological system due to the endless search for growth, and these people want us to do more growing! more profit! At what cost? We still pretend like carbon capture will save us, that telling the average joe to recycle will save us,
in “We Will Never Run Out of Resources” · View on HN
There might be enough lithium for EVs, but lithium is needed not only for EV batteries. Overall, there is no enough lithium to phase out fossil fuels. Not even for the first generation of technology devices. Here is the presentation given by prof. Simon Michaux where the problem is explained in more detail and supported with data: ▶ this video Lithium is not the only problem, other minerals are too. And, just like the original article says - the pace of extraction.
in “Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?” · View on HN
Toyota is probably only company who understands that poor people can't afford BEVs and will be left behind. And introducing another EV Hummer or Cybertruck for 100k USD won't really help them to get affordable EV. I am convinced that BEV are not the future, because there is not enough of material, especially there is not enough copper. Assoc Prof Simon Michaux on shortage of copper ▶ this video [link]
in “Toyota CEO talks about why he isn’t all-in on EVs” · View on HN
1) It is dangerous yes. That is the nature of the energy being so concentrated. But this concentration is a blessing because you don't need to mind nearly as much material, and it is far far easier to keep an eye on the waste. Where does the waste from coal/gas go? Into the air. It costs way more to try to contain the harms of those substances because they are the opposite of energy dense. Nuclear waste is such a tiny tiny amount that we just keep it on site. It's solid. It's not going to leak out of its containers. It just sits in concrete casks on site. Even better, it still has 98% of the energy in it so you don't really want to get rid of it. It can be used in breeder reactors to extract more energy. I quote this too much, but all the nuclear waste the US has ever generated would sit in a single football field, 10 yards high. 2) Nuclear is capital intensive AND the only energy generation that is forced to pre fund its own decommissioning and cleanup. The increased operating costs of nuclear plants is largely due to intentional mismanagement b/c of politics. For example, in France they force nuclear plants to stop outputting power when renewables are generating. They prioritize renewables because that's what politics dictates. They also mandated a cap on power allowed to be generated by nuclear plants, forcing the closure of perfectly good and already paid for plants, so they could buy more renewables. These privatized energy markets don't want stable cheap energy because
in “Germany extends lifetime of all 3 remaining nuclear plants” · View on HN
Easy one. Apple pays a premium (to their suppliers) compared to what other non-luxury-hipster-feelgood companies can, thus buying up those (more or less) green capacities (which are scarce). Which leaves those other companies less of these green capacities. Which makes their production less green. Don't get me wrong, it's totally ok they do that. But it shouldn't lead people to think, that since Apple/Tesla succeeds, humanity doesn't need to drastically change its way of doing things. Sustainable ressources are scarce. One company stocks up on them -> others are pushed to less green sources or they have to reduce output (which they try to avoid obviously). Yeah, sure, there's also positive effects such as economies of scale improving things with sustainable business when there's more demand for it. But, in my opinion, the mining and sourcing of raw materials and the supply of renewable energy is in a pretty inelastic situation right now because of physical constraints. This inelasticity means: one players buys up more, others are pushed elsewhere. > ... falling prey to the fallacy that decarbonization is impossible. Oh it is possible. It's not possible as fast as most politicians make it appear. Here are some numbers at minute 40: "Assoc Prof Simon Michaux - The quantity of metals required to manufacture just one generation of renewable technology to phase out fossil fuels" ▶ this video
in “Apple calls on global supply chain to decarbonize by 2030” · View on HN
Here is a longer presentation from same author from this year about lack of copper to even start with renewables as planned ▶ this video
in “The energy historian who says rapid decarbonization is a fantasy” · View on HN
Solar energy isn't free, it takes a lot of metals just to turn solar energy into electrical energy (including batteries for storage) and they don't last forever. Here's a link to a talk from an associate professor doing an estimation of how much metals are needed to switch to renewable energy: ▶ this video
in “I Choose Optimism” · View on HN
On the flip side, the amount of materials, metals, and energy necessary to produce enough batteries to replace current fossil fuel usages, are order of magnitude larger than the current world production and known reserves. This presentation does ballpark analysis of the problem: ▶ this video Even if the numbers are off by an order of magnitude, them problem remains worrisome and difficult to solve at scale.
in “EV shipping is set to blow internal combustion engines out of the water” · View on HN
I don't believe that BEV economics will improve. It could actually get worse as we are running out of material, especially copper The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels, is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues. ▶ this video
in “California votes to ban new gas car sales by 2035” · View on HN
There's also this much longer talk he gave that I watched recently: ▶ this video The premise is that we don't have enough minerals to transition to a decarbonized economy if we just do the most obvious, naive thing. For some reason, he assumes we need a battery capable of storing the world's energy use for 4 weeks, and then shows that there's no way we can manufacture that amount of lithium ion batteries. His analysis also assumes pretty heavy use of hydrogen for ground transport to get around the limitations of batteries, despite being rather energy-inefficient by comparison. I'm actually kind of optimistic: his result just means we can't do things that don't scale, but we could do other things instead. Rather than building huge chemical batteries for grid storage, we can use pumped hydro and expand our power grids so we can move energy between continents and buffer out renewable energy variability and day/night cycles. Instead of using hydrogen fuel cells or huge batteries for ground transport, we can electrify our major highways so trucks only need small batteries to get from the freeway to their delivery/pickup point. (We could also rely on trains a lot more than we do.) Instead of building billions of brand new cars, we can convert many of the cars we already have to electric if they're still in good shape and worth the effort. We can stop using so much copper in everything, and use aluminum instead where it makes sense.
in “The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth (2021) [pdf]” · View on HN
Based on his calculations from a video a year ago. He projects that we would need 940M tons of lithium, while 2022 reported reserves is 95M tons.[0] Are we going realistically find enough undiscovered lithium reserves that is the same size as our known reserves as of 2022, even assuming that he is off by a factor of 4? [0] ▶ this video
in “Our climate change debates are out of date” · View on HN