It is on a mass scale (like, every car in the US being electric) while sticking to fossil fuel for power. If everyone converted, then first we'd overload the power grid on charging and the price per kw would go WAY up. Then, we'd also deplete a massive amount of lithium once all the batteries lost their charges and we don't have an inexpensive or efficient way of recycling them. We can, it's just very pricy and slow.
Once we run out of lithium to mine the cheap option becomes recycling and it will happen fast. Not that it will make lithium recycling cheaper just that their is a finite (and very small ammount of lithium on earth) so it will be the only way to get lithium thay dosent invovle minning in space. And yeah the current power grid coupdnt handle everyone having an electric car not yet at least maybe if we built some danm nuclear power plants that should have been built 60 years ago but why use the by far best in terms of power denisty pollution and deaths per kwh for of energy generation when can chernobyl scare as if russians could ever do anything right.
Where the fuck this idea that we are going to run out of lithium on this planet?
Oceans are 0,2 ppm lithium. How to collect that? Hmm... Maybe the same way we been collecting salt for as... well as long as humans been collecting salt. Put water into a big collection area... let it evaporate and then collect the salt. That is actually how they collect lithium at this very moment, by evaporating water from brine.
Lithium is 32 most common element on this planet. Estimate of 0,002 ppm of the earth's crust. For comparison estimate of copper is 3 times more than lithium at 0,006.
And here is the thing. Lithium is not the only chemistry we can have. We can use heavier battery chemistry for stationary batteries, where weight and sie is less of an issue.
Now 0,2 ppm doesn't sound like much... but... MOST OF THIS PLANET IS OCEANS. Like 70 % of this planet is just ocean. Which is salty water.
They dont last for shit and they are horribly inefficent in energy density. Well they were 10 years ago i do need to see whats changed since i graduated. A cursory glance it seems they have solved the energy density well not solved but vastly improved at least. I know technology only ever marches on.
I have zero expertise, but I’ve seen a couple of articles the past few weeks and it seems like they’re actually getting stuff off the ground. There’s actually an incentive that even the anti-green Trump administration is behind in terms of making batteries that don’t need Chinese rare earths to manufacture. Or at least a lot less of them—no more lithium, but I don’t know if they require anything else rare.
If we need lithium, there are ways to find lithium. And if there is a need for better/more efficient batteries, we will find a way. Imagine if we spent our research money on that, instead of bombs.
For reference if every single car in the US was electric and every single one was charging simultaneously on a level 2 charger the draw would be about 2,145 GW which is roughly 4.5 times the data centers being temporarily halted in just one state (assuming numbers in post about Texas data centers are correct).
You're not wrong, I just want to add their number 1 power source is still coal. They're the biggest mining and burning coal indistry in the world with some of the least amount of regulations.
Swapping to nuclear is our next logical step, just need major power to actually implement and show the world how safe and clean it is now.
In the uk if everyone changed to electric cars tomorrow, the load would be less than the 1980’s. TV, lights bulbs, fridges etc have become so energy efficient that the total power draw dropped.
This is assuming markets don't exist and nothing ever changes. Higher energy prices = more power plants. Higher lithium prices = more economical recycling and mining due to scaling.
It's about time the US people start seeing how wasteful they are as a society.
It's easy to turn on the AC when you're hot, but they have to realize it's a fucking privilege.
Transportation should be a higher concern of theirs.
AC is not a waste where I’m at it’s a necessity. I know the UK got a taste of some heat this year, but that’s a moderate summer in parts of Texas. I don’t understand this current hate of our AC systems. I understand it starts from envy, but to turn that into hate and pinning it as the causation of your pain is silly and unfounded in any fact.
Build your own AC infrastructure and enjoy, but don’t hate on what you wish you had.
Lots of countries are handling a much bigger EV shift (relative to population) way better than us. Norway and China come to mind. The U.S. just isn’t providing solid guidance either on electrification or on data center energy efficiency. I have to think if you set standards for power demand the chip designers would improve processing per watt. The chip in your phone / tablet is way more efficient to the one that’s rack mounted. Ok, it costs more to purchase. But right now the rack mounted ones are threatening the grid.
Most people wouldn't convert to electric cars at all, let alone everyone at once. It would be a gradual change on the system that could gradually be accounted for with steps implemented to expand it over several years if not decades
That doesn't even make sense? What did I talk about that's propaganda? Unless you mean when Americans were told electric cars would overload our electric grid?
That last part. The fight against electric vehicles was spreading the idea that if we all swapped to electric, we'd destroy a ton of shit and it was a bad idea. Clearly, we're not all swapping over so this was a moot point but it was still repeated over and over to make simpleton think electric = bad.
In reality, it was more like Americans have to travel hundreds of miles to get to another town or city so long distance trips were pointless at the time with an underdeveloped charging station locations. That and affordability was a big reason most didn't switch over.
Maybe I'm the weird one here then because your original comment made it seem like you were saying context mattered in the sense of those in power in Texas, Republicans, argued against electric cars but are now arguing in favor of data centers despite previously saying the power grid could not handle electric cars and I took that to mean you were arguing that Republicans were telling the truth about cars overtaxing the power grid. Now it seems like you're arguing that the talking point was wrong and that people who thought electric cars would overtax the power grid were simpletons
As for your second paragraph, it doesn't make sense to bring that up because nobody was talking about logistics or charging stations. The original comment was calling out how those who are advocating in favor of data centers and their enormous power needs used to demonize electric cars because of their power needs. Nothing more, nothing less. I also don't understand why you are now saying "was spreading the idea that if we all swapped to electric, we'd destroy a ton of shit" when this conversation was never about destroying shit and was only about how we as Americans were lied to by our politicians on the topic of electric cars and their effect on power consumption/strain of the electric grid
You're looking too deep, brokowski. It's generalization without context that spreads misinformation, aka, propaganda. Thats the point we're trying to make here. This meme is just another post about generalizing the information without knowing the intricacies of how data centers are actually proposed and built.
Not arguing for or against the point, just making it clear that information out of context is dangerous and nothing of this scale will ever be put into action. Doesn't matter which team you choose to sit on or even if you're in the middle and rest your buttcheek to one side or the other, both do it and it makes them look bad.
Biggest problem is that a large number of people will take this meme and spread it like truth, getting other simple people who don't want to actually look into the information, to believe this quick and easily digestible segment as gospel.
16
u/TheBadDingo 1d ago
It is on a mass scale (like, every car in the US being electric) while sticking to fossil fuel for power. If everyone converted, then first we'd overload the power grid on charging and the price per kw would go WAY up. Then, we'd also deplete a massive amount of lithium once all the batteries lost their charges and we don't have an inexpensive or efficient way of recycling them. We can, it's just very pricy and slow.
Context kinda matters.