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Battery costs have declined by 99% in the last three decades, making electrified transport a reality (ourworldindata.org)
submitted 6 months ago by [M] to c/electricvehicles@slrpnk.net
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[–] 16 points 6 months ago (5 children)

First you make batteries economically viable alternatives to fossil based energy sources.
Then the competition for even more economically viable battery technologies brings the tech to the next level.
Besides, lithium and the used rare earth elements can be recycled. It's not like they'd evaporate when being used.

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  • [–] 18 points 6 months ago*

    lithium and the used rare earth elements can be recycled. It's not like they'd evaporate when being used.

    This always amazes me about the anti-EV hysteria.

    "But they aren't 100% renewable, you have to mine metal" as they jump in their combustion car powered by a fuel that has to be mined only to be burnt up in use.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    We’ve already seen this over the past decade. I was skeptical of electric vehicles when I first started learning about Teslas because at the time there was something like 2/3s of the lithium available for mining compared to what would be needed to replace every vehicle on Earth with an EV.

    But since then new lithium mining techniques have opened up new sources (I think the southeast US has a large amount of these newly accessible sources), increasing the raw amount available. Sodium ion batteries have made strides, and while they aren’t as energy dense stationary batteries can use that while vehicles use lithium, reducing overall lithium demand. And who knows, sodium ion batteries could still reach a point where they are viable for vehicle batteries. And of course lithium batteries have improved as well, making available lithium stretch farther.

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  • [–] 5 points 6 months ago

    Yeah, like let's complain about lithium having a limited supply (which can be recycled until the cows come home) while burning fossil fuels all the while - which are also limited but gone after having been burned. The cherry on top is burning them pollutes the air and causes climate change.
    Aside from new mining techniques and new battery technology there's still the option to improve the situation by moving people and goods onto rails and operating the trains directly by electricity and not through batteries - a technology already available. It just needs to be implemented at more places.
    I'm aware that this is no solution that fits all situations, but I'm damn sure a lot of situations would be improved by having more rails/trains.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago (1 child)

    First you make batteries economically viable alternatives to fossil based energy sources.

    Friendly reminder batteries are not an energy source they just store energy and stabilize the grid

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    One could argue that fossil fuels are a kind of chemical battery that store solar energy from aeons ago.
    But in a strict sense you're right and that's why I'm keen on having more batteries in the wild, because there are (more and more) times, in which wind turbines and solar farms need to be throttled or shut down, because their continued operation endangers the grid by providing too much electric energy.
    So more batteries -> more renewable energy can be captured and stored/buffered!

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