this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
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How exactly is the production of batteries cleaner and cheaper than the production of natural gas?
In the US, the major source of natgas is now fracking.
And uh, fracking is about the most gross extraction method for anything you can dig out of the ground.
A potential solution here is to dramatically limit or eliminate protections for fracking, but still allow it. If they can pay for any damage they cause, they should be allowed to do it. The problem is that we're subsidizing these efforts in a number of ways, and giving these orgs way too many protections. We should remove those, but IMO not ban fracking itself, since it can be a very useful way to produce energy in our transition away from coal.
That said, we should absolutely be investing in clean energy. I want to see a renewed push for nuclear power, expansion and optimization of hydro, etc. But we're not going to switch to green energy overnight (and the US is improving on emissions faster than many other countries), and fracking works well in the short-term as we move away from coal. As renewables get built out, we can reduce how much fracking we do.
Things have gotten somewhat better after some high-profile messes, but we're still basically just shoving tens of thousands of gallons of toxic wastewater into holes and hoping it stays there and doesn't go anywhere else. Which, of course, uh, water likes doing, so it's very much not a good permanent solution to anything.
I'm pro-nuclear myself, given that of a long list of mediocre (wind, solar, hydro) to bad choices (coal, biomass) it's probably the best and most reliable option that relies the least on highly contentious resources (lithium) and the waste problem isn't entirely insurmountable given the progress on fuel recycling that's been being made in recent years.
And I'm sure I'm going to get shit for calling wind, solar and hydro mediocre, and that's probably reasonable. But the problem is solar and wind aren't good base loads, and building a large hydroelectric plant is incredibly impactful for wherever you're building it, since it kinda requires you to make a giant-ass lake on an area that's probably not already one.
And we have a lot of empty land here in the US. I'm in Utah, and people here push back against nuclear, but we literally live next to a massive desert. Nobody cares if we dig a big hole in W. Utah or E. Nevada, we can bury it however deep we need and it's not going to impact the water table at all (we don't really have a water table here anyway...). Likewise in California. E. US is a bit more difficult, but there are plenty of trains that go through very unpopulated areas that we could use to transport hazardous material for burying.
Processing it is obviously better, but we really shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of better here. Yeah, nuclear isn't perfect, but it works really well at providing a base level of energy and can help us phase out coal and natural gas that much sooner. Utah already sells electricity to California, so it's not like we need a power plant right next to major population centers, we can move electricity relatively effectively over long distances. So stick the plants in the middle of nowhere so nobody has to be worried about nuclear fallout (which isn't going to happen anyway).
Even if battery storage gets way cheaper, nuclear will still help us phase out fossil fuels as storage ramps up. And for costs, my understanding is that most of the issues are due to delays, so surely there's something we can do about that.
It's all NIMBYism. We absolutely could shit out a standardized reactor design and build as many as we need but you can't get people to agree that we should do that, and even a lot of the people who DO want nuclear power want it as far away from them as possible.
Too many decades of mis/disinformation around things like TMI and Chernobyl have ruined several generations of people's opinions on being near nuclear even if they generally approve of it. (And by near, I mean in the same state as them, even.)
This is strictly a public opinion problem, and one reason solar and wind is expanding so rapidly is nobody has any major objections to those.
Yup. But like any good solution to a complex problem, it's best if we have a lot of options. We're putting tariffs on China, which will increase the cost of solar and probably wind, as well as battery imports (and yes, we're making more batteries here, but it's going to be small potatoes for a while).
Nuclear really shouldn't be impacted by any of this, so the time to really nail down the specifics is right now, or preferably several years ago.
If you don't have water nearby, you're not going to be able to use nuclear power in any utility grade scale there.
It didn't stop TSMC from building a fab out in Arizona, nor did it stop the NSA from building a massive data center here either. Water is available, especially if we cut down on how much alfalfa we grow here. AFAIK, the problem isn't water, it's NIMBYs.
Cool story. How do we pull rare earth minerals, needed for batteries, from the ground?
Typically not by injecting toxic carcinogens into the ground to do so, like we do with fracking.
Also I've not heard of any strip mining activities that turn a town's only water supply into something that's flammable, but I perhaps missed that?
Or the ongoing incidents of child and adult cancer caused by this itty bitty little toxic waste issue.
No need to flat out lie in order to make a point.
Unless you want to honestly double down on the "I am so ignorant that I honestly believe mines do not contaminate surrounding areas" card you should take off for the day, rest up, and try again tomorrow bud.
My friend, you are the one who is saying batteries are somehow dirtier than natural gas.
Bring the receipts or head on out, we are getting bored.
Not your friend for one. For the other, I don't need to "bring the receipts" to demonstrate that mining and battery production is not good for the environment.
Anyone who needs that is too mentally feeble to be a part of this discussion and should recuse themselves for their own safety.
Let me ask you this since you do not appear to be arguing in good faith and are using strawmen: do you believe humans are most of the cause of climate change?
You make the batteries once, and the pollution due to production is spread over the 10-15 year lifetime of the battery. During that time gigawatt hours of clean power sloshes in and out of them. This in contrast to having to produce enough gas to make all of those gigawatt hours once, then throw the gas away as co2 and get more, along with the attendant pollution.
Batteries have infinite energy now? No storage issues due to electrical surges, heat, cold, or anything else that makes batteries sub optimal? While seemingly by magic, mining rare earth minerals spreads its environmental impact over 10-15 years of the lifetime of the battery with 0 negative impact to the area the mine is located?
Oh wait... None of that is true so I guess you can try again.
I have no idea what you are trying to say. Batteries have an environmental impact, but so does fracking for natural gas. You have the impact up front making a battery, but charging it with renewables does not have continued environmental impact. But if you use gas, you’re going to have to use an awful lot of it over that time period to offset the clean power you’re able to use when you have a battery. And that gas has a very high environmental impact, continually, over that entire time period.
I didn’t say batteries have NO impact, but they have less impact than continually mining and burning fossil fuels.
They are using a strawman and trying to claim victory. They are not arguing in good faith.
Yeah, I think you’re right.
The fact that you believe renewable energy sources have no environmental impact demonstrates to me the need to no longer speak with you. My brain can take only so much ignorance and green washing is my line today.
Ok. Have a nice day.
Sodium batteries require very little rare earths in comparison to lithium batteries.
It really is too bad about the weak life cycle, poor charge/discharge rate, and incredibly low voltage that begin the story of "Why don't we just use sodium ion batteries?" and place it directly in the "tragedy" section of the book store.
Why are people so mad that batteries are better than dead dinosaur farts? What is the weird obsession with burning ooze and gasses from mother earth? We have better options?
Does it hurt being this ignorant or is it truly as blissful as they say?
The fact that you don't understand battery materials are pulled from the ground in much the same way that oil and gas is speaks volumes about value of your opinions.
Once. They are pulled from the ground once. After which they are essentially infinitely recyclable.
Oil/gas is extracted then used a single time and it's gone.
Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is "infinitely recyclable". Literally defies physics.
Lets also not forget that oil is recyclable.
Yes. Things can be infinitely recyclable. But since you're such an expert. Tell me, what part of a lithium atom degrades during its life as a battery? I'm not expecting a good answer from you though since you think that burning a compound (to release the energy in its bonds) is then recyclable.
No, nothing can be recycled to infinite. It is asinine to even attempt to assert that.
Recycling Lithium batteries recovers approximately 20-96% of materials. This means best case scenario, which is not the norm in battery recycling, every time a battery is recycled 4% of the materials are lost.
Doesn't take a math genius to see how quickly finite resources dry up with a 4% loss every single time a batteries life ends.
Funny because I never said gas was recyclable. You should learn to read before you try to make snide comments.
I hope the simple math and explaination I used is understandable to you, but I am not expecting much.
Like I thought, you're misunderstanding what you're reading.
Yes current recycling processes can lose 4% of the material. But that's not because they aren't recoverable, that's because it's not currently financially feasible to recover it all.
And that's just the recycling part. For someone suggesting that I should read better you sure aren't great at reading either. So I'll ask it again.
What part of the metal atoms degrade as part of them being used in batteries?
Like I thought, you have nothing meaningful to say. I won't waste further time with you.
What? You're the one claiming that various metals aren't infinitely recyclable.
It's true that not all metals are, but many of them are (iron, aluminum, lithium to name a few) infinitely recyclable.
Current recycling technology doesn't really matter as it can and will improve with time as the brand new industry scales up.
I'm just here pointing out that your statements are false. That doesn't need to be meaningful to you if you have no interest in learning, but it's useful for other people who are reading this thread wondering why you're being downvoted.
I can't get over this. We're talking about energy and hydrocarbons, and you bring up that said hydrocarbon is recyclable. I assume that you're talking about the use of said hydrocarbon in the energy sense (which means burning it to make energy) because given the context that's what makes sense.
Instead you were talking about a completely different and irrelevant use of the hydrocarbon and then think that's it's my fault for not following your nonsensical argument.
The information I've seen regarding deep discharge life-cycle for sodium ion is that the latest tech is actually extremely good, at least according to this. I don't see how the lower voltage is a problem, since for grid situations you'll have step-up transformers anyway, and the batteries can just be hooked up in series to increase the voltage.
They use abundant materials, will be much cheaper than lithium ion, don't need to be actively cooled, and massively lessen the risk of rupture and fires.
The low density per unit of weight isn't relevant for grid storage, so they seem pretty ideal.
Are you under the impression that we use NMC batteries for grid energy storage?? LOL
Sure is weird how you think you are owning me here while ignoring the fact that all batteries have an environmental impact and Lithium is one of the worst when it comes to battery components that are incredibly costly to the environments where it is mined, which is the main component in batteries used for grid storage.
"LOL"
Mostly because natural gas is a one and done thing when it is used. Batteries can be recycled. Production of natural gas is largely done through racking which destroys the groundwater. While batteries often require mining (excluding mechanical ones), they often can be broken down and reused in new batteries. And of course there is the greenhouse gas emissions from methane that are horrible. Methane is extremely leaky. Methane usage emits about as much greenhouse gas emissions as coal does.
I enjoy how much effort it takes to ignore how batteries are produced in order to argue for them in a comparison with natural gas.
I enjoy that you are making a strawman. Nobody ever said batteries have no negatives. You asked how they were cleaner than natural gas. I answered. Sorry that the answer hurt your feelings.
When you “mine” natural gas and burn it for heat, it’s gone. It disappears (and produces harmful GHG in the process) You have to keep doing this to get more output.
When you mine materials for batteries, you end up with a physical thing that persists, can be used over and over and can be recycled into new batteries at end of life.
This means the amount of mining required for renewables + batteries is proportional to only the addition of new capacity, whereas the amount of “mining” for fossil fuels is proportional to the total gross energy output (including significant heat losses)
We’re mining a lot of battery materials now, but that’s because we’re adding a crapload of capacity.
Health and Environmental Concerns
Despite the positive outlooks on battery recycling, negative effects also have been shown to impact developing nations that recycle batteries, especially those with lead and lithium.
Lead is a highly toxic substance, and processing it can result in pollution and contamination of people, resulting in long-term health problems and even disability.[59][33] According to one ranking, lead-acid battery recycling is, by far, the most deadly industrial process, globally, in terms of Disability-adjusted life years lost—costing between 2,000,000 and 4,800,000 estimated lost years of individual human life.[60]
Since 2015, developing nations like Vietnam have increased their battery processing capacity as global demand for batteries has grown. The process for recycling batteries often leads to toxic metals being introduced into the environment. In many of these nations, there are little protections available for workers working with the batteries.[3] In nations like Indonesia, it was reported that over a span of four years, battery recycler's blood lead levels almost doubled.[61] Lead exposure to workers can also be transmitted to family members away from work, ultimately leading to lead poisoning. [62]
More studies continue to be conducted to gather an understanding of environmental impacts. Studies show that most lithium-ion batteries contain Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS accumulates in humans and wildlife, often leading to immune and thyroid disfunctions, liver diseases, and other issues relating to homeostasis inside of the body.[63] Lead contamination of neighborhoods has resulted from the process of recycling lead batteries. In 1992, the EPA reported 29 lead-recycling sites were on the EPA's Superfund clean-up list, 22 of them on their "National Priority List."[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling#Lithium_ion_batteries
Do you want the math or would you prefer less reading and more pictures?
Nothing like an ignoramus to try and make someone else feel stupid for asking a question.
Since you are all knowing, explain to me exactly how deep earth mining is less costly and better for the environment than deep earth drilling.
Or did you think we just magically pull batteries from thin air at 0 cost?
Easy, just compare the amount of pollution required to make a battery and a solar panel with the amount of pollution required to extract and burn fossil fuels for the equivalent power output over the duration of the renewable's working lifetime.
Oh, and don't forget. Fossil fuels are useless without an engine to burn them, so you need to account for those infrastructure costs as well.
If it is so easy I am waiting.
We don't need to even do the math ourselves. It's already be done countless times and the results are always the same.
BEVs over their lifespan in the worst case scenario produce less than half as much CO2 emissions than a similar sized ICE vehicle.
https://www.iea.org/data-and-statistics/charts/comparative-life-cycle-greenhouse-gas-emissions-of-a-mid-size-bev-and-ice-vehicle
https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1357-august-26-2024-small-electric-suv-produces-52-fewer-life-cycle
https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/electric-vehicle-myths
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars
I'm surprised you struggled with this, with so many creditable sources available this was a really easy thing to look up.