this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
207 points (85.6% liked)
Technology
57472 readers
5914 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Eh...
Batteries take "rare earth metals" like cobalt.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-24/cobalt-mining-in-the-congo-green-energy/100802588
There's an environmental cost, and a huge cost on a personal level to the people who mine it.
It's like if your house is burning down, but then a flood comes and puts out the fire.
Sure, the fire is out, but now your house is underwater. We're just switching one problem for another, not really solving anything
Edit:
Not sure why so many people think this comment is pro fossil fuels...
But I'm not going to repeatedly explain the very basic concept that with two bad things, one is sometimes less bad.
I really really thought people would already know that...
Some Lithium-Ion batteries use Cobalt, but many don't. Lithium-Iron-Phosphate, for example, is a popular variant without any Cobalt. There is a push going on to move to battery chemistries without Cobalt or to reduce the actual amount of Cobalt where it is still required.
Lithium production does still take an insane amount of water to produce
Wait until you hear about the oil refining process!
My car meme groups keep recirculating a shitty gotcha anti-EV screenshot of a post listing out how many tons of rock get processed for the minerals, the gallon-per-hour rate of the mining trucks, generators, transportation, blah blah blah as if petroleum just naturally drips put of weeds and into their gas tanks. But I guess if you dilute into the ocean and atmosphere, it doesn't really count because you can't see it.
Or in the case of Canada, to separate oil out of the ground!