Electric car thread

[old man emu]

30 minutes ago, facthunter said:

What a crock of BS that article is. Nev

You have obviously never suffered from motion sickness.

[facthunter]

Of course I have but that's not a likely cause. Nev

[octave]

I can only speak for myself, but especially as I have gotten older, I have become more sensitive to motion sickness, not throwing up, but feeling nauseous in cars and trains.   On our recent trip around NZ on the South Island, we rented a car (IC). As we were travelling with my son and his partner, he did all the driving, so my wife and I were relegated to the back.  As usual, I felt off colour (but suffered in silence), especially on winding roads.  Back on the North Island, we did a road trip in the Tesla, again wife and I sat in the back.  Same winding roads, however, this time I felt completely fine.   I have no idea whether the form of propulsion played any part in it.  I do wonder whether the glass roof played some part in it. I even found I could read something on my phone.

 

I do not know whether this is really a thing or not. I few things do occur to me, though.   There is a suggestion that regenerative braking might be one issue.  I guess one you reduce or turn it off, Simple. I do have doubts about this. As a passenger, I cannot tell if regenerative braking is engaged or not.   Another thing mentioned in the article is the brisk acceleration of most EVs. 

 

Another suggestion in the article is   -   "Another factor is the lack of engine noise. The familiar sound of a gasoline engine helps the brain prepare for movement." -      I mean, if there is anything in this, are we stuck with having noisy vehicles?   

 

I have no idea if there is solid science behind this, but certainly it is the first time I have heard this.  I am sure there was resistance to getting off a horse and into a car or plane.

 

[spacesailor]

Some upmarket EVs have a ' designer motion noise ' , that plays on the  media player .

I think that is a complete waste of time & money .

but the kids may enjoy it !.

Zooooom .

spacesailor

 

[onetrack]

Sounds to me like a biased article spreading FUD over EV's. Possibly, the reason behind any motion sickness in EV's is the very rapid acceleration and deceleration of them, which is much higher than IC-engined cars.

[old man emu]

I agree with Onetrack's suggestion that it is the change in velocity over time (acceleration) that acts on the vestibular systyem of the inner ear. Octave mentions being ill on winding roads. That indicates sideways movement affected the vestibular system. If you are a passenger in car, the bad driving rechnique of the driver can create acceleration effects. (I'm using "accleration" as a term for inceasing and decreasing velocity so I don have to write "deceleration")

[spacesailor]

Also poor 'shock absorbers' . Can brind on travel sickness .

spacesailor

 

[pmccarthy]

"Your average EV has six times more mineral content than a petrol- or diesel-powered vehicle. All those metals need to be dug, scraped, blasted, or leached out of the earth. There is massive demand for batteries as countries eye up ambitious zero-emissions targets. But what's the cost?" 

 

This is the intro from an article in Business Insider. See The true cost of the global resource race to make electric car batteries

 

While I expect most of the people here will leap to discredit MSN or the authors, please do some research first. Let me give you the true situation using copper as an example. This is based on my own data and calculations, so don't ask me for a reference.

 

Minera Escondida operates two open pit copper mines in the Atacama Desert, 170 km southeast of Antofagasta in northern Chile. It is currently the highest producing copper mine in the world. I have been there.

 

Construction of the mine started in 1988, which including the stripping of over 180 million tonnes of waste to get to the orebody. If we amortise that over the last 37 years, it is about 5 million tonnes per year. They mine about 340 million tonnes of rock (ore and waste) per year, so total mining including the pre-strip is 345 million tonnes. From this they produce 1.4 million tonnes of copper. So, they mine 246 tonnes of rock to get one tonne of copper.

 

A Tesla model S contains 82 kg of copper, so it requires mining 20 tonnes of rock. And this is the highest producing mine, others are less efficient. Goldman Sachs are forecasting 73 million EV sales globally in 2040. This would require mining 1.46 billion tonnes of rock if all mining was as efficient as Escondida.

 

And of course there are many other minerals involved. Nickel is currently in the news with Indonesia stripping vast areas of forest to strip-mine lateritic nickel.

 

The madness has to stop before we destroy our planet.

[octave]

Copper can be recycled, oil can't.  

 

In terms of copper availability, according to the International Copper Association.

 

"Despite an ever-increasing demand for copper, there is more of the metal available today than at any other time in history. This, together with the ability to infinitely recycle copper, means that society is extremely unlikely to deplete the copper supply, and copper will continue to contribute to global initiatives, like the SDGs and clean energy."

 

Copper Demand and Long-Term Availability

 

 

 

and according to AI

 

 

While the demand for copper is increasing, especially with the push for renewable energy and electrification, it's highly unlikely we will run out of copper in the foreseeable future. There are large reserves and resources of copper, and recycling efforts and new technologies are expected to help meet the growing demand. 

 

Here's a more detailed explanation:

• Abundant Resources:

  Copper is naturally present in the Earth's crust, and there are vast reserves and resources that have been discovered and are potentially profitable. 

   
• Recycling:

  Copper is highly recyclable, and recycling efforts are expected to play a significant role in meeting future demand. 

   
• Innovation and Exploration:

  Mining exploration and new technologies are constantly contributing to the long-term availability of copper. 

   
• Increased Reserves:

  Despite increased demand, reserves of copper have grown, and there's more identified copper available than ever before. 

   
• Demand vs. Supply:

  While some studies predict a potential shortfall in the near future, others suggest that supply will be adequate to meet demand with continued exploration, recycling, and technological advancements. 

   
• Economic Factors:

  Copper prices may fluctuate based on supply and demand, but scarcity is unlikely to be a major long-term issue. 

   
• Importance for Green Transition:

  Copper is crucial for renewable energy technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles, so meeting demand is essential for the green transition. 

[onetrack]

Peter, copper mining has been ongoing for millenia. It's a precious metal as well as an industrial metal, and it's never thrown away - even the lowest bottom feeder knows that copper is a valuable resource, and will recycle it.

 

An interesting point is that copper use in coinage and currency is reducing, primarily due to cost reduction demands, and primarily due to reduced coinage use, and a lack of copper durability. Nickel and steel and other alloys are replacing copper in coins. This frees up a lot of copper demand, which can then be used in electrical equipment.

 

You've no doubt seen the size of the Escondida copper mine in Chile, it is massive, and this mine alone produces over 5% of the worlds copper demand. Olympic Dam in South Australia is another massive copper resource of mind-boggling size and reserves.

China has massive copper mines, and our information in the West, about their copper reserves is a bit murky, to say the least.

 

Now, you may have also heard that mining companies have discovered a monstrous copper orebody on the border between Argentina and Chile, the Filo del Sol copper deposit. It reportedly contains the worlds largest copper deposit.

It contains 13 million tonnes of copper, 907,000 kilograms (32 million ounces) of gold, and 18.6 million kilograms (659 million ounces) of silver - and the orebodys depth is still yet to be ascertained, meaning it could be even larger still.

 

To take all this into perspective, gold falls into the same category of constant and increasing demand. When I was involved in mining (over 30 years ago now), a good grade of gold was 2 to 3 grams per tonne. Nowadays, miners are mining gold ores that are 0.5 and 0.3 grams to the tonne. This means a massive level of earth displacement and treatment, just to get around 3,500 tonnes globally, of this greatly sought-after precious metal, annually!

 

But that level of mining is not decreasing, it continues unabated, and it is demand driven. I have yet to see anyone complain about the dreadful mining madness associated with gold extraction!

Copper can be replaced by aluminium if necessary, and it has done in previous years when a high copper price drove manufacturers to use aluminium instead of copper.

I found my 1989 Isuzu truck used aluminium starter cables from the factory, and Lincoln Electric welders started using aluminium windings instead of copper in their transformers in that same era.

 

Electronics and improved designs have reduced the need to have heavy copper wiring to carry high levels of current - and keeping weight down is critical in car design.

By now, the first EV's will be getting recycled in sizeable numbers, leading to additional copper recycling. I don't think a major fear of a huge copper shortage can be realistically sustained.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by onetrack

[old man emu]

28 minutes ago, octave said:

Despite an ever-increasing demand for copper, there is more of the metal available today than at any other time in history.

Whoa!

 

That's a bit incomprehensible. We are told that there is a finite amount of everything on this planet. Therefore it is a falsehood to say "there is more of the metal available today than at any other time in history". It is simply that our digging up and refining has accumulated more copper. In other words. if we piled up all the pure copper that has been by mankind over time, the pile is now higher than it was yearfs ago.

[onetrack]

OME, I don't believe it's accurate to say there's a finite amount of everything on this planet, especially when it come to minerals.

The level of minerals available to us is defined by their ease of extraction, and how much exploration work has gone into accurately defining ore bodies.

 

There are vast amounts of mineral reserves in the Earth, it all comes back to whether they are economically extractable, and whether our technology can be increased to reach the deeper and more-difficult-to-access ore reserves.

[octave]

1 minute ago, old man emu said:

Therefore it is a falsehood to say "there is more of the metal available today than at any other time in history".

 

I take that to mean "available" as in what we are able to mine. This is an increasing amount because exploration techniques and mining techniques improve.   As an example, years ago, there was thought to be 50 years supply of crude oil left.  Today, that number remains the same. Why?  Because this time frame is based on "known reserves", as time passes, we have learned how to find and extract oil that in the past was undetectable or too difficult to extract.   When the quote says "there is more of the metal AVAILABLE today than at any other time in history, it means that methods of discovery have improved and also extraction.   Available DOES NOT mean that the Earth's amount of copper has grown.  This applies to oil as well, -  "known reserves"   

[octave]

Here is a more succinct way of putting it.

 

Despite increased demand for copper produced from ore in recent years, increases in RESERVES have grown, and there is more IDENTIFIED copper available to the world than at any other time in history.

 

https://icsg.org/long-term-availability-of-copper/

 

 

[facthunter]

 Copper and Aluminium both use electricity in their refining but are easily recyclable. The earths Core is Nickel-Iron. There's many metals in  sea water as well as Sodium.( Desal Plants?) Gold extraction often involves Cyanide.. Nev

[old man emu]

1 hour ago, onetrack said:

it all comes back to whether they are economically extractable

 

1 hour ago, octave said:

I take that to mean "available" as in what we are able to mine.

I agree with you both. I was taking a shot at the poor choice of word. If an "authority" is going to make a statement that is important, then care must be taken to vet the words used to avoid confusion.

[pmccarthy]

There really aren't that many new sources of copper. The ones I have reported on all seem to have problems. Some have massive environmental impacts. Others, worldwide, have first nations objectors. There is a difference between a natural deposit in the ground, however massive, and a resource that can become an ore reserve. Trump seems to be finally overruling the objections to Resolution Copper in Arizona, but it will be the deepest large underground mine in the world and I expect there will be massive problems developing and operating it. It will be a Block Cave 2000 metres deep. Recent block caves by Rio Tinto have not gone well.

[octave]

Extracting anything from the earth comes at a cost.  The less we have to extract the better. Drilling for oil has a pretty large environmental costs.

 

If you are right then the costs of products requiring copper will increase. These products will naturally fall out of favour.

Edited 5 hours ago by octave

[Siso]

Uranium is also available in seawater. More of it as rivers erode the earth and dump it in the sea. technology exists to extract it.

[octave]

Interestingly, technology continues to progress.  Whilst opinions seem the vary on the future supply of copper, other options are coming into play.  I have read that this technology could be used for EVs but even if not, substituting an aluminium cast coil in less crucial applications will surely free up copper.     Many traditional uses of copper are changing, for example, the use of PEX rather than copper for plumbing.   

 

 

https://een.ec.europa.eu/partnering-opportunities/cast-aluminium-or-copper-coils-next-generation-e-drives

https://castcoil.de/

[octave]

 

https://lavablue.com.au/articles/the-role-of-critical-minerals-in-the-energy-transition/

 

Historically, the alarm over mineral scarcity is not new. In 1924, copper expert Ira Joralemon predicted a shortage of copper, essential for electrical power, which would threaten the basis of civilization.

“... the age of electricity and of copper will be short. At the intense rate of production that must come, the copper supply of the world will last hardly a score of years. ... Our civilization based on electrical power will dwindle and die.”

Contrary to this prediction, copper production has increased twenty-fold in the hundred years since that prediction was made. One might wonder if future generations will regard the current focus on today's critical minerals as misplaced concern, given the dynamic nature of technological and industrial development. Let’s dig a bit deeper.

[facthunter]

The more facts you have the better your predictions will be. Trouble is many facts suit the aims of the Vested Interest, and are very selective for that reason. People are very selective in what they will believe and listen to or think about. Animals (including Humans ) like a "clear Path" to a resolution as that helps their survival in simple situation's of "Fight or Flight".  Nev