Life Cycle Assessment. Optimising raw materials for renewables
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- Опубліковано 4 жов 2024
- Life Cycle Assessment is becoming a vital component in the design and planning stages of any new raw material acquisition project. Switching to renewables is an important step towards a more sustainable future but those technologies all still require vast resources to be dug out of our earth. Optimising the efficiency of those mining and processing operations can hugely reduce their impact.
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Research Links
Minviro
www.minviro.co...
World Bank : Minerals for Climate Action
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Science Direct : LCA for Rare Earths - The Songwe Hill Projectwww.sciencedir...
Scope 3 Emissions Reportiopscience.iop...
Vulcan Energy
v-er.eu/https:... Lithiumcornishlithium... Cubedgeocubed.co.uk/
Cornish Lithium
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Geo Cubed
geocubed.co.uk/
I enjoyed the interview style. You give an introduction to each topic and then let the guest speak with accompanying video. Very slick.
Thanks Alan. Interviews are a new thing for me, so I'm still learning. I appreciate your feedback very much :-)
@@JustHaveaThink You did a great job.
@@JustHaveaThink it's a good start but a better way is to ask leading questions to bring about the right content for your audience. Also, seeing their face for longer durations is less engaging.maybe extract some points and simple present as animations in between.
Electric cars pollute more than petrolium cars?!? You have just bankrup Telsa !!! SHAME ON YOU!!!
Untill now all our industrial systems and processes have been like the cyclops, just focussed on a single issue, a single product, a single sourse of profit. This has been so refreshing to me. For life Cycle Asssessment to be forging a lead in the field is a testament to their vision for the future, their intelligence and their dogged determination to dig deep into the ressearch. The fact that they are able to show industry that it is in their own interest and that this methodology will expand their profitability profile will greatly accelerate the efficiencies that this method offers all of us for our collective futures. Thank you for your hard work putting this channel together.
Once again I'm staggered how you week after week produce such high quality episodes. Well done, and thank you. Glad to see you've got further through the 100% clean, renewable.. book than I have!
Thank you. I really appreciate that feedback. The book is very very informative indeed, but quite heavy going!
@@JustHaveaThink but so so worth it
should be prescribed secondary school text/subject
Thank you for providing easily understandable overviews.
I completed a Masters in 2003 on Sustainabe Design in Innovative Manufacturing. The overwhelming takeaway from speaking to professors and professionals at that time was a general awareness of the need to change practices, but no real push to do so in the face of economic forces. The triple bottom line and circular economy where buzz words that got thrown around with little understanding (i.e: Financial orgs referring to profitability as "sustainable practice"). Life cycle assessments where a tick box exercise where companies paid an 'expert' to create a report using standards and measurements that no one bothered to check applied, or didn't have the expertise in house to question. There is still a lot of this going on with Bolt-on rather than Built-in business models, but it's so good to see a greater understanding with how these issues impact a company along with the wider economic, social and environmnetal pressures created from manufacturing. Good stuff by you again.
Well said Gavin.
Hey Gavin, may I stretch your thaught, as life cycle assesmnet is a crucial part for developping a sustainable project by developping a proper business case with all these data. However, maybe you could give me a hint on how and where to get the knowledge required to make this business case feasible. I mean where could you get the key knowledge to develop these businesses, apart from the finance
@@polytrek21 I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking for exactly, however for an overall view starting with Wikipedia, searching Triple Bottom Line will give you plenty of references to follow up.
A business case is basically a good argument to prove you’re worth investing in. This includes all the forms of resources required (expert staff, material accessibility, proper analysis of the market and environment you operate in, upcoming legal and political policies) and talking a language that investors talk. i.e: financial. The triple bottom line attempts to put into financial terms environmental, social and financial resources and impacts. So there is risk and mitigation within any analysis.
Of course you have to keep it grounded to the industry, the time frame of operation and place for it to be worthy of the effort.
I hope that helps
Having beautifully drawn animated graphics over the interview, splicing Zoom into your neat monitor on a shelf, cutting to your first-person commentary, brilliant editing...how are your presentations consistently better than what I see from huge media outlets? Kudos once again.
Hi Brett. That's extremely kind feedback. I really appreciate that :-)
Over 20 years ago we were able to practice 'there's no waste only products' thinking by combining emissions from a paper mill and a chemical plant. The latter had to invest in an expensive wastewater treatment plant to remove the excess nitrate they emitted. The neighbouring paper mill had a waste water treatment plant but too little nitrogen, and the oxygen input capacity was too low so they were dispersing pure oxygen in their treatment system. Luckily these two locations were not too far apart. By combining these two waste streams spectacular environmental and economical benefits were reaped on both sides. Very rewarding work.
The whole world needs to see this channel.
I'm 74 today. This video has provided me one of the few moments of conscious hope I've felt for our species in the nearly 60 years since I read Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring."
I'm 72 and I feel the same way
This is exactly the subject of my thesis! Incredibly interesting topic. Thank you for your inspiring videos
Genuine little upgrade to my understanding of the world. Well done.
I have been querying every relevant UA-cam expert (such as yourself) about the future of the recovery and repurpose materials science industry for months now. Amazingly, just lately I observe a sudden huge increase in the attention paid to the subject by many science channels. Very exciting. Thx.
As long as they keep away from our food ! Crisper woolly mammoths steak ! Abomination!
And this is only set to accelerate, Grizzly. The sooner the better!
@@bobknowles90 Ditto!
We’re you looking at consumer waste or primary industry waste? The rate of throwing perfectly good products out seems to have increased as the cost of repair has gone upon. I believe the manufacturer of any product must consider it end of life. This would change the way product are made and make it easier to recycle
@@helenkessler6012 I had a Dino steak with Fred and Barney, much better than mammoth! :D
Just commenting to boost engagement
engaging
You should have better insulted somebody, that would have engaged more people.
Hello there!
@@ggg148g -- Well, I think your politics (whatever they are) are complete rubbish!
@@altosack That's racist
Some ppl have finaly started to think about "cradle to cradle " design as make sure the product has a reusability and finally recycled. Like many decades ago when flour came in cloth sacks which were nearly always made into dishtowels, pillow cases ect. some of the manufacturers actually put sewing patterns on them.
You now that those was made of cotton?
You should lock up the footprint that cotton have. :-)
@@bknesheim ???
And lots of dresses and shirts were sewn of sacks and dyed with plants (like indigo) grown at home
And now I find myself buying "flower sack" dish towels on amazon which are the most absorbent and nicest, but never knew their name came from their original source. Thanks for the reminder. BTW, why are they so dang absorbent??! Maybe we can get a report on that please :)
@@PaperTools Raw cotton is incredibly absorbent.
Treatments like mordants and sizing found in most textiles like clothing are specifically applied to counteract staining and wear, and make it easier on the loom.
A food sack needs to be free of adulterants and is only intended to be used once.
A puff (cotton ball) soaks water better than a sponge, but it has no body when wet.
Certainly very enlightening, with much promise , living in a agricultural part of US I see first hand how the importance of Good stewardship of land and need to change how crops are produced and conservation of soil health play large part in this complicated equation.
I like this science. Back in the 80's as a Permaculture designer intent on changing the world, I kept on about 'total energy audits', tracking everything in and out wholistically (spelling intended), the whole deal because any unused yield of the system was a pollutant. Now in 2021, it is called "Life Cycle Assessment". fine, just do it because the time for it is way way overdue. Well done JHAT for this vid.
As always, your video was super interesting. I learned a lot!
Didn't know Life Cycle Assessment was a field of study. Thanks for the informative video.
Interesting! It's a complicated issue for sure. Keep up the good work. Thanks!
Thanks Amanda. Will do :-)
Always appreciate your thoughtful and balanced approach, Dave. There’s a lot of hyperventilating going on around this topic now. An opportune time to highlight this work.
Great to see us striving towards our Circular Economy using Cradle to Cradle thinking...all powered by renewably powered electricity.
nothing circular about mining minerals no matter what buzzwords are used.
Really like the idea to lithium extraction from brines via geothermal energy production. Here in the states I would love to see more talk about enhanced geothermal. It would be an excellent way for drillers and drilling infrastructure/supply chain folks to apply their skills in a new, less carbon intensive industry.
Brine evaporation is already solar, so it's pretty clean now.
@@incognitotorpedo42 yeah, good point, but I love the fact that this can actually be a value add for enhanced geo thermal, making the cost/benefit analysis of it better.
Maybe out of scope for the discussion but it left me wondering about the concentration of lithium salts in the brine solution and the energy required to extract it. Let's be transparent!
Great idea to bring highlight the value of lca into the energy transition equation.
Great work support from France
Thank you for this, it's a lot to chew on, but first impression is positive, and then I think about the time to achieve it versus ecological collapse in many parts of the world. This is great content, thank you again.
Yes, I see it as a race between the increasingly destructive effects of an out-of-balance climate system versus progress toward sustainable lifecycle management. At the moment, nothing is standing in the way of advancing climate change. Rich and powerful elites are standing in the way of progress toward life cycle optimization. I worry.
A fine comment. I agree particularly with the 'what we have to achieve, and the time we have to achieve it in around the world' phrasing . This knife edge balance, if I can phrase it as such, is highly visible in Africa East coast to west coast running in a line across the edge of the Sahel where the USA war machine maintains strategically placed military presence to protect USA corporate assets involved in maintaining their stranglehold over key resources in the region governed by corrupt despots who treat their people with violence and inhumanity while siphoning of the countries wealth for themselves. Now there's the real and visible problem that's causing mass extermination of people and destruction of the planet. Quite apart from the physics, chemistry, and other essential scientific research and development going on. Those US forces btw are strategically managed by USA from Europe and in particular the UK.
@@brianwheeldon4643 Yes, hegemony is bad. But climate change is worse, and is what this channel is about. As for ecological collapse of the world, the quickest way that will happen is for us to continue to burn fossil fuels. Climate change impacts 100% of the surface of the planet, while resource extraction affects a small fraction of a percent. Those numbers are very different. There's nothing wrong with being as clean as we can be, but we need to keep the different magnitudes of these problems in mind.
I was looking for articles and journals that can teach me about sustainable project management. This video totally sums up everything. I always wonder how you manage to comprehend yet explain the content in a simple and easy way.
Brilliant. Reminds me of agricultural societies of our past, which used everything from e.g. a cow: meat, skin, bones &c. , waste (almost) nothing.
I've recently been assessing my own life cycle!
My life cycle is still in the basement next to my thighmaster. It's being useful propping up my wine rack.
LCA is THE methodological framework to gain a holistic picture of the environmental consequences of our decisions. Would love to see more on LCA on the channel (e.g., how and if the cause-effect principle is upheld, transparency issues, greenwashing, to name just a few interesting issues)
Learning about total lifecycle assessment over a decade ago freaked me out. One really starts to get the concept of the earth's carrying capacity when one realizes how much energy and resources our consumer society requires to continue to grow.
Thank you, Dave. This direction of analysis is long under emphasized, and should be massively expanded. We can do a lot to replace energy with information.
One thing that comes to mind is the kinds of externalities that will occur with sudden changes in levels of consumption. Though I don't want to start digressing into large population loss scenarios and such, which are real but are a much different topic, it is a very valid aspect of what we do that in our future we may face sudden spikes up or down in need and that spikes like this can have their own quite surprising accelerating cost. One scenario one of my global warming heros talks about is that the world's nuclear plants could go critical in a case of sudden change when there are not enough qualified personnel to man them. These needs are not sensational, but actuarial, and we need to take them into account.
Lovely episode! Very professional! Reminds me of a Matt Ferrel video on sustainable Lithium mining with nanotechnology!
He also spoke with industry people!
Great content as always. When people are more aware of the differences in impact that stem from alternative approaches to the production of the same product there will be a scramble by companies to promote their lower impact strategies. Good work. Thanks
Thank you so much for your work.
Life Cycle Assessment looks to be both a very satisfying and lucrative field for young geologists, economists, mining engineers, chemical engineers, etc. It encompasses a lot of different disciplines and will be extremely important if companies are to optimize their activities for the best production with the lowest impact to the planet. Very important subject, and as usual, an interesting and well done video.
Fun fact: As a research tool, LCA goes back to the "energy studies" in the 1970s, and to the work of the Society for Environmental Toxicology And Chemistry (SETAC). It really is a well-established topic!
Thanks for these videos
As a Geologist, i finde this video very interesting. I like that not everything is "simplified" but there are also technical terms being used.
I'm very glad I'm subbed to your channel, new technology is nice but knowing the details is very useful.
Thanks for another great video! Last week's Just Have A Think was about what everyone who owns a home could do to minimize our personal environmental impact, and this week's is about how corporations can do the same. I really enjoyed this video, because it felt like we got a look at a whole new world that we (or maybe just I) never knew existed. I'm fascinated by new terms like "circular economy" "characterization factors" and "CO2 impact" and I'd love to learn more about them.
It looks like the basic idea is to take the hidden costs the economy has ignored until now and make them visible with carbon taxes. Once the government is taxing carbon in a truly comprehensive way then it makes sense to hire consultants like Minviro to reduce those taxes to a minimum. The good publicity that comes from being able to prove you have a low carbon footprint probably helps too, but at the end of the day it's the carbon tax that makes all this possible.
Every new technology brings it's own set of new problems and variables. That has always been true throughout man's history. the more complicated the technology, the more complicated we should expect the problems. Great overview- as your usual standards demand! FR
Thanks for a great video and a great channel. The work you are doing to help solve the climate change issue is really making a difference.
The Engineers including energy industry and environmental engineers have been working thru such issues for generations starting with such concepts as cost feasibility, TIC total installed cost, FFP fit for purpose etc. Don’t ignore what the can offer.
This was a really interesting interview
Important and informative talk 👍👍👍
Thanks for the info..👍
Thanks
Another excellent video 😎👍
Consumption, of all resources, is the problem! Making new things, buying new things, everyone trying to get richer. Nothing has changed. Good luck with that!
Great video as usual 👍👍👍👍👍👍
Amazing! In life, timing is everything. Just last night I had an amazing thread of conversations around this issue. Below is a copy and paste to some notable UA-camr experts. But in essence, I believe "below ground" mining will ultimately be supplanted by "above ground" ..."mining."
*
Grizzly
Grizzly
8 hours ago (edited)
@The Limiting Factor Amazing. Just like the CRISPER technology originated as a consequence of research in a entirely different scientific pursuit, for example, I believe that mining below ground will ultimately be supplanted by "mining" above ground in the form of capture/recycle/repurpose/re-engineer via materials science advances. BUT...the MOST fascinating aspect of this (for me) will be its spillover effect. IOWs, an entirely new and revolutionary economy will emerge in the materials sciences world that impacts ALL EXPLOITED physical resources on the planet. And I believe virtually no one on the planet yet realizes this...YET!
And more than just total life-cycle manufacturing, it will literally be Star Trek like "replicator" technologies at both the consumer and commercial levels - even impacting 3D printing. And I believe we will look back one day and come to realize that it all began with the massive demand manifested by the global push toward electrification and battery storage and the disruptive need for metals like Lithium and Nickel, etc.
Watch this "space"...
Excuse the pun :-)
Just excellent :)
This is an ideal locale to mention that it could be possible to make steel from iron ore by the controlled burning of used vehicle tyres rather than coal. However some grades of coal are an ideal basic material for manufacturing high quality graphite and graphene..
This is data-driven decision making which is ideal for refining calculation criteria as more knowledge is gained
Save Our Planet
LCA is a must.
Hello! I loved this video as always! It is impressive how much knowledge your Channel includes- I am like a sponge that is just absorbing all the data! However, I would love if in your upcoming videos you explain a bit more about REE (risky supply chain, exploration, potentials in Europe, recycling etc. KEEP ON WITH GREAT WORK, CHEERS! :)
EXCELLENT...keep on keeping on....G
...off grid and solar powered...here 🤩
I think that one of the problems for companies is that they do not have the high level managers able to put this kind of thinking into practice.
Reckn its because the training to be a manager kills off this mind set
Excellent work Dave. Haere pai
Another material that I hope gets utilized in the energy market is thorium.
Monizite is a very slightly radioactive mineral that ends up in mine tailings in rare earth mines. It is rich in thorium, as well as neodymium, selenium and so forth. Because thorium is a radioactive substance, it requires EPA and NRC approval to store it, making the mining of rare earths in the United States expensive or even unprofitable. If thorium was being used in our energy mix, it wouldn't be an environmental waste, but a useful material and fuel for low cost nuclear energy.
Good to see real world issues being raised, it happens far too rarely. The molten salt reactor, from the thorium, would be a great addition to our generation base.
I really want to get lifecycle assessment data added to the product pages on Amazon.
Also, it would be cool to be able to sort products by the price add to get lower carbon, so we can start new businesses to lower it
There's a British story The Railway Children where the kid points out to the station master that he was mining their big coal pile to get some and not nicking it. That kid was ahead of the curve.
I enjoy your videos. This was great. You've spoken a lot about battery electric vehicles. Have you ever thought of doing a video on hydraulic hybrid vehicles?
"To use a mechanical metaphor, fixing a tractor isn’t a theoretical question. Intentions don’t matter- the tractor either works or it doesn’t. This becomes a life-and-death matter when applied to the environment." -- ROB URIE MARCH 5, 2021
Well done video. Though I disagree that wind and solar are all that much better. There energy density is balance by consuming huge amounts of land and mining to support them. These factors in your video are the main reason I tout Nuclear power, particularly thorium. Which currently is able to beat coal power [ThorCon]. The possibility of using structures that are already built, could be utilized by thorium reactors. Transmission lines are already available. The mining of thorium is very simple, it available in the waist of mining possesses around the world - everywhere. And the thorium reactors can consume old nuclear waist as a fuel source too. All while having the most energy dense material that can carry our energy load now and a resource that will last for thousands of years.
Pretty sure we are going to see this get a bump in a big way once the moon/Mars efforts ramp up. The shear cost of sending materials is going to force them to pick materials that can be reused vs just chucked.
We are chucking out millions of appliances & devices every year that have motors in them that could and should be repurposed as Micro/Mini renewable generators. If we repurposed all those chucked out motors we could build a Wind/Hydro Gene for every home in a few years!.
It would be great if repurposing things became a thing... a fun hobby and a useful pass time to involve youngsters and kids of all ages
We have a fully functional pedal powered washing machine. It doesn't need a spare motor (that's my job) but it has made a 1989 washing machine carry on working into 2021! ...and beyond hopefully!
I don't need to go to the gym, and I get clean laundry after my workout :-)
Everything needs to be recycled.
All corporations producing products need to use recycled materials in their manufacturing process.
Everyone needs to try to be more sustainable in their life.
Of course we could reduce our demand for these metals by 1/3rd or 1/4th by simply using smaller batteries. We can either produce smaller battery BEVs for city driving, or with proper charging infrastructure, PHEVs can be utilized to reduce the average driver's gasoline use by anywhere between 70% - 100%. This would involve ensuring everyone has access to a nightly charger, and it would necessitate installing more work place chargers. For most people, that would reduce their commuter based emissions by 100%, and now we just have road trips to consider.
Long range BEVs require a MASSIVE build out of charging infrastructure to run parallel to the gas infrastructure for 20-40 years, and they'll likely involve the installation of large battery installations at those charging centers along main routes to manage peak charging periods with excessive energy costs. Instead of this, we could just stick to gasoline and use the existing infrastructure, and rely on PHEVs running in a more efficient hybrid mode versus ICEs. Overall emissions per capita for all annual miles driven could easily be cut by 90%.
If we wanted to make the process even greener, we could begin producing near net zero e-fuels to replace gasoline, and replace existing gasoline pumps at gas stations with e-fuel pumps. These fuels aren't a solution to replacing 100% of gasoline use today because we can't produce enough in an environmentally friendly and cost effective way . However, if through the use of PHEVs we could reduce our global gasoline use by 80-90%, then suddenly these fuels become a realistic solution. Sure, they'd cost far more than gasoline / diesel, but each driver would also be using significantly less of them... usually on longer trips. And it doesn't necessarily need to be biofuel produced using biomass. There are already solutions underway to produce renewable liquid fuel from CO2, Hydrogen, and energy. See Porsche's e-fuel endeavor.
This is a completely sustainable solution that requires far less mining, far less mining related pollution, and far less energy used in the production of battery cells.
SSBs could eventually be a thing, and with their faster charging, they could allow for EVs with batteries that are a fraction of the size of current long range BEVs. Sure, on a long trip you may need to stop to charge more, but each charging stop will take just slightly longer than filling with gas. Again, the issue with this, however, is that we'll need loads of charging infrastructure installed. Since these batteries can charge so quickly, it may involve new higher power chargers as well. Further, SSBs could actually improve how PHEVs work and reduce the amount of liquid fuel they would need over their lifetimes.
Ove Arup started the process with a whole life cycle green purchasing guide and were jumped on by Thatcher. Lost in spaccccccce
Hey can you go a few videos on more ecological issues like deforestation, illegal logging, clear cutting, over fishing, and habitat lost by devolpment? I know your channel is more renewable energy focused but I sure there's a lot of interesting solutions for stopping them.
Some older videos go in that direction
There was some info about that when he spoke about vegetarian diet.
You know, if human population was reduced to 1/5 of current levels the planet could recover
@@jimurrata6785 maybe you can start
@@ronwesilen4536 it's not like I won't consider taking you with me! 😉
No one wants to accept that it is that advent of modern medicine and the industrial revolution that are the root of our pillaging the planet.
And no one likes compulsory sterilization. (or at least the idea of it)
But facts are facts, and it's not that humans *exist* , it's that too damn _many_ exist.
Amazing. A century or more ago we started sucking oil out of the ground. Now we're sucking lithium out of the ground!
The difference is that lithium is not an energy source, so that's not good actually. We not only have to mine it, we have to turn it into batteries and find some way to power them. Our energy supplies are degrading.
I have heard on this channel and from other sources that renewable are now less expensive than traditional sources of energy... unfortunately this is not my experience: I run sustainability projects for a fortune 200 company and I am constantly quoting energy projects and, from what I see in different markets worldwide, natural gas is still the most cost effective form of energy. Even to reduce carbon production, a cogeneration system can reduce 1 Ton of CO2e annually for $500, while a solar installation is $1500 to $2000... I would be very interested in more details on these type of data, thanks!
Just a suggestion but have you had a look at the 'ambari' liquid metal battery. It looks like a real addition to the panoply of industrial responses to the need to diversify storage options?
Huh...my secret dream job industry exists!
I'd like to hear a solid comparison of full battery EVs versus good hybrids from a lifetime CO2 perspective. Since EV production creates more up-front CO2 (and other impacts) and then due to electricity being produced in large part from fossil fuels they aren't as good at avoiding CO2 as they might be with a fully green grid, hybrids may often be as good and sometimes better, even on a lifetime assessment basis. Also EV manufacturing is running up against battery production limits, so a LOT more hybrids could be produced than full EVs, within those constraints - so more cars producing less CO2 much sooner. At least until we make big progress on greening the grid.
Have you evaluated compressed air vehicles(CAV)? They don't use batteries; the carbon fiber tanks are recycleable and CAVs are very responsive. Search for the French company MDI. Also search for Australian compressed air rotory engine.
Spoudumene vs. Brine may be closer in impact than you think. Brine uses large tailings ponds that work with solar evaporation increases humidity in the area therefore contributing to climate change.
Spoudumene could mostly run on a solar concentrator of a similar or smaller footprint without adding humidity into our climate. Agreed the initial infrastructure cost would have a bigger impact and cost but doesn't continuously contribute to climate change like brine.
Would make a great powerplant too if located in the proper location
I wish I was part of this field of work because I would look at all the emissions and not overlook H2O.
A simplified way to look at this is CO2 directly contributes to global warming and H2O is directly responsible for climate change. The complete picture is like the weather a little difficult to predict
The problem with brine is the process uses lots of water, in locations where potable water is scarce. You also have to do it there, the whole point is having a location with lots of sunny days to dry the brine and no rain that would wash away all that lithium. Also, you of course want the ponds right next to where you got the lithium brine in the first place to keep the transport costs down. The effects on local humidity are minimal, it was a dry desert before and a dry desert it remains...which is actually opposite of what people would prefer.
Concentrated solar thermal has a flaw that it only works with direct sunlight. If you put up stationary PV panels they will produce little less power on cloudy days and when sun isn't directly above, but they will still produce power. If you don't have tracking mirrors or it is even little cloudy the CSP will not work, so basically you want to build your concentrated solar plant in similar area as those brine ponds. Now you have to haul the spoudumene longer distances...
Thank you for the insight. I am still woundering about how many m3 of water gets released in the air and at what rate. Even if you are correct about it not adding humidity to immediate surroundings it is still making a global impact. Adding additional energy in weather systems as much as 1000W/m2 in ideal weather at the equator.
Is that factored in to your environmental impact assessments?
Thanks for your responses
@@lukeskywalker7457 The incoming energy from the Sun will come whether there are few ponds or not, and the water would end up evaporating anyway.
Though it is true whether an amount of water ends in the brine ponds or flows downriver and is absorbed by plants and the ground for a while could change where and when the clouds it forms will rain down again, the main issue is that the water diverted from local rivers to make brine is not going to be used on watering crops or drunk by humans, which can be a major issue in a region with low amount of water.
That is, a major issue for the human and animal inhabitants, but on global scale whether it will be maybe few hundred miles distant or rains forming few days sooner or later is equivalent to a minor rounding error.
@AnalystPrime the ponds are likely to be built in dry climates like you mentioned earlier. I am not assuming that all the ponds are made on desert land (free of vegetation or very little vegetation) but the ones that are will no longer reflect as much infrared back into space.
That is why we are fighting against fossil fuels in the first place is because CO2 is an infrared absorber unlike the other gasses found in air other than H2O.
Lithium batteries in the auto industry will definitely be better than burning fossil fuels regardless of these initial impacts.
For my area I just prefer rainfall over a hail storm and less violent winds. Some places humidity reaches 100% more regularly therefore body temperature can not be regulated naturally and are at risk of heat stroke if not sheltered.
By reducing humidity wherever reasonable we can make a difference. I know the general public is only starting to be continuous about CO2 emissions but that alone will not be enough with our growing global energy and food demand.
This conversation actually gave me an idea how to make brines more efficient. Thanks for your time
Excellent video, as usual. Do they have an accurate estimation of the EROEI of solar panel ? That one is very difficult to find.
Maybe there is plenty of Lithium, but is there enough of the other resources to make the products that lithium batteries are used in? We already hear of shortage of microchip materials. Add to that the C02 added to the atmosphere from building these "clean" products. The HUGE elephant in the room though is how does the world move from consumer based economies, where people "buying stuff" can be 80% of an economy!
I don't know, perhaps make life easier for people who don't want to buy things.
I have an idea called Netherlandisation:
Make cycling and walking and transit safer, and make them faster and more convenient than driving. In the Netherlands, they don't even make new bikes because they buy used!
By the way, we still need electric cars, and they're better than petrol and biofuel, especially in developing nations which need to reduce pollution and which can use EVs as home batteries in blackouts.
Another idea to reduce consumption is related to real estate: Maruko living. I call it that because I first saw how nice it is in the cartoon Chibi Maruko-Chan.
Basically, the last son to get married doesn't move out of the house, but brings the wife to live with the parents who later become grandparents who live with their grandchildren.
What's more is for agriculture: seasonal eating of local produce. Instead of importing strawberries from Spain, British people can promote local agriculture and decrease food miles by buying British strawberries in Summer and eating preserved strawberries (jam, fruit leather, dried or candied fruit) in winter.
Eating frozen broccoli is more nutritious than eating fresh, so instead of importing Spanish broccoli, we should freeze purple British broccoli to reduce food miles and support local agriculture.
Supporting local agriculture and demanding more diversity from local crops promotes regenerative agriculture because monocultures are usually made for export.
If cars and vans are a big enough problem (most definitely likely not), perhaps we can have horses within cities on roads, with battery electric robots cleaning up after them.
Of course, bicycles will be the main method of transport besides efficient public transit.
Shortage of microchip materials are a political thing that you can talk to Trump about and you can just stop "buying stuff". I do not think anybody will stop you.
Dopants are an incredibly small ratio to silicon in semiconductors.
But crucial.
Then we have things like phosphors used in LED's.
They are not great for the environment either, but you might argue the benefit outweighs the impact.
@@موسى_7 horses? do you want to grow food for horses or humans? can't do both on finite farmland.
Please do a story on energy production by using magnets and magnetism - I believe this technology will cause the need for solar, wind, nuclear etc along with batteries for energy storage for general use to be superseded. Batteries may still be needed for cars though.
"energy production by using magnets and magnetism". There's no such thing, magnetism transmutes energy, there's no production of it. Solar radiation (Sun nuclear fusion), exothermic chemical reaction, nuclear fission & parasitizing ancient collision + nuclear fission heat (geothermal) are the only energy sources that exist or ever will here, except plus on-site nuclear fusion a theoretical future possibility.
@@grindupBaker They use nuclear to turn water to steam to turn a turbine to create electricity. Solar great but inefficient collector and diminishing over time and need to replace every 10 years or so. Wind big expensive turbines that burn out and they have not yet figured out how to recycle the stuff they are made out of.
Magnets, using repelling magnets to turn a turbine instead of steam, no pollution, no waste, little to no noise, no explosions, lasts for multiple decades or more before bearings need replacing apart from that little to no fixing and the magnets don't loose there magnetism over time - there are people playing around with this - There is no such thing in mainstream working reality YET, but it is on the workbenches in backyard sheds. Just though "just have a think", might look into it maybe find some of the folk who DO have knowledge about that type of stuff - would be interesting to know how far out of mainstream it is.
@@poppete you cannot produce energy with magnets.
Another great video. Do you have a linky for the book at the very beginning please?
Hi Dave, excellent content as always.
I've seen deep-sea mining hitting the news more often lately, and I wonder whether Minviro has already an impact assessment on mineral resources obtained through the proposed processes for deep-sea mining (such as scooping polymetallic nodules from the seabed).
Proponents of this industry sell it as being "the" solution to supply low-impact minerals for the ever increasing demand of battery metals, but I'm specially skeptic about the logistics impact of outsourcing minerals from the middle of the ocean.
What is your view on this?
If you take an electric car and a ice car of roughly the same size the manufacturing carbon footprint is equal at 1st mile all carbon footprint comparisons wither away with every carbon oozing fill up ⛽ until the ice car gets replaced before 150,000 but the all electric will keep reducing its life cycle cost to around 500,000 miles or more.
A small note regarding your computer. Apple is not environmentally friendly since it prevents repairs forcing users to throw things away, resulting in e-waste ;)
Stop whinging and make the best of owning a computer. Make the world a better place.
@@Flumstead What do you mean?
@@bjarkih1977 ???????
@@bjarkih1977 It's a troll.
I wonder if it is possible to also extract Uranium from geothermal brines. It seems plausible as there are many estimates that indicate that the radioactive decay of Uranium and Thorium are responsible for about 50-90% of the heat production of geothermal energy.
So love the channel I question some of your end results we clearly have wind farms in the United States that were built over 20 years ago they never generated as much energy as was required to make these raw materials into windmills. CO2 creation fossil fuel consumption the complete compilation of assets I'm pretty sure it's the wrong direction... It's pretty clear they were on enough raw materials on earth to deal with the potential building of solar panels and the needed battery technology in the electric transport sector and energy storage sector.
If we scale up the need for electric energy based on perceived EV adaptation the electric grid's gonna be severely overtaxed as it is currently designed and operated, so even though we say we're doing the full accounting we're clearly not using sense making to come up with a true plan one in which takes an energy density into account... peace
Presumably, this means that recycling batteries is far more Carbon efficient that extracting raw materials. After all, a load of batteries have a far higher percent of the raw materials than an ore of these materials. Also they are pretty close to where then are needed.
Absolutely correct. That's why JB Straubel, one of the founders of Tesla, started a battery recycling company.
Mining will benefit from site dedicated SMRs small modular reactors...
This whole concept of low impact material relies on the comparison at constant and finite demand level for the material. Demand is the limit in those comparisons. But if it's the impact that is the limit, meaning that we are willing to extract until reaching a certain level of environmental impact, then there is no real difference at the end. Demand will just grow for low impact material until it has significant impact.
Now our world seems much more limited by the environmental impact than by demand.
I hope that solid-state magnesium batteries make a breakthrough so that we don't have to worry about lithium.
Why? Lithium is more abundant than magnesium.
@@Mathis218337
Magnesium is 7th most abundant, and Lithium... 33rd.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust
@@theatheistpaladin There is a difference between how abundant something is and how you get it.
Magnesium you get from open pit mining, A lot of the Lithium comes from evaporating brine.
There is a huge difference between the impact.
@@googoo7750 brine pools are not really dug though. And the second place lithium comes from is sea water. Both do not require big holes in the ground
@@bknesheim
Way to move the goal post in a conversation that you weren't in... It was literally about abundance. We already use magnesium in abundance, and so we would be already mining for it. Mg is about 3 USD per kg, while Li is about 11 USD. And you still have to have some coblat with Li which also isn't cheap or environmentally friendly. There is no perfect solution.
I can’t seem to find the right words to communicate this, but I have a deep sense that everything we’re talking about here in this episode, is part of something much bigger...but something that is not even near being realized/recognized yet. I’m talking of the day when materials science manifests a new reality; a new reality that says “we can DO anything, WITH anything, anywhere, anytime...” And the day will come that society will look back at the massive demand for all things “EV” as THE MOMENT it all began...began to occupy our consciousness - and never looked back.
I see the opposite happening. I see technology reaching its limits and resources running out. There have been no significant new inventions for quite some time now.
@@Withnail1969 ...I "see" the opposite..." Dude, all I can say is YOU NEED NEW GLASSES. No disrespect. But please don't short yourself. This is exploding all around us as never...Yes, NEVER before in history. I simply don't have time to teach you. But for YOUR sake, change the way you "think," b/c it is holding you back at the most amazing time in the history of our species. Don't do that to yourself. Stay well.
"The 21st-Century is not a race TO the new economy...the 21st-Century is a race to DEFINE the new economy." -GM
@@grizzlymartin1 Videos on youtube promising this or that are not reality.
@@Withnail1969 Do your homework. It's up to you not to be blinded by your own dogma. Again, do your homework. It will pay HUGE dividends TO YOU! Stay well.
@@grizzlymartin1 I've already seen all the videos and researched their claims. They are snake oil. Graphene batteries, Perovskite solar cells, etc.
Too complicated for my simple mind, Dave, but I'm sure glad you and others are looking closely at life-cycle assessment. I'll express my concern in Patreon.
Just have a think! Is bitcoin mining the most wasteful invention of our age. Should we allow it using national grid power. Have a think discuss.
Granite as a Geothermal reservoir rock looks weird to me, due to granite usually having very low porosity
Now that humankind is beginning to rethink just how much energy consumption there is in producing and using technologies, we must also examine the runaway usage concerning that of our present wireless communication technologies. Two items where the growth seems to be exponential are that of cryptocurrencies and wireless versus wired or cabled transmission of data. Using antennas to broadcast digital electromagnetic frequencies requires multiple times more energy than the alternative method stated above. Would it not make sense then to cable as much data as possible going forward rather than just focusing simply on short-term monetary savings, corporate profits, and user convenience as it relates to mitigating impending global climate catastrophe? There are also many other advantages to cabling our electronic interactions.
Could you take a look at CONCITO's new climate database?
Interesting. Since either molten salt reactor power (very plausibly to be price competitive with (even "dirty") coal; etc), or biologically correct (regenerative) agriculture (also economically efficient) could, by itself, stop the increase in CO2, this doesn't seem crucially important in the big picture - other than in quantifying the fallacies of "renewables", and other techs, as large scale solutions.
Great example of "up speak" .
There are tons of socioeconomic/geopolitical implications as well. As we migrate from an oil dominated world energy sector and move into technologies that aren't too friendly to baseload volatility, lithium will become more of a raw material at play. The same type of instability we've historically seen as a result of the demand of hydrocarbons will almost inevitably emerge as the demand for alternate energy raw materials shift from one sector to another.
Elon Musk's famous, tactless twitter quip of "We'll coup who ever we want to"[3] made green energy lefties somewhat aware of this. Bolivia holds the worlds largest natural reserves of lithium[1]. The coup of progressive, wildly popular indigeonous Bolivian head-of-state Evo Morales' exile into Mexico & his vocalization to nationalize the lithium industry seems a little...too timely.. for some progressives (myself included). I've linked down an FP article as well as a Counterpunch article to give 'both sides of the story' from reputable sources from the left & the right.
This chap certainly is doing a pretty good job w/r/t modelling those indirect costs and externalities, but LC(C)A fails to factor in the 'human element' (greed). I certainly can't blame him for that, but it'll just be a matter of time before a certain purveyor of "bringing democracy" to other-nation states shores concots a reason to expand their empire. (If anyone wants EU'er wants to get married so I can develop an exit strategy & and you can gain US citizenship, hit me up)
[1] www.nsenergybusiness.com/features/six-largest-lithium-reserves-world/
[2] foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/13/coup-morales-bolivia-lithium-isnt-new-oil/
[3] www.counterpunch.org/2020/07/29/we-will-coup-whoever-we-want-elon-musk-and-the-overthrow-of-democracy-in-bolivia/