One thing I really love about Fully Charged is that they are not afraid to take an occasional step back from simply promoting the glitz and glamor of the latest EV and ask the difficult question of "how do we build this nascent industry in a responsible and sustainable way?" Few industries (i.e. steel, petroleum) had sustainability in mind in their formative years. We are learning, albeit slowly.
It all matters and its part of the bigger picture. If we want zero emissions we have to replace every vehicle on the road. And there are millions of vehicles on the road.
@@DefiantAML ...replace or retrofit. There are many companies now that offer to convert your existing vehicle to either hybrid or full electric & there is absolutely no reason why they couldn't expand or multiply.
@Herr Unsinn, I disagree, it's my belief that in the nascent era of certainly the iron industry & probably the petroleum industry sustainability was very much an issue. This changed in the 1500s when rampant greed came to the fore & again in the 1700s when the Industrial Revolution & it's accompanying finance industry changed the face of the world.
@@DefiantAML Not enough, 60% of all U.S. electricity is produced by burning coal and gas. Unless you replace all of that with something like nuclear your EV is not green. Of course, all you've done by that point is expand the nuclear industry by about 400%. Given the demand that would be created by replacing all the cars on the road with EVs, nuclear would have to expand 1000%. That's 10 times greater risk of a Fukishima or Chernobyl happening in the continental U.S.
@@chrishoff402 personally my car and bike run on solar power. (I charge them up when the sun is shining) We can all do this. If you live in a house and can afford an EV, you can also afford solar panels/home batteries/wind turbines (small)
I am surprised the design of more efficient EVs was not mentioned as one solution. High efficiency designs, including lighter weight, lower drag coefficient, simplified drive train and even solar-assist could reduce battery pack size while yielding the same range. For example, the upcoming Aptera uses only 100Wh per mile as compared to SUVs and trucks that use 600-700Wh per mile requiring larger & heavier battery packs. Aptera gets 250 miles range from a tiny 25kWh battery pack, 400 miles from a 40kWh (about half the size of today's EV models). Also its solar-assist provides up to 40 miles/day of "free" propulsion. That's over double my daily commute, which means I may never have to charge until a long trip. I just reserved one.
Totally agree. We need efficient sedans/hatchbacks/wagons instead of gargantuan SUV-s. The recent Volvo EX90 is just hideous.. 2800 kg weight and boxy shape and they talk how "green" it is.
Like the original Ioniq. Still just about the most efficient non-city EV out there, years after it appeared. Even my eNiro looks pretty efficient compared to some of the latest offerings, even the normal sized wagons like the MG4 and the new Ora cat are not so great.
This discussion is on the sustainability of the raw supply chain to support the growth. it does not take away from their videos lifting up smaller models, the more efficient models and the inovative approaches to reduce the battery requirements.
I would like to hear more about the recycling and recovery process, Is it still labor intensive to open the batteries? Are we going to see some design standards created so robots can open in the batteries when they need recycling?
You think batteries can have an impact on the environment, just look at the oil industry who use large amounts of cobalt, and it's not recoverable. Ev batteries can be 95% recycled and the cobalt re- used.
Great episode (as always) very well presented. Give Bobby a tent for the night, he can sleep under the solar panels! On the excellent transit point right at the end, I would have also liked to see a very brief mention of micro mobility - currently illegal in the UK. As a car alternative, micro mobility uses 1/50th of the batteries of an EV car, consumes 1/10th the energy per mile and costs 1/20th the price - obviously an e-scooter, e-bike or e-wheel can't replace a car, but for a single occupant journey, it can displace an existing gasoline vehicle 80% of the time, without needing the consumer to buy a brand new car, an 80% reduction in emissions for 1/50th the amount of batteries needed for a car seems like an obvious solution for people who want to do this - it should not be illegal, it's a far more scalable solution than everyone buying a 70kWh EV to have it sit parked all the time. There does need to be a deeper dive on car alternatives, and I think personal electric vehicles need a new look from Fully Charged, you've done a couple of light touch episodes, but the ridiculous situation in the UK of allowing drunk scooter rentals while fining and seizing responsible commuters is something I would like to see covered.
Very good point, but micro-mobility is not entirely illegal; just some forms of it. There are a whole pile of legal vehicles, both e- and otherwise, including the humble bicycle. It is ridiculous that we can get thousands of pounds of incentive for e-cars, but nothing for e-bikes, never mind all the things we're not supposed to use at all, for, I agree, no particularly good reason. And to be fair govt policy on providing space for active travel and e-mobility is actually pretty good now, after 'Gear Change', but councils are mostly terribly short of people who know what they are doing, and it's a huge shift in transport planning everywhere to actually allocate space and money for this. And far too many people still think transport==cars, and find it hard to envision a world where it was actually quicker and easier to bike/scoot/walk, or catch a bus/tram for most journeys. You mention some of the efficiency gains - the numbers really are hugely significant, especially whilst there is a battery crunch. Putting them all in buses, bikes and scooters would get us all an order of magnitude more transport overall than putting them in cars.
@@xxwookey e-bikes are the best legal option, and the best for cargo, but, I've had 3 bikes stolen, and I've given up on anything that has to be left outside while I go into a store or work. Other e-options like skate, scooter and wheel can be carried in and tucked under a desk, coffee shop table, or walked around a store while you pick something up. For that reason, I prefer them, I don't see why they should be illegal in the UK - where I am (Vancouver, Canada), we have a pilot scheme that makes them temporarily allowed, while they are reviewed. Hopefully that becomes permanent.
@@brushlessmotoring Bike theft is a massive problem, and it's rampant largely because it's not taken seriously by most police, who confuse the fact that each individual theft is usually not a huge value with the collective cost of millions, and the effect, which is that people don't use bikes because they can't be reasonably sure it'll still be there for the return journey. 2/3rd of all reported crime where I live is cycle theft. About £1 million/yr for a town of 200,000 people. Even with that rate I've 'only' had 4 bikes nicked in 30 years so one every 7.5 years and I use it nearly daily. So it's not enough to stop me using as convenient transport. Police forces _can_ dramtically reduce cycle crime if they put their minds to it, as a few forces in the UK and Canada have. But I take you point that things like scooters work way better for people who want to use them with public transport or don't have convenient/secure overnight parking or live somewhere where theft levels are too high. They will be legalised here fairly soon, the interesting question is under what classes and rules. Probably something more or less like the existing cycle/e-bike (for anyone, including kids) and moped classes (insurance, VED, tests), based on top assisted speed, which I think makes sense.
Most of the world will be transformed by electric motorbikes. Cost to run them is super low. I have a super soco Tc max that goes up to about 55mph and charges 50 miles range for 25 p on cheap overnight electricity. 3kwhr removable battery charged in living room. Brilliant around town.
@@xxwookey I would be happy to require license and insurance for the faster devices, some can be speed competitive with cars in town, I'm not a fan of speed limiters on some devices, but unlimited speed on cars, it actually makes mixing with traffic more dangerous on an e-bike that suddenly stops accelerating well below the speed limit. I'm glad you think scooters will be legal in the UK soon, that's good news. I think bicycle thieves are the worst, as you point out, the police consider it property theft, like having a watch or a TV stolen, but for a cyclist, it's stealing their way of life - it's demoralizing, and can cause people to give up on non car living and get back in a car - it's security and theft are taken far more seriously, we have security guards patrolling parking lots, but the only people keeping an eye on your bike are the thieves, the result is more cars on the road, making cycling less appealing - a vicious cycle. If people want my Boosted Board, they are gonna have to fight me for it ;) I'm happy to hear theft hasn't kept you off your ride, and you take a longer view - may the wind ever be at your back.
Love these longer documentary-style in-depth analyses exploring the pros while not ignoring the cons. More please! It's great to see Fully Charged come so far with brainy reporters like Imogen. A great reason to continue supporting on Patreon and by visiting FC Live events!
Well, you asked for suggestions...and you delivered! Thank You!...and as we've been 'in the midst of a global battery arms race' for a while now, this is a VERY useful summary Imogen. Top Job!
Funny how you never really hear about cobalt use in the petrol industry (except for this channel). Yet it's use in ev batteries is screamed at high volume. I wonder if the petrol industry has something to do with this?
Sodium Batteries are coming on stream - which should help. More efficient vehicles - they look weird but they are so much less resource hungry. Getting Euro manufacturers to make SMALLER vehicles, instead of luxury behemoths... Oh and using technologies like Flow Batteries for Grid storage instead of Lithium/sodium battery packs. Soon SMR's and they look promising for smaller grids.
@@slavko321 Apparently up to 1.3 million are thrown away every week in the UK. To put it into perspective its 10 tonnes of lithium per year wasted or enough for 1,200 electric vehicles. Figures taken from a recent BBC news report.
@@Ed.R I see this too - I think a youtuber went and collected a bunch of discarded vape pens and made an electric skateboard - when they are discarded, they still have like 80% charge too. There should be a bottle return like deposit on them of several dollar-pounds per pen.
Great episode! Very glad you mention public transport. Another one would be building more for a 15-minute city. Everything should be within a 15 minute walk or cycle. School, work, food, groceries, doctor. This would reduce work-home traffic enormously. Also relating to the Lithium question is why you guys are always complaining about big SUV's. A big car needs a big battery, that amount of Lithium and other materials could have been used to power 3 or even 4 smaller electric cars. So isn't it time to ban large and heavy cars? Or at the very least put ridiculously high taxes on them. (Electric cars are still exempt from road tax in the Netherlands, even though they are much heavier0
Astonished that there was no mention at all about the World's two biggest suppliers of Lithium: Australia and Chile. Nor any mention of the potential of Bolivia and Peru, who have sources that don't even have to be mined!
@G T Even if coal is used EVs are still better because their three times more efficient then ICE vehicles. The UK grid uses around about 35% Fossil fuels and new renewable energy sources are coming online constantly. Many EV drivers have or get rooftop solar. Batteries can be recycled and have a second life as static battery storage. The Co2 cost can easily be recuperated within 3 years of normal millage. What often is not calculated is the enormous cost of producing petroleum products. Drilling, transportation, refining, transportation again all use huge amounts of energy and cause huge environmental damage from leaks and emissions.
It would be good if you could do a show around the challenges of the electricity supply and charging networks around the world? I think those of us in Europe and the USA maybe don't realise what challenges there are around the world for mass adoption of EVs.
As long as charging is done off peak it is not an issue at all. So it means that home and work low power charge must be the default way, with fast charging only for exceptional long trips. A car is parked most of the time, and if plugged it can charge just when it is convenient. And off course, the car could supply energy of the grid, even if for now not many models can do it. Such vehicle to grid capabilities are especially useful with the development of intermittent energy sources (eg solar and wind).
The whole battery pack shouldn't have failed. You likely have a few cells that have failed or your BMS is reporting them as failed or failing. I'm curious though, what is your SOH and how has your range been affected?
Just throwing an idea out there. Maybe, just maybe, we should deal with the problem of car dependency and try to invest in making collective transportation more efficient and accessible for everyone. Maybe we could invest in infrastructure which allows for safe and efficient mobility with other means of transportation, such as bikes (including ebikes). Or maybe we can modify our infrastructure to make our cities and towns more walkable. Or maybe we need a combination of all these ideas. Idk. Just throwing out ideas that could help curb our need for so many limited resources.
In other words, (from a US perspective) we should make our cities more like European cities. It's not only possible but also very "doable and enjoyable" to live in many cities in Europe without needing to own a car at all. As you mentioned, many cities there are "walkable" and/or have easy-to-use public transportation. (In fairness, many European cities have become auto-dependent as well... but that's a story for another day.)
I think the market will ultimately solve it. FSD software and robotaxis will mean vehicles on every corner at our beck and call. No need for us all to own cars.
It is a sad fact, that we still don't have a Battery Gigafactory in the UK at present. If we don't have a Battery Gigafactory in the UK, we risk losing UK EV Manufacturing to the EU & China. BMW have already said they won't be producing the New Long range BMW Mini EV in the UK, risking thousands of jobs at Cowley Oxfordshire. And Nissan, have Not commited to building anything other than ICE & Hybrid EV's in the UK. We are looking at the Extinction of EV manufacturing in the UK. The government's Industrial strategy of wait & see is woefully inadequate, for the new EV future. They are going to have to come up with a World Leading investment package, or we can kiss goodbye to motor manufacturing in the UK...
you're right there. EV manufacturing in UK is DOA with this government who have zero long term planning, they just want to keep their supportive demographic of 60-70 year olds voting for them. Brexit all but makes UK car manufacturing impossible anyway since car manufacturing relies on just in time deliveries of components to the factory - Brexit red tape makes that impossible.
Yes the Brexit was a terrible mistake from point of view of EV and battery production. The battery production company decided recently that the biggest lithium battery factory in Europe will be build in Poland despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.
@G T The National Grid don't anticipte having to double the UK's generating capacity to support EV's. Indeed most of the generating capacity existing is unused overnight. So Smart shifting of 60% of EV charging to Off-Peak Tarrifs would obviate the need for GW's of New capacity. It's why all EV Home chargers sold now have to be capable of remote time shift charging. This is not to say we won't need transmission line upgrades, aplenty. But National Grid are fairly confident they can handle the expected load, and are planning & building for it...
A few things to note. ebikes or electric scooters are much smaller (and efficient) and can replace some of the short trips that one might take with a car. Smaller electric cars could replace the use of larger vehicles, especially for trips within your own metropolitan area (this constitutes the majority of most peoples' trips and commutes to work). Mass transit can definately play a helpful role. More mining and manufacturing are obviously needed to produce the batteries that will gradually replace combustion engines. Recycling should be mandatory or the shortage of mined materials issue will continue to be a problem forever. Most of this is touched on in the video. Well done.
CATL had recently developed an LFMP (Lithium Iron Manganese Phosphate) battery with equal energy density to Lithium NMC, but having no Nickel or Cobalt, so much cheaper to make and no issues with Congo mining. What's more they have stated they will be producing these by the end of this year. I don't know why this isn't talked about as I think this battery being in production is kind of ground breaking.
By next year they are also producing sodium batteries. The energy density isn't quite where NMCs are but all their other properties are very impressive, easy better than NMCs. They might replace lithium batteries in everything but the very high end of cars soon.
Looking at the overall life cycle of my 2014 Leaf, it is clear that it has become greener since it was new 9 years ago. The grid on which it has been charged has more renewable electricity today, and is now over 94% emission free. A new battery recycling facility is being constructed just blocks from my home which will supply raw materials to a new battery manufacturing facility 2 hours down the road. Contrast this with the one or two battery manufacturing facilities that existed 9 years ago, and zero recycling facilities, and it is easy to see how the supply chain is improving, and will continue to improve as the EV market grows. My car, BTW, is in excellent condition and will likely give me another 5 years of use on the current battery, and thanks to the reliability of electric drive trains, can provide years more if I decide to replace the battery when the time comes.
This is hands down the best reporting on the topic I have yet seen. Why can't an average upstanding newspaper/magazine/TV station give us the honest down to earth report on this matter. Too often I only see irritating click bait headings like, "EVs are unfeasible and the reason will shock you..."
Fantastic episode. How about a dedicated episode on battery recycling? I wonder what kind of efforts are currently in place and how we can advance the recycling efforts. I would assume that building new recycling centers would be a year or two rather than bringing a new mine online. Having said that, I am not sure if we can use 100% recycled batteries in new EV. What would it take for Redwood Materials to bring the 90% number closer 100%?
Excellent presentation. What is missing is the alternative to Batteries, to be used in transport where energy density is Important. As example is alternate green energy options like Hydrogen (either HEV or HICE (yes less efficient, but retrofit option), and sustainable fuels like Ethanol or SAF. EV work well in lighter vehicles and higher population density, but fails long haul transport and remoter area. So if Li shortages slows BEV supply, then other options like HEV is competition. So what are the potential supply chain issues here.
This battery shortage is precisely the reason PHEVs make the most sense. Not some compliance vehicle that only has 20 km of EV range, but real usable 100 km EV ranges should be the minimum allowed for a PHEV. This would triple and quadruple the number of EVs available to purchase overnight and end these years long waiting lists on BEV deliveries. 90% of most suburban commutes would be carbon free, the folks who insist on buying enormous polluting single driver SUVs. In a few years, once the mines and battery facilities have caught up with demand, folks can start hording batteries with their 500km range BEVs.
Another good battery recycling company you at Fully Charged could look into is Aqua Metals. They have a new non smelting process for recycling lead, and are now applying that same principle to lithium ion batteries. As a side note, I can't help but feel that there are other answers that just aren't trendy enough for today's industries, such as nickel iron, or lead alkaline batteries, which, had they been given the same amount of effort, and research funding, may also have been able to supply either our cars, or our backup storage systems. I would remind you that the Mars II company was producing electric cars in the 1970s, and 80s with well over 100 miles of range, and decent recharge times using boring old lead acid batteries. How far advanced would that be now if the ball had not been dropped. I would also ask, is it not possible to produce rebuildable batteries? I will end my rant now, ( sorry everyone), with a word of my own philosophy. " There is no shortage of energy or materials, only of inspiration ".
@@t1n4444 If you are referring to lead alkaline, I mean exactly that. There are electrolyte mixtures of alum and water,or epsom salt and water that turn a lead acid battery into lead alkaline with interesting results. I would imagine that a purpose built lead alkaline battery could possibly be even better. They Do allow for a safer deep discharge which Could allow for (under the right conditions) a smaller battery array, which is one advantage also of nickel iron, along with longer life cycle, and less danger of explosive meltdowns. Lithium ion on the other hand, Hates being discharged below about 50%. It also has a very hard time with temperature variations. I am not an expert, and I know there are several other promising battery types out there. I am simply making light of the fact that Lithium ion, specifically, seems to be all the rage. I can't help but feel that there are likely other alternatives out there, just waiting for their day. The same is true in the internal combustion world. So many good, viable alternatives that were never really given much attention. I think we need to be willing to explore more options, and be a little more flexible to play mix and match. Sorry, I Am wordy today.
@@davidvaughn367 No, I was referring to hydrogen gas, in a fuel cell or perhaps in an internal combustion engine with the modified head, etc. Ref battery tech then agree that there are many, many types of batteries in the lithium "science" alone. Some EVs run on non lithium battery tech already. Merely a Google away. The issue with lithium in the northern latitudes is that charging below 0C can be problematic. Some batteries are heated via the BMS so as to stop lithium metal plating one of the electrodes, irreversibly. (I'd have to Google up up which one.) Batteries are merely one step on the way. And I'm up for hydrogen in the not too distant future.
@@t1n4444 Sorry about that. I often misunderstand, and am Very literal. Hydrogen, yes. Walter Russell was a big proponent of that, and I have to defer to his opinion on that as long as we could, in his words, find a table top method of producing it, and that, primarily as a stepping stone,to go on using the machines we have until other, more exotic forms of power can be perfected. Ultimately, I see electric, and other options like hydrogen, and gasoline vapor, in the same way. My feelings about them ( if that matters), are not extremely strong. Ultimately, I believe the work of people like Nikola Tesla, John Searl, Victor Schauberger, and Richard Clem,to name a few, hold more long term promise,but we need time to figure all of that out, untangle them all from politics, and corruption, and then devide fact from fiction.
for anyone interested, there is no elemental lithium in li-ion batteries, contrary to what some people might believe and what some simplified animations (like the one shown at the beginning of this video) might indicate. The lithium ions carry the positive charge, and the electrons carry the negative charge. However, they never truly recombine. They both join the anode/cathode (depending on whether the battery is being charged or discharged), where the electrons reduce/oxidise the the anode/cathode and the lithium ions intercalate into the anode/cathode (i.e. move into small voids within the electrode material). They remain ionized throughout the whole process. edit: my pointing the oversimplification in the animation used in this video is not a diss in any way. I'm interested in natural sciences, but by no means an expert, and I think it's completely justified to simplify processes when explaining something to laypeople.
Superb coverage. Informative without being dumbed down. I really appreciate this approach. Oh, and on a different topic, when you let Bobby back into the house perhaps you could show him how he can drop the demist/defrost control icon on the MyApps portion of his car screen so he can had one tap control of it.
You asked a great question at 13:34 and again at 14:24 about child labour, and both times the answer didn't relate to the accountability of enforcability of the prevention of this. It would be good if this was really pressed on, as we've seen what has happened in the DRC with child labour mining Cobalt, and we need to make sure this doesn't continue going forwards.
When you say there are 5 kg of lithium in a battery pack you failed to describe what size battery pack (we started at 24 kWh batteries and now make 212 kWh packs). I suspect the 5 kg figure is very old and not indicative of 85 kWh, the average pack size in USA. You also should specify if you're talking about 5 kg of lithium metal or 5 kg of lithium carbonate.
Like this video says at the end, we could reduce demand severely if we refocus our efforts in improving public transport, active transport and reducing the need for cars. Most of these batterries will go into private vechicles, wasting so many resources on the off chance someone will need to drive 300+ miles every year or so. It's a bit of a dissapointment to give 10 seconds to the argument that we could use our batteries and resources in a much more efficient way.
Perhaps 100 kWh battery packs shouldn't become standard as hinted at in another Fully charged podcast? Perhaps small 1-2 seat vehicles with small even tiny packs to get around urban centers is what is needed and massive expanse of public transport? No probably not.
Problem is nobody but ev enthusiasts want those. When I bring to the Dacia Spring as an affordable EV (especially with government grants) people call it "unuseable" because it won't do the two times a year they drive further than it's range.
I'd like to point out that, even in the sodium-ion battery world, not all cathodes (and anodes) are created equal. Faradion's cell technology apparently uses a sodium analogue of NMC cathodes, and still uses nickel in significant quantities. CATL are developing a Na-ion battery which apparently uses a 'Prussian blue analogue' cathode, using iron cyanide, which compares to Faradion's chemistry in a similar way to LFP and NCM in the Li-ion world (lower energy density, longer lifespan, more commonplace raw materials). Na-ion uses 'hard carbon' anodes. Rather than an organised graphite structure, hard carbon is an atomically-disorganised mess. This is actually a good thing, and Na-ion can use lower-grade carbon that's basically scrap charcoal. But this is just one of many supply chain complications - where do you source thousands of tons of hard carbon from? Where do you source thousands of tons of high-purity sodium carbonate from? Na-ion is a great technology, but it's got a hill to climb that's just as steep and slow-going as Li-ion.
In the central parts of Sweden there is a large amount of the materials needed in the ground. The solution is open pit mines. There is a huge Canadian raw materials company that want to mine this, however, when it comes to placing guarantees that the environmental impact will be cared for, the restoration of the nature once the mine is exhausted, the mining companies are not interested. Until the mining companies start taking responsibility for their full impact of their operations, no new mines, at least here will take place. People do actually have to live there, livestock will need to feed there even after the miners are gone.
One access point to reduce the raw material shortage is the question how many cars we really need, and how many cars exist only because they are nice to have. Could you do more videos on why carsharing tends to be so difficult? So many commuters travel xx miles to their workplace every day alone in their car. Because somehow sharing is uncool. Why? Are there sucessful concepts somewhere? And could you do more videos on possible benefits of autonomous driving and its obsticles, like more suitable roads. Most cars spend most of their life parking somewhere.
To quote "Field of dreams" if you build it they will come. Once the market and demand is there people spend the time and money on finding the solutions. Look how far EV's have come in just the last 5 years. Sad fact is there needs to be a profit in it for the research to get done as more and more countries ban ICE vehicles more money will go into research and we'll get more efficient vehicles and batteries come to market. Same goes for the charging network it will improve rapidly as the market share of EV's rises whilst the oil companies can keep on selling fuel to the vast majority of cars which are ICE they will keep on milking existing solutions and setups as it's profitable and what they know. Once that is taken away from them they have to adapt or die and charging networks will appear everywhere. It's just going to be uncomfortable during the too slow transition.
I’m confident human kind will find a timely solution to decarbonisation even the tricky issues- shipping and aviation sadly not because it’s the right thing to do but because the people in a position to exploit and make a fortune will turn their attention to it as soon as critical mass is reached with adoption and/or government incentives are properly established.
Battery changing stations (using the infrastructure of the old gas stations) can help here: You'd drive around town with a small battery package, then, when you want to go on a journey, you'd get the bigger, extra battery package at the changing station. When arriving at your destination, let's say, Italy, you'd bring the big battery to the next changing station and drive around (if needed) with you small, fixed battery. On your way back, the same vice versa. We'd all only need small batteries in your daily lives, but could go on journeys easily. The only problem are - again - the car makers, who don't care about sustainability and practicability, instead of all agreeing on a very small number of battery sizes and dimensions. It has worked with the old lead batteries, hasn't it? They all have the same dimensions, you can buy them at many automotive parts stores, nobody thinks this is too much asked of them. So, as usual, it's the politicians, the governments, who should show some courage and legislate car battery changing system parameters. We, the car buyers would vote by buying ...
For storage, heat batteries will be essential for industrial production they use heat more than electricity! 1414 Australia has one good heat battery but there are many others. Solar thermal has batteries built in molten salts! Chemical batteries are a small but vital part of the transition!
Great summary… worrying times as doesn’t sound like politicians seem to understand or care enough (or can ignore those powerful lobbies behind many of them that try to steer them away), that it is urgent and we have wasted years!! And we need to educate people! You could have mentioned about how much raw materials are also used on electronic devices (with a lot more cobalt per kg), etc.., so EVs are not the only culprit.. and that the situation in RDC has improved a lot (I think Bobby did a video about this a while back, or it was mentioned), and I would have tried to make a bit more emphasis on newer more sustainable ways of mining that are being tried, etc… but overall very good!! 😊
Re Lithium/other mines-I grew up near several coal mines with huge slagheaps. These are now all closed, no sign of a mine and one is a beautiful wetland wildfowl park. Mining lasts a few years, the park will be there forever!
Lead acid batteries are recycled at 90% that's why we don't have many lead mines. Same will happen with other types. There are two issues in the short term. 1. Reuse of large packs like ones from cars is VERY popular, makes them worth money so getting them back is going to get difficult. 2. The materials used in EV batteries keep changing so by the time we get enough recycled material, battery factories might be using something else. Researches are already testing sodium batteries and LFP already in use don't need cobalt or nickel.
Great to see people highlight the benefit of long term planning. Really liked the point at the end about mass transport. Imagine the reductions needed in resources if the all cities were planned so that you don't need a car for the average journey.
You could always echelon those electric vehicles with solid connections between them, and have an overhead power feed, or an underground one so batteries weren't needed. To keep them in alignment with the power supply, perhaps some sort of location rail and a separate "Highway" system so they have right of way over other vehicles. Sort of something like they do in Tokyo Japan, it's called a Ji den Sha, I don't know the translation, I think it's called a Traiñ.
Great video. Would love to watch more like this, for example, take the UK or maybe California electric grid and talk to experts to see if current plans really will be enough to decarbonise
The US govt incentivizes domestic battery production and mining in the IRA, not mandates it. That's the take away for me. Incentives matter for EVs, e-bikes, e-trains...
If I'm hearing it correctly in section 2 (~2:45 battery primer) she mentions "Iron is 80% of the Earth's crust". To my knowledge it is 5-6%. I agree Iron is definitely more abundant than Nickel and Cobalt etc and a good choice for stationary storage and everyday cars. Overall I liked the video and I think it helps explain our dilemma.
Thanks for another great episode. Battery storage is not just about electric vehicles - it's about storing zero carbon energy from solar and wind power, as you briefly mentioned. You also mentioned the carbon cost of coal and oil, but what about the environmental damage incurred from the extraction, processing and transport? I'm preaching to the choir, and the main thesis is solid - we have the need, materials, and technology but must rapidly change a vast economic system to the necessary scale.
As always, Imogen, a wonderfully presented, detailed look in to some of the future challenges Society faces in the transition towards greener personal mobility. And you've even dropped the weird 'jiggly' on-screen text font from previous videos...! Thanks for listening to your loyal audience 😉
Does making batteries more energy dense improve the Li supply issue? My understanding is the Li is what provides the energy in a battery. Making a more dense energy battery might just mean increasing the amount of Li to other materials, but an A-hr of battery energy may still require the same amount of Li. You need to extract more energy per kg of Li to improve the supply situation. Not sure if that is happening, but from what I see most currently produced batteries are all about the same energy density. The other approach (probably a necessity) is to develop car battery technology based on a battery that uses more abundant materials.
Like everything else requiring a finite resource there needs to be a lot more focus on energy efficiency rather than just building a bigger battery to go further which is currently a dead end.
Absolutely loved this episode. This is the sort of content I would expect from BBC. Incredible quality. Would love to see an episode on how China became such a huge player in batteries. Would be fascinating to watch.
According to the 2 reports from Goldman Sachs there is no shortage and prices will come back next year. I do wonder why EVERYONE else disagrees with them.
Does everyone? A lot of journalists seem to, but journalists aren't exactly great at considering all factors and predicting the future. They make sensationalist content out of sort term shortages caused by the pandemic.
@@4203105 There are journalists and then there's click bait content creators, a distinct difference between them. I think you may be talking about the latter. IMO most news networks are the latter.
@@Michael-Wil I don't think real journalists ever existed or at least not many. Even when I was a kid, and that was a while ago, you'd get a heart attack when reading about a topic you knew a lot about, in the papers. I think it's just gotten easier to fact check the journalists.
I love your episode - nice and optimistic. One last thought though - if I was given an option of a smaller battery with the same range or the same sized battery and more range - I'm going to take more range! It's called Jevon's paradox - and as long as we've got 'Charge anxiety' because there are not as many chargers as we need and / or their broken - I'm as guilty as anyone of it.
Are there any vehicles in the UK that do “ vehicle to grid or vehicle to home?”. Use the battery in your car to run the home, how many batteries would that save making? Would we save money not having to buy a home battery ??
With all the potential advances occurring in the rest of the world it feels as if Australia is being left behind. I suggested recently that Australia could develop an EV manufacturing industry. I was met with howls of derision, it was a hard no, our auto manufacturing industry was dead and couldn't be revived. Yet we clearly have the natural resources, iron, lithium, sunshine, etc. Are we so lacking in imagination that we a paralysed into non-action. I am 67 yo and struggle to keep my house from falling down, but what about the younger generation? Where are they? Why do they have no vision or motivation? I keep hearing about how clever and able the young are. Bollocks. I see no evidence of this in Australia. Wake up Australia and make things happen.
Ellen Carey completely smoothed over the issues with mineral mining for battery manufacturing. Set that to one side, I honestly can't see the infrastructure within the UK getting any better. There aren't enough chargers for what little cars we have now, as many people that own electric cars have proved. I cannot see how this problem can be solved, as the more electric cars we have on the road the more chargers we will need. We ordered an electric car a few months ago and after hearing about many people's issues with their electric cars, we decided to cancel ours. Not sure what the long term answer is but it ain't electric cars that's for sure. There's many a people with electric cars that have shown what it's like over a year, to use an electric car daily and it's quite laughable and impractical. Long distance driving in much of rural UK is a joke. Either there's no chargers in many areas or they don't work or accept the drivers card payments. There is also the issue with radical price increases on electricity and recently the government has just announced road tax charges on electric cars. Then there's the fact that these cars are way too expensive for most and are basically toys for the wealthy, to promote that they are doing their bit to save the planet.... Not!
We fix it the same way we fix everything: stop pretending society, humanity, & the world can continue under an overall operating assumption that we must constantly grow. We need strong public sectors. We need to produce what we need, & focus on living our lives with happiness that's not derived from stuff. With batteries, we need to stop the idea that everyone needs their own car, and that these cars need to be 2000 kg behemoths. We need massive investments on buses & trains. We need infrastructure and city development based on society, not individuals. We need to make public ownership of energy, its production, and the resources required to do it all.
PREACH! 100% AGREE, Plus lets add to that to encourage many to learn about the current killing in the Congo Congolese People, the White race right NOW is stealing the Congolese People Natural Resources ONCE AGAIN, Stealing their WEALTH as always, to shame them on how they live, after creating the poor conditions in Congo. WE The Worlds People MUST keep FOCUS on the safety of the Congolese People, they are being murdered right now and need our voice to let our Brothers and Sisters know what is going on in the Congo that ALL Mainstream Fake Stream Media is not reporting on. We must ensure that 100% of any mining in the Congo, should be 100% Governed by the Congolese People, for the Congolese People 100%. Enough is 100% ENOUGH with the atrocious treatment of the BLACK and BROWN community world wide. ENOUGH!
Agreed however we also most importantly have to agree there is no way on 2.5 earths that 8 billion people can possibly have anything like a Western standard of living. Just feeding 8 billion properly is an almost impossible task. So religions are going to have to wake up and stop trying to out breed each other or we all loose.
The problem with stopping is that unless the economy grows perpetually, it will collapse. That's just the nature of banks - without economic growth, banks will collapse under the weight of debt. Everything is debt. You put money in a bank - that immediately becomes debt because the bank is now in debt to you for the amount you deposited. They have to lend most of it and create more debt, or they go broke. That lent money gets spent, then goes back into the bank. Now your money exists once, but it's been loaned 3 times - from you to the bank, then as a loan to person 2, who buys something from person 3, who puts it in the bank. So that same money is loaned over and over, and each time there is debt created. Every pound, dollar, euro etc that exists creates dozens of pounds or dollars or euros of debt, and all that debt has to have interest paid on them. Without infinite economic growth, that interest will collapse the banks, and society collapses. In other words, capitalism is destined to eventually collapse. It's inevitable, but until the human race finds a better way to exist, capitalism is destined to destroy itself and, perhaps, us along with it.
Economic growth is very necessary. A society which is complacent with its situation becomes enslaved by a more powerful society which did not concern itself woth limiting growth. Many countries other than Ukraine are facing the issue of their sovereignty being disrespected. The de-growth mindset can only somewhat rationally apply to the developed nations of Western Europe and North America. Not even Japan and Korea, because they have dangerous neighbours.
It is time to make everything more sustainable and circular, in which everyone sees themselves socially and humanly benefited from development, with the possibility of mobilizing in an equitable way, in a simple way. Excellent analysis that leaves time to reflect because transportation is the inherent capacity of man, as well as creativity, the search for well-being and peace between us all.
Well the U.K. government is doing its best to solve it by removing grants, adding VED to ev’s and doing nothing to invest in the green generating capacity of the country keeping electricity costs far higher than necessary. This will slow down the take up of ev’s tremendously .
They have huge deposits that can be extracted without mining at all. The vast majority of Lithium is actually in aqueous form suspended in underground brine deposits. We just need to pump it up and filter it off. And direct lithium extraction methods do that cheaply, cleanly, quickly and very efficiently.
Great program. More details on the different battery options. It is also interesting to hear about FULL LIFE Cycle, problems. Yes this is a very critical issue
Good discussion. We need regulation among manufacturers to limit both the number of batteries in a car and their power output. A car doesn't need to go from 0 - 60 in 3 sec. And with home charging and more chargers coming into play, the cars don't need to go a long distance. With advances in battery technology the lithium issue will go away before the mines can produce. I also think self driving vehicles will allow much more use of car pooling, eliminate congestion. More money is needed in rail transport to ease truck usage but there will still be a bottleneck in the ocean shipping area.
One factor is that industry attracts investment based on how profitable a venture is. If batteries were cheap, it would not attract the same levels of investment. They want to price everything to the maximum that the public will bear, and create the impression (true or not) that certain necessities are rare and cost a lot, to justify the high price tag.
I just wished you'd highlight the nature of speculative markets and private property (of mines, factories, etc) that has led to decades of overconsumption Businesses of all industries are more culpable of environmental and other harms, more than the workers or consumers related to their products.
Are they less carbon intensive? They run on electricity that was produced in large part by burning fossil fuels. Furthermore, the electricity goes through several steps before it gets to the EV engine, the steps being the actual generation of electricity, which is 30-40% efficient, the transfer, which is 80-99% efficient, the voltage step-down/step-up, which is 95-99% efficient and is done at least twice, the battery charging, which is 60-85% efficient and then the discharging, which is 50-85% efficient depending on the driving style and temperature. All those losses without even taking the manufacturing of the vehicle and its battery into account. Some sources state that only 33% of the power generated in the US makes it to its destinations due to losses. All in all, that comes out to an EV efficiency of 6.5% in the absolute worst-case scenario to 28% in the best-case scenario without considering the production of the EV. A diesel engine burns diesel at 30-50% efficiency depending on the age of the motor. 90-99% of the pollutants (excluding CO2) generated in latest diesel engines are captured by emission control systems. So, as long as our electricity is generated from fossil fuels, EVs pollute much more than a diesel car, just somewhere else instead of the tailpipe.
@@doogie1350 I read it. Sadly. Because man was that a whole lot of bullshit. There are life cycle analysis out there. With the electricity mix of most european countries an electric car will output far less than half of the CO2 of a gas-guzzler during its lifetime and it's only getting better as grids and manufacturing move to renewables. To get any other numbers you have to assume that gasoline falls from the sky fully refined and everything to do with the electric car is done with coal power plants. So far I haven't seem amy gasoline rains...
Holland has the right idea. Invest in public transport, cycling and hubs. Reduce the overall need to travel by working smarty with hub offices or if possible from home. Share you car locally.
And when people complain to me about my EV and battery issues like "child labour" I agree it's totally unacceptable. But then I ask them if they own a cell phone. Where do they think the batteries in their cell phones come from and how many cell phones are there in use and being discarded every day? If we can get our recycling act together we can reclaim the minerals we have already dug up and use them in new battery creation. Then we can get on to driving EV's and stop driving ICE vehicles which rely on "Rare Earth" minerals for their catalytic converters.
We Fix It by not allowing recyclers to destroy perfectly good batteries and selling them to have a secound life as house energy storage and ev conversions.
I think the best answer are plug in hybrids with about 70-100 miles battery range. Only difference is the ice engine used as a generator only and only direct drive to the wheels at a constant single high gear for highway cruising at 60mph. This simplifies the drive train and solves range issues. The tiny ice engine probably only gets used once a week at most for a majority of users.
If they work out how to get more charge into a battery for the same weight, that's awesome, but don't cut the size of the battery, the more range you can shove into the vehicle for the same weight as the previous model, the more it will encourage sales of the new one, so there are lots of EV's on the second hand market with a perceived reduced value, but with a still usable range for most people. Don't go knobbling the range just to sell more cars with less materials. It won't have the effect you think.
Stationary battery demand will be enormous compared to vehicles; I know it's "dirty", but still making use of lead-acid, perhaps with more modular/exchangeable components (like UPSes) isn't possible?
If the Na battery comes to fruition, no more mining, at least for static batteries and unlimited raw materials. It looks like it is about to come on to the market in significant scale.
One thing I really love about Fully Charged is that they are not afraid to take an occasional step back from simply promoting the glitz and glamor of the latest EV and ask the difficult question of "how do we build this nascent industry in a responsible and sustainable way?" Few industries (i.e. steel, petroleum) had sustainability in mind in their formative years. We are learning, albeit slowly.
It all matters and its part of the bigger picture. If we want zero emissions we have to replace every vehicle on the road. And there are millions of vehicles on the road.
@@DefiantAML ...replace or retrofit.
There are many companies now that offer to convert your existing vehicle to either hybrid or full electric & there is absolutely no reason why they couldn't expand or multiply.
@Herr Unsinn, I disagree, it's my belief that in the nascent era of certainly the iron industry & probably the petroleum industry sustainability was very much an issue. This changed in the 1500s when rampant greed came to the fore & again in the 1700s when the Industrial Revolution & it's accompanying finance industry changed the face of the world.
@@DefiantAML Not enough, 60% of all U.S. electricity is produced by burning coal and gas. Unless you replace all of that with something like nuclear your EV is not green. Of course, all you've done by that point is expand the nuclear industry by about 400%. Given the demand that would be created by replacing all the cars on the road with EVs, nuclear would have to expand 1000%. That's 10 times greater risk of a Fukishima or Chernobyl happening in the continental U.S.
@@chrishoff402 personally my car and bike run on solar power. (I charge them up when the sun is shining) We can all do this. If you live in a house and can afford an EV, you can also afford solar panels/home batteries/wind turbines (small)
I am surprised the design of more efficient EVs was not mentioned as one solution. High efficiency designs, including lighter weight, lower drag coefficient, simplified drive train and even solar-assist could reduce battery pack size while yielding the same range. For example, the upcoming Aptera uses only 100Wh per mile as compared to SUVs and trucks that use 600-700Wh per mile requiring larger & heavier battery packs. Aptera gets 250 miles range from a tiny 25kWh battery pack, 400 miles from a 40kWh (about half the size of today's EV models). Also its solar-assist provides up to 40 miles/day of "free" propulsion. That's over double my daily commute, which means I may never have to charge until a long trip. I just reserved one.
Totally agree. We need efficient sedans/hatchbacks/wagons instead of gargantuan SUV-s. The recent Volvo EX90 is just hideous.. 2800 kg weight and boxy shape and they talk how "green" it is.
Bicycle, Bicycle, BICYCLE. I like to ride my bicycle, I like to ride my bike
Like the original Ioniq. Still just about the most efficient non-city EV out there, years after it appeared. Even my eNiro looks pretty efficient compared to some of the latest offerings, even the normal sized wagons like the MG4 and the new Ora cat are not so great.
For $50,000 for a 2 seater car.
This discussion is on the sustainability of the raw supply chain to support the growth. it does not take away from their videos lifting up smaller models, the more efficient models and the inovative approaches to reduce the battery requirements.
Imogen has a very magnetic presentation delivery , and a great addition to Fully Charged Show , she already has a great background in the industry .
Yes, but it is weird to see her sitting at Robert's desk! 😅
I agree.
Yes, but I wish she would stop nodding her head continuously while the interviewee is talking.
Is that an electromagnetic presentation 🤣🤔👋👍
I would like to hear more about the recycling and recovery process, Is it still labor intensive to open the batteries? Are we going to see some design standards created so robots can open in the batteries when they need recycling?
You think batteries can have an impact on the environment, just look at the oil industry who use large amounts of cobalt, and it's not recoverable. Ev batteries can be 95% recycled and the cobalt re- used.
Great episode (as always) very well presented. Give Bobby a tent for the night, he can sleep under the solar panels!
On the excellent transit point right at the end, I would have also liked to see a very brief mention of micro mobility - currently illegal in the UK.
As a car alternative, micro mobility uses 1/50th of the batteries of an EV car, consumes 1/10th the energy per mile and costs 1/20th the price - obviously an e-scooter, e-bike or e-wheel can't replace a car, but for a single occupant journey, it can displace an existing gasoline vehicle 80% of the time, without needing the consumer to buy a brand new car, an 80% reduction in emissions for 1/50th the amount of batteries needed for a car seems like an obvious solution for people who want to do this - it should not be illegal, it's a far more scalable solution than everyone buying a 70kWh EV to have it sit parked all the time.
There does need to be a deeper dive on car alternatives, and I think personal electric vehicles need a new look from Fully Charged, you've done a couple of light touch episodes, but the ridiculous situation in the UK of allowing drunk scooter rentals while fining and seizing responsible commuters is something I would like to see covered.
Very good point, but micro-mobility is not entirely illegal; just some forms of it. There are a whole pile of legal vehicles, both e- and otherwise, including the humble bicycle. It is ridiculous that we can get thousands of pounds of incentive for e-cars, but nothing for e-bikes, never mind all the things we're not supposed to use at all, for, I agree, no particularly good reason.
And to be fair govt policy on providing space for active travel and e-mobility is actually pretty good now, after 'Gear Change', but councils are mostly terribly short of people who know what they are doing, and it's a huge shift in transport planning everywhere to actually allocate space and money for this. And far too many people still think transport==cars, and find it hard to envision a world where it was actually quicker and easier to bike/scoot/walk, or catch a bus/tram for most journeys.
You mention some of the efficiency gains - the numbers really are hugely significant, especially whilst there is a battery crunch. Putting them all in buses, bikes and scooters would get us all an order of magnitude more transport overall than putting them in cars.
@@xxwookey e-bikes are the best legal option, and the best for cargo, but, I've had 3 bikes stolen, and I've given up on anything that has to be left outside while I go into a store or work. Other e-options like skate, scooter and wheel can be carried in and tucked under a desk, coffee shop table, or walked around a store while you pick something up. For that reason, I prefer them, I don't see why they should be illegal in the UK - where I am (Vancouver, Canada), we have a pilot scheme that makes them temporarily allowed, while they are reviewed. Hopefully that becomes permanent.
@@brushlessmotoring Bike theft is a massive problem, and it's rampant largely because it's not taken seriously by most police, who confuse the fact that each individual theft is usually not a huge value with the collective cost of millions, and the effect, which is that people don't use bikes because they can't be reasonably sure it'll still be there for the return journey.
2/3rd of all reported crime where I live is cycle theft. About £1 million/yr for a town of 200,000 people. Even with that rate I've 'only' had 4 bikes nicked in 30 years so one every 7.5 years and I use it nearly daily. So it's not enough to stop me using as convenient transport. Police forces _can_ dramtically reduce cycle crime if they put their minds to it, as a few forces in the UK and Canada have.
But I take you point that things like scooters work way better for people who want to use them with public transport or don't have convenient/secure overnight parking or live somewhere where theft levels are too high.
They will be legalised here fairly soon, the interesting question is under what classes and rules. Probably something more or less like the existing cycle/e-bike (for anyone, including kids) and moped classes (insurance, VED, tests), based on top assisted speed, which I think makes sense.
Most of the world will be transformed by electric motorbikes. Cost to run them is super low. I have a super soco Tc max that goes up to about 55mph and charges 50 miles range for 25 p on cheap overnight electricity. 3kwhr removable battery charged in living room. Brilliant around town.
@@xxwookey I would be happy to require license and insurance for the faster devices, some can be speed competitive with cars in town, I'm not a fan of speed limiters on some devices, but unlimited speed on cars, it actually makes mixing with traffic more dangerous on an e-bike that suddenly stops accelerating well below the speed limit.
I'm glad you think scooters will be legal in the UK soon, that's good news.
I think bicycle thieves are the worst, as you point out, the police consider it property theft, like having a watch or a TV stolen, but for a cyclist, it's stealing their way of life - it's demoralizing, and can cause people to give up on non car living and get back in a car - it's security and theft are taken far more seriously, we have security guards patrolling parking lots, but the only people keeping an eye on your bike are the thieves, the result is more cars on the road, making cycling less appealing - a vicious cycle.
If people want my Boosted Board, they are gonna have to fight me for it ;)
I'm happy to hear theft hasn't kept you off your ride, and you take a longer view - may the wind ever be at your back.
Love these longer documentary-style in-depth analyses exploring the pros while not ignoring the cons. More please!
It's great to see Fully Charged come so far with brainy reporters like Imogen. A great reason to continue supporting on Patreon and by visiting FC Live events!
I really love these educational episodes. So helpful with getting a positive message out there.
Well, you asked for suggestions...and you delivered! Thank You!...and as we've been 'in the midst of a global battery arms race' for a while now, this is a VERY useful summary Imogen. Top Job!
Funny how you never really hear about cobalt use in the petrol industry (except for this channel). Yet it's use in ev batteries is screamed at high volume. I wonder if the petrol industry has something to do with this?
Sodium Batteries are coming on stream - which should help. More efficient vehicles - they look weird but they are so much less resource hungry. Getting Euro manufacturers to make SMALLER vehicles, instead of luxury behemoths...
Oh and using technologies like Flow Batteries for Grid storage instead of Lithium/sodium battery packs.
Soon SMR's and they look promising for smaller grids.
This was possibly the most interesting video this year. The real crux of the problem talked about head on.
You wouldn't have thought there's any problem with batteries the number that are wasted in single use vapes.
Single use vapes exist? *Shudder*
@@slavko321 Apparently up to 1.3 million are thrown away every week in the UK.
To put it into perspective its 10 tonnes of lithium per year wasted or enough for 1,200 electric vehicles.
Figures taken from a recent BBC news report.
Also do not forget the enormous amount of coin cells in christmas ornaments, toys and such. These are also single use.
@@KGE64 Yes indeed let's not forget especially as they contain twice as much lithium for the same capacity.
@@Ed.R I see this too - I think a youtuber went and collected a bunch of discarded vape pens and made an electric skateboard - when they are discarded, they still have like 80% charge too. There should be a bottle return like deposit on them of several dollar-pounds per pen.
Great episode! Very glad you mention public transport. Another one would be building more for a 15-minute city. Everything should be within a 15 minute walk or cycle. School, work, food, groceries, doctor. This would reduce work-home traffic enormously.
Also relating to the Lithium question is why you guys are always complaining about big SUV's. A big car needs a big battery, that amount of Lithium and other materials could have been used to power 3 or even 4 smaller electric cars. So isn't it time to ban large and heavy cars? Or at the very least put ridiculously high taxes on them. (Electric cars are still exempt from road tax in the Netherlands, even though they are much heavier0
There are many trucks on the road moving everything we need. If we got some of them onto electric railways it would be a good thing on many levels.
Astonished that there was no mention at all about the World's two biggest suppliers of Lithium: Australia and Chile. Nor any mention of the potential of Bolivia and Peru, who have sources that don't even have to be mined!
I forgot how many times can petrol be used and recycled? ❤
Well…. Technically infinitely, but in fairness it does take quite a long time 😊
Infinitely. But it takes a lot of energy to get that Carbon out of the atmosphere and combine it with hydrogen, to make it into fuel again.
@G T Even if coal is used EVs are still better because their three times more efficient then ICE vehicles. The UK grid uses around about 35% Fossil fuels and new renewable energy sources are coming online constantly. Many EV drivers have or get rooftop solar. Batteries can be recycled and have a second life as static battery storage. The Co2 cost can easily be recuperated within 3 years of normal millage.
What often is not calculated is the enormous cost of producing petroleum products. Drilling, transportation, refining, transportation again all use huge amounts of energy and cause huge environmental damage from leaks and emissions.
It would be good if you could do a show around the challenges of the electricity supply and charging networks around the world?
I think those of us in Europe and the USA maybe don't realise what challenges there are around the world for mass adoption of EVs.
As long as charging is done off peak it is not an issue at all. So it means that home and work low power charge must be the default way, with fast charging only for exceptional long trips. A car is parked most of the time, and if plugged it can charge just when it is convenient. And off course, the car could supply energy of the grid, even if for now not many models can do it. Such vehicle to grid capabilities are especially useful with the development of intermittent energy sources (eg solar and wind).
There's a real shortage now. My Kona battery failed last April and Hyundai have still not managed to replace it.
The whole battery pack shouldn't have failed. You likely have a few cells that have failed or your BMS is reporting them as failed or failing. I'm curious though, what is your SOH and how has your range been affected?
@@Tron-Jockey don't know about the range as Hyundai took the car away and it's been off the road since
5 seconds of Robert, even without a sound, brighten up your day 🤣
Just throwing an idea out there.
Maybe, just maybe, we should deal with the problem of car dependency and try to invest in making collective transportation more efficient and accessible for everyone.
Maybe we could invest in infrastructure which allows for safe and efficient mobility with other means of transportation, such as bikes (including ebikes).
Or maybe we can modify our infrastructure to make our cities and towns more walkable.
Or maybe we need a combination of all these ideas.
Idk. Just throwing out ideas that could help curb our need for so many limited resources.
^^ I couldn't agree more ^^
Exactly, Look what China is doing. China has the Worlds best public transportation infrastructure that is the Envy worldwide.
You worded it better than me. I get all the wise guys on my comment.
In other words, (from a US perspective) we should make our cities more like European cities. It's not only possible but also very "doable and enjoyable" to live in many cities in Europe without needing to own a car at all. As you mentioned, many cities there are "walkable" and/or have easy-to-use public transportation. (In fairness, many European cities have become auto-dependent as well... but that's a story for another day.)
I think the market will ultimately solve it. FSD software and robotaxis will mean vehicles on every corner at our beck and call. No need for us all to own cars.
It is a sad fact, that we still don't have a Battery Gigafactory in the UK at present. If we don't have a Battery Gigafactory in the UK, we risk losing UK EV Manufacturing to the EU & China. BMW have already said they won't be producing the New Long range BMW Mini EV in the UK, risking thousands of jobs at Cowley Oxfordshire. And Nissan, have Not commited to building anything other than ICE & Hybrid EV's in the UK. We are looking at the Extinction of EV manufacturing in the UK. The government's Industrial strategy of wait & see is woefully inadequate, for the new EV future. They are going to have to come up with a World Leading investment package, or we can kiss goodbye to motor manufacturing in the UK...
you're right there. EV manufacturing in UK is DOA with this government who have zero long term planning, they just want to keep their supportive demographic of 60-70 year olds voting for them.
Brexit all but makes UK car manufacturing impossible anyway since car manufacturing relies on just in time deliveries of components to the factory - Brexit red tape makes that impossible.
Yes the Brexit was a terrible mistake from point of view of EV and battery production. The battery production company decided recently that the biggest lithium battery factory in Europe will be build in Poland despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.
@G T The National Grid don't anticipte having to double the UK's generating capacity to support EV's. Indeed most of the generating capacity existing is unused overnight. So Smart shifting of 60% of EV charging to Off-Peak Tarrifs would obviate the need for GW's of New capacity. It's why all EV Home chargers sold now have to be capable of remote time shift charging. This is not to say we won't need transmission line upgrades, aplenty. But National Grid are fairly confident they can handle the expected load, and are planning & building for it...
A few things to note. ebikes or electric scooters are much smaller (and efficient) and can replace some of the short trips that one might take with a car. Smaller electric cars could replace the use of larger vehicles, especially for trips within your own metropolitan area (this constitutes the majority of most peoples' trips and commutes to work). Mass transit can definately play a helpful role. More mining and manufacturing are obviously needed to produce the batteries that will gradually replace combustion engines. Recycling should be mandatory or the shortage of mined materials issue will continue to be a problem forever. Most of this is touched on in the video. Well done.
CATL had recently developed an LFMP (Lithium Iron Manganese Phosphate) battery with equal energy density to Lithium NMC, but having no Nickel or Cobalt, so much cheaper to make and no issues with Congo mining. What's more they have stated they will be producing these by the end of this year. I don't know why this isn't talked about as I think this battery being in production is kind of ground breaking.
By next year they are also producing sodium batteries. The energy density isn't quite where NMCs are but all their other properties are very impressive, easy better than NMCs. They might replace lithium batteries in everything but the very high end of cars soon.
Looking at the overall life cycle of my 2014 Leaf, it is clear that it has become greener since it was new 9 years ago. The grid on which it has been charged has more renewable electricity today, and is now over 94% emission free. A new battery recycling facility is being constructed just blocks from my home which will supply raw materials to a new battery manufacturing facility 2 hours down the road. Contrast this with the one or two battery manufacturing facilities that existed 9 years ago, and zero recycling facilities, and it is easy to see how the supply chain is improving, and will continue to improve as the EV market grows. My car, BTW, is in excellent condition and will likely give me another 5 years of use on the current battery, and thanks to the reliability of electric drive trains, can provide years more if I decide to replace the battery when the time comes.
Congratulations for showing the tough side of the automotive energy transition, in a very balanced and informative way. 👍
This is hands down the best reporting on the topic I have yet seen. Why can't an average upstanding newspaper/magazine/TV station give us the honest down to earth report on this matter. Too often I only see irritating click bait headings like, "EVs are unfeasible and the reason will shock you..."
Fantastic episode. How about a dedicated episode on battery recycling? I wonder what kind of efforts are currently in place and how we can advance the recycling efforts. I would assume that building new recycling centers would be a year or two rather than bringing a new mine online.
Having said that, I am not sure if we can use 100% recycled batteries in new EV. What would it take for Redwood Materials to bring the 90% number closer 100%?
take a look at some of our older episodes! But I agree, it's time for us to revisit the topic again and see what the recyclers are up to
Excellent presentation. What is missing is the alternative to Batteries, to be used in transport where energy density is Important. As example is alternate green energy options like Hydrogen (either HEV or HICE (yes less efficient, but retrofit option), and sustainable fuels like Ethanol or SAF. EV work well in lighter vehicles and higher population density, but fails long haul transport and remoter area. So if Li shortages slows BEV supply, then other options like HEV is competition. So what are the potential supply chain issues here.
This battery shortage is precisely the reason PHEVs make the most sense. Not some compliance vehicle that only has 20 km of EV range, but real usable 100 km EV ranges should be the minimum allowed for a PHEV. This would triple and quadruple the number of EVs available to purchase overnight and end these years long waiting lists on BEV deliveries. 90% of most suburban commutes would be carbon free, the folks who insist on buying enormous polluting single driver SUVs. In a few years, once the mines and battery facilities have caught up with demand, folks can start hording batteries with their 500km range BEVs.
Very informative. One of the best actually describing the battery chemistrys
20:37
I think Bobby needs a CAT FLAP ! 😂
I think there is one but it's exclusively for the use of his old coworker Danny.
@@AlRoderick 😹!
Another good battery recycling company you at Fully Charged could look into is Aqua Metals.
They have a new non smelting process for recycling lead, and are now applying that same principle to lithium ion batteries.
As a side note, I can't help but feel that there are other answers that just aren't trendy enough for today's industries, such as nickel iron, or lead alkaline batteries, which, had they been given the same amount of effort, and research funding, may also have been able to supply either our cars, or our backup storage systems.
I would remind you that the Mars II company was producing electric cars in the 1970s, and 80s with well over 100 miles of range, and decent recharge times using boring old lead acid batteries. How far advanced would that be now if the ball had not been dropped. I would also ask, is it not possible to produce rebuildable batteries?
I will end my rant now, ( sorry everyone), with a word of my own philosophy.
" There is no shortage of energy or materials, only of inspiration ".
Ah, you mean hydrogen.
@@t1n4444
If you are referring to lead alkaline, I mean exactly that.
There are electrolyte mixtures of alum and water,or epsom salt and water that turn a lead acid battery into lead alkaline with interesting results.
I would imagine that a purpose built lead alkaline battery could possibly be even better. They Do allow for a safer deep discharge which Could allow for (under the right conditions) a smaller battery array, which is one advantage also of nickel iron, along with longer life cycle, and less danger of explosive meltdowns. Lithium ion on the other hand, Hates being discharged below about 50%.
It also has a very hard time with temperature variations.
I am not an expert, and I know there are several other promising battery types out there. I am simply making light of the fact that Lithium ion, specifically, seems to be all the rage.
I can't help but feel that there are likely other alternatives out there, just waiting for their day.
The same is true in the internal combustion world. So many good, viable alternatives that were never really given much attention.
I think we need to be willing to explore more options, and be a little more flexible to play mix and match.
Sorry, I Am wordy today.
@@davidvaughn367
No, I was referring to hydrogen gas, in a fuel cell or perhaps in an internal combustion engine with the modified head, etc.
Ref battery tech then agree that there are many, many types of batteries in the lithium "science" alone.
Some EVs run on non lithium battery tech already. Merely a Google away.
The issue with lithium in the northern latitudes is that charging below 0C can be problematic.
Some batteries are heated via the BMS so as to stop lithium metal plating one of the electrodes, irreversibly.
(I'd have to Google up up which one.)
Batteries are merely one step on the way.
And I'm up for hydrogen in the not too distant future.
@@t1n4444
Sorry about that. I often misunderstand, and am Very literal.
Hydrogen, yes.
Walter Russell was a big proponent of that, and I have to defer to his opinion on that as long as we could, in his words, find a table top method of producing it, and that, primarily as a stepping stone,to go on using the machines we have until other, more exotic forms of power can be perfected.
Ultimately, I see electric, and other options like hydrogen, and gasoline vapor, in the same way. My feelings about them ( if that matters), are not extremely strong.
Ultimately, I believe the work of people like Nikola Tesla, John Searl, Victor Schauberger, and Richard Clem,to name a few, hold more long term promise,but we need time to figure all of that out, untangle them all from politics, and corruption, and then devide fact from fiction.
@@davidvaughn367 👍👍👍
for anyone interested, there is no elemental lithium in li-ion batteries, contrary to what some people might believe and what some simplified animations (like the one shown at the beginning of this video) might indicate. The lithium ions carry the positive charge, and the electrons carry the negative charge. However, they never truly recombine. They both join the anode/cathode (depending on whether the battery is being charged or discharged), where the electrons reduce/oxidise the the anode/cathode and the lithium ions intercalate into the anode/cathode (i.e. move into small voids within the electrode material). They remain ionized throughout the whole process.
edit: my pointing the oversimplification in the animation used in this video is not a diss in any way. I'm interested in natural sciences, but by no means an expert, and I think it's completely justified to simplify processes when explaining something to laypeople.
Superb coverage. Informative without being dumbed down. I really appreciate this approach. Oh, and on a different topic, when you let Bobby back into the house perhaps you could show him how he can drop the demist/defrost control icon on the MyApps portion of his car screen so he can had one tap control of it.
Very informative episode.
I was waiting for Robert to sneak in when she was walking outside and the door was open behind her. 😂
You asked a great question at 13:34 and again at 14:24 about child labour, and both times the answer didn't relate to the accountability of enforcability of the prevention of this. It would be good if this was really pressed on, as we've seen what has happened in the DRC with child labour mining Cobalt, and we need to make sure this doesn't continue going forwards.
When you say there are 5 kg of lithium in a battery pack you failed to describe what size battery pack (we started at 24 kWh batteries and now make 212 kWh packs). I suspect the 5 kg figure is very old and not indicative of 85 kWh, the average pack size in USA. You also should specify if you're talking about 5 kg of lithium metal or 5 kg of lithium carbonate.
Like this video says at the end, we could reduce demand severely if we refocus our efforts in improving public transport, active transport and reducing the need for cars. Most of these batterries will go into private vechicles, wasting so many resources on the off chance someone will need to drive 300+ miles every year or so.
It's a bit of a dissapointment to give 10 seconds to the argument that we could use our batteries and resources in a much more efficient way.
Perhaps 100 kWh battery packs shouldn't become standard as hinted at in another Fully charged podcast? Perhaps small 1-2 seat vehicles with small even tiny packs to get around urban centers is what is needed and massive expanse of public transport? No probably not.
Like the Citroen Ami? Been out for a while now... yet to see one, I wonder why?
Problem is nobody but ev enthusiasts want those. When I bring to the Dacia Spring as an affordable EV (especially with government grants) people call it "unuseable" because it won't do the two times a year they drive further than it's range.
Consumers don’t want small econobox cars. The real issue is worldwide inflation so cars of all sizes are getting out of reach.
That cars getting more and more unaffordable is accualy the solution!
Keeping your old car going is still the most enviomental way forward.
I'd like to point out that, even in the sodium-ion battery world, not all cathodes (and anodes) are created equal.
Faradion's cell technology apparently uses a sodium analogue of NMC cathodes, and still uses nickel in significant quantities. CATL are developing a Na-ion battery which apparently uses a 'Prussian blue analogue' cathode, using iron cyanide, which compares to Faradion's chemistry in a similar way to LFP and NCM in the Li-ion world (lower energy density, longer lifespan, more commonplace raw materials).
Na-ion uses 'hard carbon' anodes. Rather than an organised graphite structure, hard carbon is an atomically-disorganised mess. This is actually a good thing, and Na-ion can use lower-grade carbon that's basically scrap charcoal. But this is just one of many supply chain complications - where do you source thousands of tons of hard carbon from? Where do you source thousands of tons of high-purity sodium carbonate from?
Na-ion is a great technology, but it's got a hill to climb that's just as steep and slow-going as Li-ion.
In the central parts of Sweden there is a large amount of the materials needed in the ground. The solution is open pit mines. There is a huge Canadian raw materials company that want to mine this, however, when it comes to placing guarantees that the environmental impact will be cared for, the restoration of the nature once the mine is exhausted, the mining companies are not interested. Until the mining companies start taking responsibility for their full impact of their operations, no new mines, at least here will take place. People do actually have to live there, livestock will need to feed there even after the miners are gone.
One access point to reduce the raw material shortage is the question how many cars we really need, and how many cars exist only because they are nice to have. Could you do more videos on why carsharing tends to be so difficult? So many commuters travel xx miles to their workplace every day alone in their car. Because somehow sharing is uncool. Why? Are there sucessful concepts somewhere? And could you do more videos on possible benefits of autonomous driving and its obsticles, like more suitable roads. Most cars spend most of their life parking somewhere.
Such a good show, I have been saving this one to watch with a large coffee, the scale of the battery challenge extremely well explained , thank you FC
Wow...Fully Charged is getting to Horizon levels of production quality. That's as big a compliment as I can give
thank you!
To quote "Field of dreams" if you build it they will come. Once the market and demand is there people spend the time and money on finding the solutions. Look how far EV's have come in just the last 5 years. Sad fact is there needs to be a profit in it for the research to get done as more and more countries ban ICE vehicles more money will go into research and we'll get more efficient vehicles and batteries come to market. Same goes for the charging network it will improve rapidly as the market share of EV's rises whilst the oil companies can keep on selling fuel to the vast majority of cars which are ICE they will keep on milking existing solutions and setups as it's profitable and what they know. Once that is taken away from them they have to adapt or die and charging networks will appear everywhere. It's just going to be uncomfortable during the too slow transition.
I’m confident human kind will find a timely solution to decarbonisation even the tricky issues- shipping and aviation sadly not because it’s the right thing to do but because the people in a position to exploit and make a fortune will turn their attention to it as soon as critical mass is reached with adoption and/or government incentives are properly established.
@@Antiguan_Dart Supply and demand.
Battery changing stations (using the infrastructure of the old gas stations) can help here: You'd drive around town with a small battery package, then, when you want to go on a journey, you'd get the bigger, extra battery package at the changing station. When arriving at your destination, let's say, Italy, you'd bring the big battery to the next changing station and drive around (if needed) with you small, fixed battery. On your way back, the same vice versa. We'd all only need small batteries in your daily lives, but could go on journeys easily.
The only problem are - again - the car makers, who don't care about sustainability and practicability, instead of all agreeing on a very small number of battery sizes and dimensions. It has worked with the old lead batteries, hasn't it? They all have the same dimensions, you can buy them at many automotive parts stores, nobody thinks this is too much asked of them.
So, as usual, it's the politicians, the governments, who should show some courage and legislate car battery changing system parameters.
We, the car buyers would vote by buying ...
LOVED THIS EPISODE!
Another great informative episode Thank you
For storage, heat batteries will be essential for industrial production they use heat more than electricity! 1414 Australia has one good heat battery but there are many others. Solar thermal has batteries built in molten salts! Chemical batteries are a small but vital part of the transition!
Great summary… worrying times as doesn’t sound like politicians seem to understand or care enough (or can ignore those powerful lobbies behind many of them that try to steer them away), that it is urgent and we have wasted years!! And we need to educate people!
You could have mentioned about how much raw materials are also used on electronic devices (with a lot more cobalt per kg), etc.., so EVs are not the only culprit.. and that the situation in RDC has improved a lot (I think Bobby did a video about this a while back, or it was mentioned), and I would have tried to make a bit more emphasis on newer more sustainable ways of mining that are being tried, etc… but overall very good!! 😊
Re Lithium/other mines-I grew up near several coal mines with huge slagheaps. These are now all closed, no sign of a mine and one is a beautiful wetland wildfowl park. Mining lasts a few years, the park will be there forever!
Lead acid batteries are recycled at 90% that's why we don't have many lead mines. Same will happen with other types. There are two issues in the short term. 1. Reuse of large packs like ones from cars is VERY popular, makes them worth money so getting them back is going to get difficult. 2. The materials used in EV batteries keep changing so by the time we get enough recycled material, battery factories might be using something else. Researches are already testing sodium batteries and LFP already in use don't need cobalt or nickel.
Great to see people highlight the benefit of long term planning. Really liked the point at the end about mass transport. Imagine the reductions needed in resources if the all cities were planned so that you don't need a car for the average journey.
You could always echelon those electric vehicles with solid connections between them, and have an overhead power feed, or an underground one so batteries weren't needed. To keep them in alignment with the power supply, perhaps some sort of location rail and a separate "Highway" system so they have right of way over other vehicles. Sort of something like they do in Tokyo Japan, it's called a Ji den Sha, I don't know the translation, I think it's called a Traiñ.
Learnt a lot. Thank you. ❤️😎
Really enjoyed this episode. Thanks for the insights.
Great video. Would love to watch more like this, for example, take the UK or maybe California electric grid and talk to experts to see if current plans really will be enough to decarbonise
The US govt incentivizes domestic battery production and mining in the IRA, not mandates it. That's the take away for me. Incentives matter for EVs, e-bikes, e-trains...
The countries with the largest deposits of lithium are Chile with 8 million tons, followed by Australia with 2 million tons
If I'm hearing it correctly in section 2 (~2:45 battery primer) she mentions "Iron is 80% of the Earth's crust". To my knowledge it is 5-6%. I agree Iron is definitely more abundant than Nickel and Cobalt etc and a good choice for stationary storage and everyday cars. Overall I liked the video and I think it helps explain our dilemma.
Thanks for another great episode. Battery storage is not just about electric vehicles - it's about storing zero carbon energy from solar and wind power, as you briefly mentioned. You also mentioned the carbon cost of coal and oil, but what about the environmental damage incurred from the extraction, processing and transport? I'm preaching to the choir, and the main thesis is solid - we have the need, materials, and technology but must rapidly change a vast economic system to the necessary scale.
Another great video from Fully Charged. Who needs broadcast TV.
good film....mining has to change its methods and image. we need to extract this stuff from the ground but we need to do it better for the environment
yes stop using children being the most important change
Useful refresher on the issues in the supply chain - liked the range of interviewees & graphics/clips 😊
As always, Imogen, a wonderfully presented, detailed look in to some of the future challenges Society faces in the transition towards greener personal mobility.
And you've even dropped the weird 'jiggly' on-screen text font from previous videos...!
Thanks for listening to your loyal audience 😉
Don't forget to raid his fridge - I bet he's got a lovely sandwich in there!
Does making batteries more energy dense improve the Li supply issue? My understanding is the Li is what provides the energy in a battery. Making a more dense energy battery might just mean increasing the amount of Li to other materials, but an A-hr of battery energy may still require the same amount of Li. You need to extract more energy per kg of Li to improve the supply situation. Not sure if that is happening, but from what I see most currently produced batteries are all about the same energy density. The other approach (probably a necessity) is to develop car battery technology based on a battery that uses more abundant materials.
Like everything else requiring a finite resource there needs to be a lot more focus on energy efficiency rather than just building a bigger battery to go further which is currently a dead end.
Absolutely loved this episode. This is the sort of content I would expect from BBC. Incredible quality. Would love to see an episode on how China became such a huge player in batteries. Would be fascinating to watch.
Very interesting, &, Imogen is a great addition to the team!
According to the 2 reports from Goldman Sachs there is no shortage and prices will come back next year. I do wonder why EVERYONE else disagrees with them.
Does everyone? A lot of journalists seem to, but journalists aren't exactly great at considering all factors and predicting the future. They make sensationalist content out of sort term shortages caused by the pandemic.
@@4203105 There are journalists and then there's click bait content creators, a distinct difference between them. I think you may be talking about the latter. IMO most news networks are the latter.
@@Michael-Wil I don't think real journalists ever existed or at least not many. Even when I was a kid, and that was a while ago, you'd get a heart attack when reading about a topic you knew a lot about, in the papers. I think it's just gotten easier to fact check the journalists.
Well, there’s a reason the United States made domestic news propaganda legal in 2011…
I love your episode - nice and optimistic. One last thought though - if I was given an option of a smaller battery with the same range or the same sized battery and more range - I'm going to take more range! It's called Jevon's paradox - and as long as we've got 'Charge anxiety' because there are not as many chargers as we need and / or their broken - I'm as guilty as anyone of it.
Are there any vehicles in the UK that do “ vehicle to grid or vehicle to home?”. Use the battery in your car to run the home, how many batteries would that save making? Would we save money not having to buy a home battery ??
With all the potential advances occurring in the rest of the world it feels as if Australia is being left behind. I suggested recently that Australia could develop an EV manufacturing industry. I was met with howls of derision, it was a hard no, our auto manufacturing industry was dead and couldn't be revived. Yet we clearly have the natural resources, iron, lithium, sunshine, etc. Are we so lacking in imagination that we a paralysed into non-action.
I am 67 yo and struggle to keep my house from falling down, but what about the younger generation?
Where are they? Why do they have no vision or motivation? I keep hearing about how clever and able the young are. Bollocks. I see no evidence of this in Australia. Wake up Australia and make things happen.
Ellen Carey completely smoothed over the issues with mineral mining for battery manufacturing. Set that to one side, I honestly can't see the infrastructure within the UK getting any better. There aren't enough chargers for what little cars we have now, as many people that own electric cars have proved. I cannot see how this problem can be solved, as the more electric cars we have on the road the more chargers we will need. We ordered an electric car a few months ago and after hearing about many people's issues with their electric cars, we decided to cancel ours. Not sure what the long term answer is but it ain't electric cars that's for sure. There's many a people with electric cars that have shown what it's like over a year, to use an electric car daily and it's quite laughable and impractical. Long distance driving in much of rural UK is a joke. Either there's no chargers in many areas or they don't work or accept the drivers card payments. There is also the issue with radical price increases on electricity and recently the government has just announced road tax charges on electric cars. Then there's the fact that these cars are way too expensive for most and are basically toys for the wealthy, to promote that they are doing their bit to save the planet.... Not!
We fix it the same way we fix everything: stop pretending society, humanity, & the world can continue under an overall operating assumption that we must constantly grow. We need strong public sectors. We need to produce what we need, & focus on living our lives with happiness that's not derived from stuff. With batteries, we need to stop the idea that everyone needs their own car, and that these cars need to be 2000 kg behemoths. We need massive investments on buses & trains. We need infrastructure and city development based on society, not individuals. We need to make public ownership of energy, its production, and the resources required to do it all.
PREACH! 100% AGREE,
Plus lets add to that to encourage many to learn about the current killing in the Congo Congolese People, the White race right NOW is stealing the Congolese People Natural Resources ONCE AGAIN, Stealing their WEALTH as always, to shame them on how they live, after creating the poor conditions in Congo.
WE The Worlds People MUST keep FOCUS on the safety of the Congolese People, they are being murdered right now and need our voice to let our Brothers and Sisters know what is going on in the Congo that ALL Mainstream Fake Stream Media is not reporting on.
We must ensure that 100% of any mining in the Congo, should be 100% Governed by the Congolese People, for the Congolese People 100%.
Enough is 100% ENOUGH with the atrocious treatment of the BLACK and BROWN community world wide. ENOUGH!
Agreed however we also most importantly have to agree there is no way on 2.5 earths that 8 billion people can possibly have anything like a Western standard of living. Just feeding 8 billion properly is an almost impossible task.
So religions are going to have to wake up and stop trying to out breed each other or we all loose.
The problem with stopping is that unless the economy grows perpetually, it will collapse.
That's just the nature of banks - without economic growth, banks will collapse under the weight of debt. Everything is debt. You put money in a bank - that immediately becomes debt because the bank is now in debt to you for the amount you deposited.
They have to lend most of it and create more debt, or they go broke.
That lent money gets spent, then goes back into the bank.
Now your money exists once, but it's been loaned 3 times - from you to the bank, then as a loan to person 2, who buys something from person 3, who puts it in the bank.
So that same money is loaned over and over, and each time there is debt created. Every pound, dollar, euro etc that exists creates dozens of pounds or dollars or euros of debt, and all that debt has to have interest paid on them.
Without infinite economic growth, that interest will collapse the banks, and society collapses.
In other words, capitalism is destined to eventually collapse. It's inevitable, but until the human race finds a better way to exist, capitalism is destined to destroy itself and, perhaps, us along with it.
Economic growth is very necessary.
A society which is complacent with its situation becomes enslaved by a more powerful society which did not concern itself woth limiting growth.
Many countries other than Ukraine are facing the issue of their sovereignty being disrespected. The de-growth mindset can only somewhat rationally apply to the developed nations of Western Europe and North America. Not even Japan and Korea, because they have dangerous neighbours.
It is time to make everything more sustainable and circular, in which everyone sees themselves socially and humanly benefited from development, with the possibility of mobilizing in an equitable way, in a simple way. Excellent analysis that leaves time to reflect because transportation is the inherent capacity of man, as well as creativity, the search for well-being and peace between us all.
Well the U.K. government is doing its best to solve it by removing grants, adding VED to ev’s and doing nothing to invest in the green generating capacity of the country keeping electricity costs far higher than necessary. This will slow down the take up of ev’s tremendously .
Another fantastically informative episode. Enjoyed the cameo from Mr Bhogal at the end too!
The US has a huge lithium deposit that can be mined within 3 years.
They have huge deposits that can be extracted without mining at all. The vast majority of Lithium is actually in aqueous form suspended in underground brine deposits. We just need to pump it up and filter it off. And direct lithium extraction methods do that cheaply, cleanly, quickly and very efficiently.
Yeh, at the expense of the environment.oh well..
Great program. More details on the different battery options. It is also interesting to hear about FULL LIFE Cycle, problems. Yes this is a very critical issue
Good discussion. We need regulation among manufacturers to limit both the number of batteries in a car and their power output. A car doesn't need to go from 0 - 60 in 3 sec. And with home charging and more chargers coming into play, the cars don't need to go a long distance. With advances in battery technology the lithium issue will go away before the mines can produce. I also think self driving vehicles will allow much more use of car pooling, eliminate congestion. More money is needed in rail transport to ease truck usage but there will still be a bottleneck in the ocean shipping area.
One factor is that industry attracts investment based on how profitable a venture is. If batteries were cheap, it would not attract the same levels of investment. They want to price everything to the maximum that the public will bear, and create the impression (true or not) that certain necessities are rare and cost a lot, to justify the high price tag.
I just wished you'd highlight the nature of speculative markets and private property (of mines, factories, etc) that has led to decades of overconsumption
Businesses of all industries are more culpable of environmental and other harms, more than the workers or consumers related to their products.
Good work!!!
If there's an upside to higher raw material prices, it's that it makes it more likely other companies will invest in mining for those raw materials
I feel like this video is so well made and level headed. Video editing is on point 👉
Are they less carbon intensive? They run on electricity that was produced in large part by burning fossil fuels.
Furthermore, the electricity goes through several steps before it gets to the EV engine, the steps being the actual generation of electricity, which is 30-40% efficient, the transfer, which is 80-99% efficient, the voltage step-down/step-up, which is 95-99% efficient and is done at least twice, the battery charging, which is 60-85% efficient and then the discharging, which is 50-85% efficient depending on the driving style and temperature.
All those losses without even taking the manufacturing of the vehicle and its battery into account. Some sources state that only 33% of the power generated in the US makes it to its destinations due to losses.
All in all, that comes out to an EV efficiency of 6.5% in the absolute worst-case scenario to 28% in the best-case scenario without considering the production of the EV.
A diesel engine burns diesel at 30-50% efficiency depending on the age of the motor. 90-99% of the pollutants (excluding CO2) generated in latest diesel engines are captured by emission control systems.
So, as long as our electricity is generated from fossil fuels, EVs pollute much more than a diesel car, just somewhere else instead of the tailpipe.
Do electric cars emit less Carbon over their live cycle compared to a comparable ice car? Yes, by quite a lot.
Read more than 5 first words of my comment and You'll see why they don't.
@@doogie1350 I read it. Sadly. Because man was that a whole lot of bullshit.
There are life cycle analysis out there. With the electricity mix of most european countries an electric car will output far less than half of the CO2 of a gas-guzzler during its lifetime and it's only getting better as grids and manufacturing move to renewables.
To get any other numbers you have to assume that gasoline falls from the sky fully refined and everything to do with the electric car is done with coal power plants.
So far I haven't seem amy gasoline rains...
Holland has the right idea. Invest in public transport, cycling and hubs. Reduce the overall need to travel by working smarty with hub offices or if possible from home. Share you car locally.
Very interesting... thank you. Now let Robert back in :)
And when people complain to me about my EV and battery issues like "child labour" I agree it's totally unacceptable. But then I ask them if they own a cell phone.
Where do they think the batteries in their cell phones come from and how many cell phones are there in use and being discarded every day?
If we can get our recycling act together we can reclaim the minerals we have already dug up and use them in new battery creation.
Then we can get on to driving EV's and stop driving ICE vehicles which rely on "Rare Earth" minerals for their catalytic converters.
Incredibly well-produced episode, and Imogen is such a natural presenter - more episodes like this please FC! 😎👍🏻
We Fix It by not allowing recyclers to destroy perfectly good batteries and selling them to have a secound life as house energy storage and ev conversions.
I think the best answer are plug in hybrids with about 70-100 miles battery range. Only difference is the ice engine used as a generator only and only direct drive to the wheels at a constant single high gear for highway cruising at 60mph.
This simplifies the drive train and solves range issues. The tiny ice engine probably only gets used once a week at most for a majority of users.
linear free piston generator and micro turbines would be a huge step up as range extenders compared to full blown ICE for me ^^
If they work out how to get more charge into a battery for the same weight, that's awesome, but don't cut the size of the battery, the more range you can shove into the vehicle for the same weight as the previous model, the more it will encourage sales of the new one, so there are lots of EV's on the second hand market with a perceived reduced value, but with a still usable range for most people. Don't go knobbling the range just to sell more cars with less materials. It won't have the effect you think.
Stationary battery demand will be enormous compared to vehicles; I know it's "dirty", but still making use of lead-acid, perhaps with more modular/exchangeable components (like UPSes) isn't possible?
Really enjoyed this one. Very well done. Very well thought out
Making more efficient cars would also help. A huge SUV doing 2 miles per kwh is going to need twice the battery pack size of something efficient.
Thanks for the update. No sign yet of advance bookings for Sydney. Do we have a time frame? Jim Bell (Australia)
If the Na battery comes to fruition, no more mining, at least for static batteries and unlimited raw materials. It looks like it is about to come on to the market in significant scale.