[Pops]

I saw a vid of this guy on ByouBtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLr0GStrnwQ
https://fortune.com/2021/09/14/tesla-co ... materials/

[kublikhan]

Nice find Pops. For those who don't want to read the whole article, here's a few highlights:

In the decades to come, Straubel is confident that recycled materials will be used for “close to 100%” of the world’s battery production. Recycling is already profitable, he said, and eventually companies that don’t integrate recycling with refining and production won’t be able to compete on cost.

Redwood moving into cathode production is a major development for the EV industry, according to BNEF analyst James Frith. Not only is the cathode the biggest driver of costs, but it’s the most polluting part of battery production. Consolidating the supply chain in the U.S. — and the technological improvements that will come with it — will dramatically reduce emissions from battery production. “It would be one of the biggest cathode facilities in the world,” Frith said. “If you’re getting rid of that long supply chain, and you’re not having to do as much virgin refining, you’re cutting a huge chunk out of those emissions.”

While companies wait for the first big wave of electric vehicles to reach retirement, consumer electronics provide a surprisingly effective substitute. For example, batteries from consumer electronics contain considerably higher levels of cobalt, one of the most expensive and controversial inputs for batteries. Straubel says there's so much cobalt in old electronics, Redwood will always produce more from recycling than it needs for manufacturing.

Urban Mining
When anyone drops off an old mobile phone or laptop at a Best Buy recycling center, it goes to Redwood. So does any scrap when Panasonic makes battery cells for Tesla at the Nevada Gigafactory. Since Straubel left Tesla, Redwood has taken over more than half of the U.S. market for lithium-ion battery recycling.

After collection, Redwood disassembles, shreds, burns, and mixes materials in a slurry to separate out the valuable nickel, lithium, cobalt and copper. More than 95% of the core battery materials are recycled, according to Redwood. The resulting powders then wind their way back through the supply chain.

Tesla co-founder has a plan to become king of EV battery materials in the U.S.

[Newfie]

Re: recyclable batteries.

Can’t recall if I posted this before or not. Fun video.

https://youtu.be/afwO_MZjRjA

[theluckycountry]

There is really nothing to add to the limits to growth, it was thrashed out perfectly in the 1970's and that work is right on track. Anyone still looking for a solution to the collapse of industrial civilization needs to go start a veggie garden in their back yard, or otherwise find something useful to do with their spare time.

[Newfie]

Survival strategies have been discussed but not tested in real world collapse.

[Newfie]

Proposed NC wind farms.

https://loosecannon.substack.com/p/caro ... dium=email

[vtsnowedin]

Proposed NC wind farms.

https://loosecannon.substack.com/p/caro ... dium=email

I am not sure if I understand all the information on that chart. My chart reading experience is limited to a couple between Boston and Cape Cod.
Would it not be advisable to put windmills on the shallowest shoals so they would mark for navigation the spots for ships and pleasure boats to avoid? Of course for fishermen shallow water and structure often mean fish, so they will want to come up close using their depth and fish finders when the tides and fish runs align.
I can't see it as all that big a problem as there is a whole deep ocean a mile or two to the east so all we are talking about is some time and fuel.

[Doly]

Survival strategies have been discussed but not tested in real world collapse.

Not sure about that. There are a lot of people in the Middle East (and now in Ukraine) that have tested a bunch of survival strategies in some pretty serious collapse situations.

[Newfie]

We are kinda living our survival strategy. Obviously not full but still pretty close.

We are having fun.

[vtsnowedin]

Survival strategies have been discussed but not tested in real world collapse.

Not sure about that. There are a lot of people in the Middle East (and now in Ukraine) that have tested a bunch of survival strategies in some pretty serious collapse situations.

Yes a good example of just how far things can go to bat sh!$ in a moment. the resilience of the Ukrainians has been amazing. Do you think you could do as well under similar distress?

[AdamB]

Do you think you could do as well under similar distress?

Doly has made it through 6 actual and claimed peak oils this century, like the rest of us! I'd say we are all doing pretty good based on the claimed horrors of the event!

[theluckycountry]

Survival strategies have been discussed but not tested in real world collapse.

Not sure about that. There are a lot of people in the Middle East (and now in Ukraine) that have tested a bunch of survival strategies in some pretty serious collapse situations.

I guess there are levels of survival. To some people, not being able to buy the new car they want is an exercise in survivalism

[Doly]

Doly has made it through 6 actual and claimed peak oils this century, like the rest of us!

It's only the final global peak oil that counts.

That said, certainly some people have had experience with local or temporary oil shortages that should count as useful experience.

[AdamB]

Doly has made it through 6 actual and claimed peak oils this century, like the rest of us!

It's only the final global peak oil that counts.

Indeed. Which begs the question, why isn't that one claimed, rather than all the others?

That said, certainly some people have had experience with local or temporary oil shortages that should count as useful experience.

Those of us who made it through the gasoline rationing in the US in the 1970's have such experience.

[Doly]

Indeed. Which begs the question, why isn't that one claimed, rather than all the others?

Well, I think the peak of 2018 looks like it could be the final global peak oil. And yes, I genuinely wonder why people haven't been talking about it, this site is pretty much deserted and apparently visited mainly by bots, cyborgs and people who don't particularly care about peak oil, and Ugo Bardi (to pick one example) is saying all sorts of weird things in his blog. Which is why I keep coming here. Maybe somebody will say something that makes it clear to me.

[AdamB]

Indeed. Which begs the question, why isn't that one claimed, rather than all the others?

Well, I think the peak of 2018 looks like it could be the final global peak oil.

The most recent one always looks like the final one. Alternatively, there is a peak oil sucker born every minute. Colin Campbell did exactly the same thing in 1990, pretend the one you can see is the one, proclaim the end. What you said, and the likes of Colin never learned, and what is amazing, is that the folks doing it and getting it wrong don't LEARN from it. That to me has always been the stunner....sheer mind blowing wash and repeat resource economic ignorance ad infinitum.

And yes, I genuinely wonder why people haven't been talking about it, this site is pretty much deserted and apparently visited mainly by bots, cyborgs and people who don't particularly care about peak oil, and Ugo Bardi (to pick one example) is saying all sorts of weird things in his blog.

Doomers gotta doom. Peak oil was cool in its day for scare mongering, climate change seems to have substituted for it pretty well over time. Guy McPherson being a perfect example. When the game is wanting to declare doom, you do that first, and then look for excuses. Ugo banned me for pointing out that those of us who were involved in multi stage slick water fracturing in shale wells back in the 80's didn't appreciate his claiming it was a new and exciting thing 21st century technology that changed the world. I tend to give short shrift to those who want to claim knowledge on a topic they can't be bothered to know something about in the first place.

Which is why I keep coming here. Maybe somebody will say something that makes it clear to me.

The Church of McPeaksters stands to this very day...braving forging ahead so that one day, when the Rapture event occurs, they can scream at the uninterested crowd...."See! We were right!!!" (finally )

[eclipse]

There is really nothing to add to the limits to growth, it was thrashed out perfectly in the 1970's and that work is right on track. Anyone still looking for a solution to the collapse of industrial civilization needs to go start a veggie garden in their back yard, or otherwise find something useful to do with their spare time.

Even the great MK Hubbert predicted the future would be nuclear for thousands of years. I hated nuclear power for the first 40 years of my life, had my peak oil awareness moment in my 30's and it took a number of years - but eventually Dr James Hansen and others talking about breeder reactors changed my mind. Breeders eat nuclear 'waste' from traditional reactors and get 90 times the energy out of it. The final waste streams are fission products. Some of these are useful, others can be vitrified into ceramic bricks and buried for just 300 years and are safe. Punchline? The USA already has enough nuclear 'waste' to run her for 1000 years!

But that could be a whole bunch longer if renewables can do say the first 80% of the grid, with nuclear mopping up the last 20%. The grid itself is going to demand so much more power as we wean off oil and onto EV's and synthetic fuels of various kinds. But how much of that will just charge cars at home and work as they just sit there? If Robot-EV's arrive, how many people are going to even buy their own cars - and how many will just see them as Robot-ubers without the salary costs? (Some think this might get the cost down to 10% of what we pay today!) Why would you buy a car ever again?

AND - that's not even including the whole conversation around New Urbanism and walkability. My children and their friends all value the online work around walkable cities. Is that because they're freaked out about peak oil? Not at all! They value quiet, cute cities instead of bland, ugly suburbia. Their cousins have travelled overseas and shown them videos about other cities - and there's a whole thing about walkability with young people today. In Europe car brands do not even register in young people's top 20 favourite products! They're just not that interested.

As others have commented on the Demographic Transition, I will just say I see the world population stabilising around 2050 and by then all sorts of recycling and renewables and nuclear technologies will have kicked in. There is much more to say, but that will do for now.

Finally - anyone else that has got this far - how cheap do you think storage has to get to do 100% renewables and not have that last 20% nuclear - especially as we consider how solar PV is now about 1/4 the cost of natural gas?

[eclipse]

Do you think you could do as well under similar distress?

Doly has made it through 6 actual and claimed peak oils this century, like the rest of us! I'd say we are all doing pretty good based on the claimed horrors of the event!

Oh man - it's been a while since I've bothered with peak oil doomers and that article is a classic! Ha ha ha - oh I remember those days.

Despite the need to be prepared for imminent, final energy shortage – which could happen now or in several years at the latest – people persist in focusing too much on the likely date of the passing of the peak. It is already clear that the oil industry and OPEC numbers on oil reserves are suspect. So we can simply offer a range of oft-quoted peak-oil arrival times: 2005-2012. Some more distant figures such as 2020 are based on infinite technological improvements on extraction and removing the problematic sulfur, for example. Factoring in the “irregular” petroleum sources, the peak year of world oil extraction is to be 2007, according to the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas...

...The trucks will no longer pull into Wal-Mart. Or Safeway or other food stores. The freighters bringing packaged techno-toys and whatnot from China will have no fuel. There will be fuel in many places, but hoarding and uncertainty will trigger outages, violence and chaos. For only a short time will the police and military be able to maintain order, if at all. The damage that several days’ oil shortage and outage will do will soon wreak permanent damage that starts with companies and consumers not paying their bills and not going to work.

He forgot to mention the toilet paper!
One can never be too ready for the end.


We've been through a bit, including watching oil demand just drop off a cliff during the pandemic.
Hey, Putin could push the big red button and all our problems would just go away! But even then, some would survive, dig through the ashes, find those chemistry and physics manuals, and start the whole thing again. And it wouldn't take long for them to build back up! I give it 2 generations.

[mousepad]

We've been through a bit, including watching oil demand just drop off a cliff during the pandemic.

It dropped by 10% from 2019 to 2020 and is right back up. No cliff. Just a speed bump.

And it wouldn't take long for them to build back up! I give it 2 generations.

That depends whether you can still get access to your neat 5 year plan online after your apocalypse.

If a disaster wipes out the majority of your population...
..surviving cops or authority figures need to get in charge and encourage belief in the system

Did you come up with that kind of drivel? Belief in the system.

[eclipse]

Sure it was a bit of a speed-bump, but being flippant about the size of that speed-bump is a bit rubbish. First, it was 20%! The doomer loves to crow about how society will collapse if there isn't ever increasing oil supply to meet the ever growing population and ever growing consumption patterns of the ever growing debt bubble that is the modern debt-based money system. But Covid showed that society can actually function for a while on drastically lower oil demand. Things change, always have and always will. Oil will not remain king as renewables get cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, and radical new storage technologies kick in. (And the world is just not as simple as that 'ever-growing' doomer mantra above.)

But, onto the data about what actually happened.

Petroleum’s pre-eminence as a land, air, and marine transport fuel is seeing oil consumption drop the most of all primary energy sources amid the global economic downturn that started this year. The unprecedented collapse in worldwide mobility as a result of lockdowns and travel restrictions in March and April 2020 slashed oil demand by over 20 million b/d, or 20% of total demand. We expect global oil demand for 2020 as a whole to decline by 8.1 million b/d, wiping out six years of growth. We expect about 75% or 6.3 million b/d of demand to come back in 2021.

There are long term impacts.

While S&P Global Platts Analytics projects that 2021 global oil demand will regain approximately 75% of the 2020 demand loss, we do not project overall consumption to return to pre-COVID-19 levels until late 2022 and believe long-term demand for oil has been permanently altered. Some sectors, most notably aviation, will take even longer to recover to pre-COVID-19 levels. The reduction in demand was driven by both our revised weaker macroeconomic outlook, and the assumption of a modest change in behaviors listed above. The weaker oil demand forecast averages out to a drop of 2.5 million b/d over 2020-2050. However, while the outlook for global oil demand has shifted lower, the trajectory of year-to-year growth and the projected peak in oil demand near 2040 remains similar to the pre-COVID-19 outlook.

https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-in ... oil-demand

Now, I'm already firmly convinced nuclear power can run the world for a billion years. Breeder reactors get 90 times the energy out of each bit of uranium than regular once-through reactors - and uranium is 'renewable' in that the oceans are constantly being topped up by continental drift + erosion. Then there's also a space industry and the Luna Ring solar power concept, or even Powersats beaming down baseload reliable solar.

Then there's good old fashioned earthbound wind and solar. Vox says $20 / kwh storage is the magic number that makes renewables competitive. I mean, solar is already a quarter the price of natural gas on an LCOE footing - but of course that's without costing storage.




There are claims about a new storage system called THERMO photovoltaic cells. They could end up as cheap as $10 / khw for storage. It could take 5 to 10 years to roll out at a commercial level, but the costing papers seem available. What do you all think?