u/nexusband on Reddit

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Cake day: June 14th, 2023

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  • Short term, though, would be similar to a collapse of civilization.

    Would it? Civilization doesn’t depend on bleeding edge high tech. Sure, it depends on tech, but look around who’s making ICs or basic processors that are in machine control panels and all the millions of appliances. AMD, Intel, Qualcomm, Broadcom do the “heavy lifting” in terms of monetary value, but in overall quantity? Samsung, SK Hynix, STMicroelectronics, Infineon, Sony, Renesas and NXP are the ones that make the world go round. Infineon is German, NXP is Dutch, Renesas is Japanese, STMicroelectronics is Swiss. The thing that’s really going to hurt is Foxconn, but they are probably global enough to withstand that. There’s also many, many more local players. BOSCH for example has very high capacities for everything up to 80 Nanometers (Pentium 3/4, Athlon 64…)

    Civilization would crack, sure - but i don’t think it would collapse. Society on the other hand…that’s a different paper.










  • Argonne assumes the batteries are produced with renewables AND they assume EVs are going to be charged over the day, when most of the renewable energy is “present”. Most BEVs are charged over night, where only Hydro or Geothermal makes power. Meaning, the Co2 footprint grows exponentially, because at night most of the power is made with fossile fuels - a kWh easily can have a rucksack of over 700 gr/kWh of Co2. But hey, what’s a few assumptions here or there in favour of either side, huh? Oh and go talk to China about them producing the batteries “environment friendly”. Just because something uses less Co2 doesn’t mean it’s cleaner. A few ppm more Co2 in the Atmosphere is bad for the Climate, sure, but a few ppm more Mercury in natural habitats, rivers and lakes? Pff, who cares!



  • The “break even” point is still somewhere around 150k miles for big batteries (above 75 kWh). And while there are many EVs that have 200k on their first battery, that isn’t necessarily the status quo for most of them. A simple lump of Aluminum or Cast Iron takes a lot less energy to make and can even be produced completely renewable If you factor in synthetic fuels, things look even more grey - especially with algae, there can be huge benefits growing algae in sea water (see the Arctic Algal Boom and the connected pytho plankton growth). BEVs are not “THE” answer, they are one answer to specific questions.

    Not only that, the issus (environmental, child labour, etc) with rare earth elements are still not solved and the environmental damages through lithium mining are not something to just sweep under the rug.