Speaking of scarce resources and political instability, I found this article by Sean Carberry at National Defense on the issues with cobalt interesting, too:
Studies by minerals analysts and the U.S. government say that 70 percent of mined cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo, a politically unstable country with a well-documented history of poor labor and environmental practices in its mining sector. Almost all the cobalt mined there — usually as a byproduct of nickel or copper mining — heads to China for refining and processing. Currently, China processes about 80 percent of the world’s cobalt.
“The big issue is China and its influence over the DRC, and the fact that China understands better than the United States the need to have access to strategic materials,†said Martin. “China has not only been finding sources, it’s also been stockpiling, and that is just not something the United States has successfully done.â€
On the contrary, the United States has sold off large amounts of its critical materials stockpile like cobalt over the last few decades.
According to “Revitalizing the National Defense Stockpile for an Era of Great-Power Competition,†a Heritage Foundation report released in January, the supply contained $22 billion worth — in today’s dollars — of critical materials in 1989. It’s now down to $888 million.
For some reason being dependent on Russia and China for a strategic material just doesn’t seem that prudent. Maybe it’s just me.
The author goes on to cite a memorandum recently issued by the Biden Administration:
According to the memorandum: “The United States depends on unreliable foreign sources for many of the strategic and critical materials necessary for the clean energy transition — such as lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese for large-capacity batteries. Demand for such materials is projected to increase exponentially as the world transitions to a clean energy economy.â€
The United States shall secure materials such as cobalt “through environmentally responsible domestic mining and processing; recycling and reuse; and recovery from unconventional and secondary sources, such as mine waste,†the memorandum states.
and points out that we just don’t have a lot of viable domestic sources of cobalt. Canada, Australia, and Indonesia are probably better prospects. Recycling sounds like a good prospect as well:
Where analysts see greater potential to kick the Chinese cobalt habit is by producing the metal through the recycling of batteries and production scrap and waste.
“It could potentially be a very big source of raw material in the near term,†Rawles said. “What you’re looking at is what we call ‘production scrap’ or ‘batteries scrap.’ And so that’s just either off-spec or just off-cuts of production of battery materials that will then get fed back into the battery supply chain.â€
Then, as batteries age and are no longer useful in a car or other device, the batteries can be recycled to extract the cobalt and other minerals back out to create new batteries.
It will be about 10 years before the recycling market takes off, he added. “Then, of course, you have big volumes, and you definitely want to ensure that you can retain that, regionally process it and put it back into your own … battery supply chain.â€
My offhand guess is that recycling effectively will require a lot more energy than buying Congolese cobalt from the Chinese. A lot more energy solves a lot of problems.
The “cobalt” issue is solvable, but there are tradeoffs.
In the past couple of years — a new battery formulation “Lithium Iron Phosphate” has gained popularity. Its main benefit is it doesn’t use cobalt or nickel — iron and phosphate are in abundance compared to those two. Its got the seal of approval since standard range (aka lowest range) Tesla’s switched to them last year.
The tradeoff is
(a) they store 15-20% less energy by weight/volume compared to lithium ion batteries with cobalt nickel; (hence why its in the shortest range Tesla’s. That in itself is acceptable in most of the world (China/Europe/Japan) where population is denser and commutes shorter, ironically North America is where range could be an issue.
(b) China is the undisputed leader in “Lithium Iron Phosphate” and produces 95% of such batteries today (sadly, some key patents in North America retarded their development outside of China). Of course, given developments of the past few weeks, the geopolitics is very difficult, for example, CATL which is the biggest manufacturer of these batteries, was going to announce their first US factory (reportedly at the urging of Tesla) the day after Pelosi’s visit but now has cancelled. And I doubt car manufacturers can/want to cut China out of this battery supply chain, given China is the largest or 2nd largest consumer market for most automakers.
Also may be a role for superconductors. Still have weight issues but already about 10-20 times better than regular conductors. Heat not much of an issue and can recharge almost forever.
Steve
I am not sure is meant by “superconductors”. State of the art superconductors require liquid nitrogen today, and aren’t likely to improve soon given we don’t have a clear theoretical understanding of them.
I mean if superconductors could work at room temperature — that would solve the “trans-oceanic” energy transport problem. Today, fossil fuels are the only way to transport vast amounts of energy across oceans (LNG / oil / coal tankers). There is no equivalent for electricity which is pretty important. For example, the Sahara / Arabian desert is a good location for solar panels but there isn’t any means to transport the electricity created there to customers in Europe/North America/Asia. A durable superconductor that works at room temperature, we just string power cables across the worlds oceans like we do with internet cables. Sadly, I believe it is decades/centuries away if not physically impossible.
Grr, super capacitors. Shouldn’t write after being up all night.
Steve
“Sadly, I believe it is decades/centuries away if not physically impossible.”
Given that “settling down” the energy level movements of what one should consider as the “electron cloud” in metals, into what are known as Cooper pairs, requires low temperatures, I think you absolutely correct. That’s superconductivity, and fundamental, eyeball to atom level, physics. No transmission magic here. Physical metallurgy generally involves monkeying around at the crystal structure level, material science at the gross atomistic level. But at the level of electrons and nuclei it is fundamental physics. Hard to imagine changing that, especially commercially.
Curious also touched upon the second fundamental problem (after transport) people don’t like to discuss about alternatives: energy density. Wind and solar just are not energy dense sources. And they can’t be made to be dense. Chemical bonds – read: carbon based fuels – are. They are energy dense, and they are portable.
All you can do with wind and solar is find energy storing solutions. Hence, steves reference to supercapacitors. However, “they still have weight issues” is a gross understatement. I’m not saying that 100+ years from now things won’t evolve. But less than 50? I don’t think so. I’ve been here at this website for perhaps 10 years. Steve has been touting technical advancements the whole time. The needle has moved, but barely. And I might add that the technological needle has moved much farther in the fossil fuel world. People should ponder that.
I’m an engineer by original training. BS and MS. I’m quite open to real technical evolution. But I’m not open to wishful thinking for political purposes. That’s foolish. And destructive to society’s interests.
As to the general thrust of the post, just another example of how we are not serious people.
Commercial considerations wrt China, social issues like gays/trannies/pronouns, green hysteria, wealth distribution….
Voters, and the politicians we allow to be elected, are just whacking off over nonsense. While cunning foes position themselves in a superior fashion.
Yet another apocalyptic prediction of global warming……………….that hasn’t panned out. Quite a theory – it predicts nothing.
https://dailysceptic.org/2022/08/04/massive-coral-growth-at-the-great-barrier-reef-continues-to-defy-all-the-fashionable-doomsday-climate-predictions/
@Drew
I get your point, but petroleum is gravitational storage. Technically, wind energy is not renewable. Partially, it is energy transferred from the Earth’s rotation which is slowing.
Increasing energy density will increase volatility, but technology should be able to increase safety. I doubt there is a battery based portable solution. Fuel cells can provide an energy equivalent to fossil fuels.
Hydrogen is more efficient than natural gas, but it requires more energy to produce. Nuclear power would solve this problem, but there is still the problem of the Greens.
Uranium is energy dense, but I am not sure if a safe and portable solution is possible. For large scale static storage, pressure and heat may be solutions.
It might be possible to use excess wind energy to pressurize tanks that would be used to turn turbines, or it might be possible to use excess solar energy to heat underground thermal storage that would be used.
Some ideas are a type of Carnot engine, a pre-heating system, or pressure/heat system. I have not given it extensive thought, but some type of hybrid solution may be possible.