The more I read about it, the more I think that going nuclear is the only way forward. I'm all for renewable energy, but the cost for the planet seems to be too big.
The more I read about it, the more I think that going nuclear is the only way forward. I'm all for renewable energy, but the cost for the planet seems to be too big.
I like nuclear (it’s my career field and in my username), but even nuclear power needs mined uranium and other minerals. We need to be better at sustainable mining, improve recycling of metals...
I like nuclear (it’s my career field and in my username), but even nuclear power needs mined uranium and other minerals. We need to be better at sustainable mining, improve recycling of metals (including specialty alloys), and potentially off-planet mining and ore processing. In any case, lithium will be needed for electrifying transport and replacing small engines that currently burn fossil fuels.
Nuclear alone won't solve everything though, and while they can produce a lot of energy, peaks of supply and demand can't be easily adjusted with nuclear plants. Batteries for renewable energy...
Nuclear alone won't solve everything though, and while they can produce a lot of energy, peaks of supply and demand can't be easily adjusted with nuclear plants. Batteries for renewable energy (and to some extend cars although I highly prefer more public transport) will help a lot.
That said, I do sympathize with the protestors to some degree. There is a good chance they won't profit from it as much as they deserve. And mining is a very dirty business. :/
Nuclear is and always will be a baseload. More nuclear means more baseload means less lithium needed for energy storage by renewables. All baseload should be nuclear, the problem is nuclear is...
Nuclear is and always will be a baseload. More nuclear means more baseload means less lithium needed for energy storage by renewables. All baseload should be nuclear, the problem is nuclear is "scary" to many so renewables are trying to fill that gap by mining more and more lithium to get a baseload from batteries while renewables are unproductive, which is the wrong way to go about it.
Your connection two of the wrong dots there. Going Nuclear wouldn't change anything about the need for lithium. I would to have a conversation about this. But to be frank, your conclusion is...
Your connection two of the wrong dots there. Going Nuclear wouldn't change anything about the need for lithium.
I would to have a conversation about this. But to be frank, your conclusion is pretty far out there from my perspective. To the degree that I feel like a train of thought is missing that clearly went through your head, but you didn't write down. Which might be as simple as getting some terminology mixed up. So as a starter, can I ask you to go through the steps it took for you to reach the conclusion you wrote down here?
Just be really clear, I really am not attempting to talk down to you, I am genuinely curious.
Not OP, but I feel like you are talking down to them. Yes nuclear and lithium don't feel super connected, but let's get talking about it. Lithium is mostly used for lithium batteries these days,...
Not OP, but I feel like you are talking down to them. Yes nuclear and lithium don't feel super connected, but let's get talking about it.
Lithium is mostly used for lithium batteries these days, as other battery technologies have not taken over. If we are looking at green energy, solar and wind require some sort of battery or energy storage system because they cannot run all the time at full efficiency. Still better for the environment, but not without downsides.
If the electrical grid production and usage don't match, you get rolling blackouts, loss of power and other unpleasant effects. That's where nuclear comes in. Modern plants are very good at dialing up or down to compensate for the grids usage.
Now will the lithium potentially mined here be used in home batteries or cell phone batteries? That's up for debate. The lithium will pretty much always be sold to the highest bidder, which I believe could be electrical vehicle manufacturing as that's a bit hotter than cell phones rn. But that really depends on if the mine is opened.
Of course, lithium mining has its downsides, and many locals lives would probably be affected while most of the jobs would probably be labor from outside. That also depends on local labor laws, which I must confess I know nothing about .
Well, I explicitly went out of my way to state that this was not my intention. Again, the two dots are barely connected if at all without the OP providing more context for their train of thought....
Not OP, but I feel like you are talking down to them.
Well, I explicitly went out of my way to state that this was not my intention. Again, the two dots are barely connected if at all without the OP providing more context for their train of thought.
The only connection I could see is one which at this point is barely relevant, certainly not for the use of Lithium. Which is battery storage of window and solar. The reason I am calling it barely a connection is because so far these are only used on a fairly limited scale because it economically is just very difficult to justify.
Which also makes this statement of yours relevant
Which I believe could be electrical vehicle manufacturing
And I agree, that demand will be there regardless of where the electricity is generated. Which again leaves me wondering how OP reached their conclusion and invited them to expand more on it.
Yeah, it read like I have to say this or I'll just look like an asshole. Don't want to be too mean about it though, I do think some effort was made, and I do appreciate that Tildes is so much more...
Yeah, it read like I have to say this or I'll just look like an asshole. Don't want to be too mean about it though, I do think some effort was made, and I do appreciate that Tildes is so much more focused on having a conversation than just sarcasm and punching down.
That's fair, at the same time, if I really intended to be condescending I could have left it at the first sentence. But I was (still am) genuinely looking for a better understanding and tried to...
That's fair, at the same time, if I really intended to be condescending I could have left it at the first sentence. But I was (still am) genuinely looking for a better understanding and tried to put into words why and what was missing for me to be able to genuinely respond to it other than a one-liner dismissing the comment.
Could I have done a better job of that, absolutely! Which I realized and why I added the specific wording as to clarify that I struggled with the wording. Which I feel is often a normal part of conversation to do.
Lastly, I feel that “with all due respect” is a different, very specific addition to a comment from the phrasing I used. One that is specifically used by people to say something they intend with no respect, or at the very least say that they believe the thing they are responding is idiotic.
I was indeed not very clear about my train of thought. It goes as following: for solar/wind, we'll need some kind of energy storage (batteries/lithium). Because where I live (and in lots of other...
I was indeed not very clear about my train of thought.
It goes as following: for solar/wind, we'll need some kind of energy storage (batteries/lithium). Because where I live (and in lots of other places in the world too), there's just not enough reliable wind and solar at times. The question is, what areas need the biggest amount of lithium? Is it cars? And can we improve there, or can we replace some areas with hydrogen? For the energy issue: I honestly think that we should not invest in huge energy storage (lithium based) facilities and just focus more on nuclear. And who knows one day nuclear fusion.
FYI: No insult taken, I like discussions too. That's why I love it here more than on Reddit.
I see what you mean now, I am still not sure if it leads as directly to nuclear as you figure. At the moment, Lithium storage for our grid is mostly out of the question other than some very...
I see what you mean now, I am still not sure if it leads as directly to nuclear as you figure. At the moment, Lithium storage for our grid is mostly out of the question other than some very expensive projects that mostly seem to be built as marketing and prestige projects. Simply because it doesn't scale all that well, even if we somehow manage to mine a lot more of the base materials.
Not to mention that Solar and Wind are actually in use right now, without storage. Granted, this is often in combination with gas fired plants, as these can quickly be spun up and provide energy when there is extra demand. Which also is the weakness of Nuclear AFAIK, it is good for a steady base supply but not as good for shifting demands. Having said that, realistically speaking we likely will have a healthy mix of various means of production in the future, of which I think Nuclear can be part.
To get back to areas where Lithium demand comes into play. Which leaves cars, where hydrogen is often touted as an alternative. However, the infrastructure of hydrogen and the generation of it is a whole different beast. To the point that even if it has actual potential in cars (which is still under heavy debate) it is still years out.
I suppose my main point is that it very likely isn't going to be one or the other. There is no single perfect technology, as a lot of it depends on the use case and place. So in my mind, it is much more likely that we will need both renewables in the form of solar/wind as well as Nuclear.
FYI: No insult taken, I like discussions too. That's why I love it here more than on Reddit.
Um .... I can't agree with that. Battery technology is one of those technologies we've kind of slept on all throughout the industrial age, and now into the information age. Not a lot of research...
we should not invest in huge energy storage
Um .... I can't agree with that.
Battery technology is one of those technologies we've kind of slept on all throughout the industrial age, and now into the information age. Not a lot of research has really gone into it, compared to how much iteration we've seen over the decades in other areas.
I don't have anything against nuclear. It's fine. Expensive, takes a decade or more to bring online, but fine. What I do mind is how any discussion about renewable energy has to be made into a discussion about nuclear energy.
Investment is what drives technology in capitalism. We did basically nothing with batteries for most of the industrial age. Until phones and similar portable consumer electronics showed up. Suddenly there was money in researching batteries, and the result has been increasing energy densities, efficiencies in size and weight, and so on. Making batteries better and able to power more for longer.
From the civic level (grid batteries) to the commercial level (individual business operations with backup power) to the residential level to the consumer device level ... investing in batteries is going to yield tremendous benefits. And it wasn't being done because no one saw a use from it now, as opposed to some nebulous "maybe one day" reason to research and iterate.
Now there are reasons, and batteries are starting to get seriously iterated and seriously developed. A huge amount of modern technology, and expected technological progression over the next several decades, will rely on literal power being available. When that power can be concentrated into smaller and smaller form factors, when it can be scaled up to not need a whole "extra" power plant to smooth over high usage or outage periods, that's valuable to society. Useful to society.
Investing in nuclear just gets us more nuclear. Not a lot else really. Maybe better anti-rad methods and materials, but most everything else in a nuclear plant isn't all that unique to a nuclear plant as opposed to a non-nuclear power plant. Bearings, materials, pumps, and so forth; that's being iterated by other power plant investment.
Investing in renewable energy is one of the things driving battery development, and batteries are going to unlock a lot of advancement for our technology level. A lot. A whole lot. That alone should be reason enough to invest in them.
Why, we could even figure out battery technology that doesn't need special elements mined at hazardous effort to make them work. Which would be pretty cool. And won't happen if we go back to ignoring batteries, if we decide "oh fuck solar, fuck wind, we can just build lots of nuclear."
The more I read about it, the more I think that going nuclear is the only way forward. I'm all for renewable energy, but the cost for the planet seems to be too big.
I like nuclear (it’s my career field and in my username), but even nuclear power needs mined uranium and other minerals. We need to be better at sustainable mining, improve recycling of metals (including specialty alloys), and potentially off-planet mining and ore processing. In any case, lithium will be needed for electrifying transport and replacing small engines that currently burn fossil fuels.
100% agreed, but I would guess you need less amount of uranium to be mined than you would need to do for the equivalent of solar/wind?
Nuclear alone won't solve everything though, and while they can produce a lot of energy, peaks of supply and demand can't be easily adjusted with nuclear plants. Batteries for renewable energy (and to some extend cars although I highly prefer more public transport) will help a lot.
That said, I do sympathize with the protestors to some degree. There is a good chance they won't profit from it as much as they deserve. And mining is a very dirty business. :/
Nuclear is and always will be a baseload. More nuclear means more baseload means less lithium needed for energy storage by renewables. All baseload should be nuclear, the problem is nuclear is "scary" to many so renewables are trying to fill that gap by mining more and more lithium to get a baseload from batteries while renewables are unproductive, which is the wrong way to go about it.
Your connection two of the wrong dots there. Going Nuclear wouldn't change anything about the need for lithium.
I would to have a conversation about this. But to be frank, your conclusion is pretty far out there from my perspective. To the degree that I feel like a train of thought is missing that clearly went through your head, but you didn't write down. Which might be as simple as getting some terminology mixed up. So as a starter, can I ask you to go through the steps it took for you to reach the conclusion you wrote down here?
Just be really clear, I really am not attempting to talk down to you, I am genuinely curious.
Not OP, but I feel like you are talking down to them. Yes nuclear and lithium don't feel super connected, but let's get talking about it.
Lithium is mostly used for lithium batteries these days, as other battery technologies have not taken over. If we are looking at green energy, solar and wind require some sort of battery or energy storage system because they cannot run all the time at full efficiency. Still better for the environment, but not without downsides.
If the electrical grid production and usage don't match, you get rolling blackouts, loss of power and other unpleasant effects. That's where nuclear comes in. Modern plants are very good at dialing up or down to compensate for the grids usage.
Now will the lithium potentially mined here be used in home batteries or cell phone batteries? That's up for debate. The lithium will pretty much always be sold to the highest bidder, which I believe could be electrical vehicle manufacturing as that's a bit hotter than cell phones rn. But that really depends on if the mine is opened.
Of course, lithium mining has its downsides, and many locals lives would probably be affected while most of the jobs would probably be labor from outside. That also depends on local labor laws, which I must confess I know nothing about .
Well, I explicitly went out of my way to state that this was not my intention. Again, the two dots are barely connected if at all without the OP providing more context for their train of thought.
The only connection I could see is one which at this point is barely relevant, certainly not for the use of Lithium. Which is battery storage of window and solar. The reason I am calling it barely a connection is because so far these are only used on a fairly limited scale because it economically is just very difficult to justify.
Which also makes this statement of yours relevant
And I agree, that demand will be there regardless of where the electricity is generated. Which again leaves me wondering how OP reached their conclusion and invited them to expand more on it.
You can't just say "with all due respect" and think that just undoes your condescension.
Yeah, it read like I have to say this or I'll just look like an asshole. Don't want to be too mean about it though, I do think some effort was made, and I do appreciate that Tildes is so much more focused on having a conversation than just sarcasm and punching down.
That's fair, at the same time, if I really intended to be condescending I could have left it at the first sentence. But I was (still am) genuinely looking for a better understanding and tried to put into words why and what was missing for me to be able to genuinely respond to it other than a one-liner dismissing the comment.
Could I have done a better job of that, absolutely! Which I realized and why I added the specific wording as to clarify that I struggled with the wording. Which I feel is often a normal part of conversation to do.
Lastly, I feel that “with all due respect” is a different, very specific addition to a comment from the phrasing I used. One that is specifically used by people to say something they intend with no respect, or at the very least say that they believe the thing they are responding is idiotic.
I was indeed not very clear about my train of thought.
It goes as following: for solar/wind, we'll need some kind of energy storage (batteries/lithium). Because where I live (and in lots of other places in the world too), there's just not enough reliable wind and solar at times. The question is, what areas need the biggest amount of lithium? Is it cars? And can we improve there, or can we replace some areas with hydrogen? For the energy issue: I honestly think that we should not invest in huge energy storage (lithium based) facilities and just focus more on nuclear. And who knows one day nuclear fusion.
FYI: No insult taken, I like discussions too. That's why I love it here more than on Reddit.
I see what you mean now, I am still not sure if it leads as directly to nuclear as you figure. At the moment, Lithium storage for our grid is mostly out of the question other than some very expensive projects that mostly seem to be built as marketing and prestige projects. Simply because it doesn't scale all that well, even if we somehow manage to mine a lot more of the base materials.
Not to mention that Solar and Wind are actually in use right now, without storage. Granted, this is often in combination with gas fired plants, as these can quickly be spun up and provide energy when there is extra demand. Which also is the weakness of Nuclear AFAIK, it is good for a steady base supply but not as good for shifting demands. Having said that, realistically speaking we likely will have a healthy mix of various means of production in the future, of which I think Nuclear can be part.
To get back to areas where Lithium demand comes into play. Which leaves cars, where hydrogen is often touted as an alternative. However, the infrastructure of hydrogen and the generation of it is a whole different beast. To the point that even if it has actual potential in cars (which is still under heavy debate) it is still years out.
I suppose my main point is that it very likely isn't going to be one or the other. There is no single perfect technology, as a lot of it depends on the use case and place. So in my mind, it is much more likely that we will need both renewables in the form of solar/wind as well as Nuclear.
Glad to hear that. As I honestly didn't mean any.
Um .... I can't agree with that.
Battery technology is one of those technologies we've kind of slept on all throughout the industrial age, and now into the information age. Not a lot of research has really gone into it, compared to how much iteration we've seen over the decades in other areas.
I don't have anything against nuclear. It's fine. Expensive, takes a decade or more to bring online, but fine. What I do mind is how any discussion about renewable energy has to be made into a discussion about nuclear energy.
Investment is what drives technology in capitalism. We did basically nothing with batteries for most of the industrial age. Until phones and similar portable consumer electronics showed up. Suddenly there was money in researching batteries, and the result has been increasing energy densities, efficiencies in size and weight, and so on. Making batteries better and able to power more for longer.
From the civic level (grid batteries) to the commercial level (individual business operations with backup power) to the residential level to the consumer device level ... investing in batteries is going to yield tremendous benefits. And it wasn't being done because no one saw a use from it now, as opposed to some nebulous "maybe one day" reason to research and iterate.
Now there are reasons, and batteries are starting to get seriously iterated and seriously developed. A huge amount of modern technology, and expected technological progression over the next several decades, will rely on literal power being available. When that power can be concentrated into smaller and smaller form factors, when it can be scaled up to not need a whole "extra" power plant to smooth over high usage or outage periods, that's valuable to society. Useful to society.
Investing in nuclear just gets us more nuclear. Not a lot else really. Maybe better anti-rad methods and materials, but most everything else in a nuclear plant isn't all that unique to a nuclear plant as opposed to a non-nuclear power plant. Bearings, materials, pumps, and so forth; that's being iterated by other power plant investment.
Investing in renewable energy is one of the things driving battery development, and batteries are going to unlock a lot of advancement for our technology level. A lot. A whole lot. That alone should be reason enough to invest in them.
Why, we could even figure out battery technology that doesn't need special elements mined at hazardous effort to make them work. Which would be pretty cool. And won't happen if we go back to ignoring batteries, if we decide "oh fuck solar, fuck wind, we can just build lots of nuclear."