Similar to the process of producing clean water, one method China uses to attempt to reduce chronic smog pollution moves dirty air through a filtration system.
In Beijing, a Dutch invention cleans air using a 23-foot, cylindrical filtration tower powered by electricity from a coal-fired power plant. A 300-foot tower surrounded by coated greenhouses in Xian, Shaanxi province, is experimenting with a more complex process. In daylight hours, solar radiation heats polluted air in the greenhouses before it rises in the tower through a series of purifying filters and is released into a 3.86 square mile area. Thus far, the Xian tower, when treating severely polluted air, especially in winter when coal provides heat in the area, shows only a 15% reduction in the fine small particles most hazardous to health. Yet, Xian's developers have an ambitious plan to construct 1,640-foot anti-pollution towers, each surrounded by 11.6 square miles of greenhouses, in other Chinese cities.
Based on the Australian study mentioned in the earlier post, "Priority: Eliminate generating electricity from fossil fuels," coal-fueled power plants are the major source of pollution. These air filtration towers would seem to do the most good, if they were located in the vicinity of power plants.
Startups and traditional automakers throughout the world race to produce the electric cars that promise to eliminate a source of pollution, the fossil fuels that power today's cars and trucks. The challenge to up the percentage of electric passenger cars from less than 1% on the world's roads today to at least 33% by 2040 involves financing, designing, engineering, manufacturing, charging stations, searching for the lithium used in batteries, and marketing. China is the industry's acknowledged leader with Tesla in the U.S. and European automakers also in the hunt.
Although China is expected to continue to import lithium from South America's Argentina-Chile-Bolivia Belt (See the earlier post, "Technology's Hard Sell and the Public's Role in the Lithium-ion Battery Industry."), it has its own domestic supply. In the cold, thin air high in China's mountains between the Tibet Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, mining in Chaerhan Salt Lake is on track to supply a plant that will produce 30,000 tons of lithium carbonate by 2020 or 2021 and eventually plants that produce 200,000 tons annually.
China also has ideas for creating charging methods to keep electric cars on the road away from home. When driving long distances, drivers could visit automated swap stations to switch their dying batteries for new ones in three minutes, or they could call mobile vans to come and recharge their dying batteries in ten minutes. (I cannot help but recall the toxic nano particles a high school student found, when her summer intern project at the University of Wisconsin studied the effects of decomposing lithium batteries. See the earlier post, "The Challenge of New Technologies: Prepare to Think.") By requiring foreign auto dealers to sell only electric cars and to provide charging options, China is in a position to restrict entry into the world's biggest market.
Showing posts with label electric cars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label electric cars. Show all posts
Sunday, January 21, 2018
Friday, December 8, 2017
Let's Repurpose Our Mindsets
When I read an article titled, "How to Mine Cobalt Without Going to Congo," I learned Canadian scientists have figured out how to produce the cobalt (and lithium) needed to power electric cars from batteries that fail quality control tests and now end up in hazardous-waste dumps, buried in the ground, or giving off toxic emissions as they burn. When as many as 118 million electric cars take the road in 2030, more batteries will stop working. That means more rare metals can be recycled from old batteries to produce replacements.
The idea of recycling cobalt from worn out electric car batteries started me thinking about how many examples of repurposing I've become aware of lately. It reminded me of how I started noticing how many people wore glasses after I began wearing them in fifth grade.
In the fashion industry, designer Stella McCarthy endorsed the MacArthur Foundation's report that urged increasing the less than 1% of material now made from the used clothing and textiles that end up in landfills. In the July, 2018 issue of VOGUE, eco-conscious model, Gisele, cites the statistic that "between eight and thirteen million tons of clothing ends up in landfills every year." Already, women in India turn their old saris into quilts. A young designer I know began her path to a career by using the material from her mother's worn hijabs.
On "American Pickers," the TV hosts travel through the U.S. looking for parts to rebuild old cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. They also come across pharmacy cabinets, industrial lamps, moldings, signs, and award trophies that can be used in new ways and as decorative objects in homes and restaurants. When you think about it, eBay made a big business out of giving used items a new purpose in life the way yard sales and thrift stores do on a smaller scale.
I guess I was subconsciously trying out a new repurpose mindset when I read about the "convolute" that ILC (formerly Playtex) designed to enable astronauts to move their arms, legs, and hands while wearing an airtight, protective spacesuit on the moon. To me, the flexible, but somewhat rigid, ribbed rubber and dacron "convolute" looked like a sleeve that could be repurposed to stabilize a person's shaking or weak arms and legs and better enable him or her to hold items and walk.
As Christmas approaches, I'm reminded that the stable in the creche scene at our church was made as an Eagle Scout project by a young man who found the wood in an old barn a farmer was about to burn.
The idea of recycling cobalt from worn out electric car batteries started me thinking about how many examples of repurposing I've become aware of lately. It reminded me of how I started noticing how many people wore glasses after I began wearing them in fifth grade.
In the fashion industry, designer Stella McCarthy endorsed the MacArthur Foundation's report that urged increasing the less than 1% of material now made from the used clothing and textiles that end up in landfills. In the July, 2018 issue of VOGUE, eco-conscious model, Gisele, cites the statistic that "between eight and thirteen million tons of clothing ends up in landfills every year." Already, women in India turn their old saris into quilts. A young designer I know began her path to a career by using the material from her mother's worn hijabs.
On "American Pickers," the TV hosts travel through the U.S. looking for parts to rebuild old cars, motorcycles, and bicycles. They also come across pharmacy cabinets, industrial lamps, moldings, signs, and award trophies that can be used in new ways and as decorative objects in homes and restaurants. When you think about it, eBay made a big business out of giving used items a new purpose in life the way yard sales and thrift stores do on a smaller scale.
I guess I was subconsciously trying out a new repurpose mindset when I read about the "convolute" that ILC (formerly Playtex) designed to enable astronauts to move their arms, legs, and hands while wearing an airtight, protective spacesuit on the moon. To me, the flexible, but somewhat rigid, ribbed rubber and dacron "convolute" looked like a sleeve that could be repurposed to stabilize a person's shaking or weak arms and legs and better enable him or her to hold items and walk.
As Christmas approaches, I'm reminded that the stable in the creche scene at our church was made as an Eagle Scout project by a young man who found the wood in an old barn a farmer was about to burn.
What items have you repurposed? (Also see the earlier post, "Dump the Dump.")
Friday, October 13, 2017
Technology's Hard Sell and the Public's Role in the Lithium-Ion Battery Industry
New technologies require public acceptance and industry risk takers. What if consumers had refused to bring nuclear-powered microwaves into their homes or to let doctors use lasers to cure diseases? I've gained new respect for the physics teacher I had who assigned students to weekly reports on journal articles describing break-through scientific advances. Unless a country enters the world's economy late or a hurricane or earthquake destroys infrastructure, it is an uphill slog for a new technology to compete with entrenched technologies.
Top executives recognize the challenge of creating a corporate culture, much less a public culture, attuned to welcoming technological change. At a recent conference, CEOs of 100 leading companies in 17 different industries concluded it is easier to incorporate rapidly changing technology into an existing system than it is to create a corporate culture willing to embrace technological changes.
Consider the introduction of lithium-ion batteries. In the United States, electric cars using these batteries need to compete with existing cars, and they require charging stations to replace gas stations. As a clean energy source, huge lithium-ion battery packs that provide power to electricity grids need to compete with coal and natural gas. When a leak at California's Aliso Canyon natural gas facility forced the San Diego Gas & Electric company and Southern California Edison to try to provide Los Angeles and San Diego with electricity from grid-scale batteries, AES Energy Storage built a lithium-ion battery installation in under six months, compared to the years it takes to obtain permits to construct polluting power plants near heavily populated urban areas.
Logic suggests car manufacturers and electric companies avoid "marketing myopia" by seeing themselves with a wide lens that positions them in transportation and energy industries that need to invest in up-and-coming alternatives. Companies are beginning to do just that. AES and Siemens now have a joint venture. California Edison is working with Tesla, known for manufacturing electric cars, and Mercedes-Benz and BMW also are involved in stationary power storage projects with utilities.
Nonetheless, reliance on private investment limits the development and use of lithium-ion battery technology. Again, there is a role for teachers and students who take a realistic view of what fosters technological advances. Denying the effect of fossil fuels on climate change does nothing to encourage government investment in clean energy from lithium-ion batteries or tax relief for battery manufacturers. And how about government support for lithium exploration (top producers are Australia, Chile, Argentina, and China) and safe disposal of used lithium or, better yet, support for efforts to "mine" recycled lithium?
In fact, Elon Musk claims all the nickel used in his Tesla electric car batteries is reusable at the end of a battery's life. If true, that is good news, because nickel mining, mainly in Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Russia, and the Philippines, kicks up sulphur dioxide and pollutes rivers with oxidized nickel waste. Dr. David Santillo at Greenpeace's research laboratories reports crushing and transporting nickel produces dust containing copper, cobalt, and chromium, as well as nickel, that causes respiratory problems and cancer. Rather than continue to mine poorer and poorer strains of nickel, Santillo suggests an effort to recover and reuse nickel already extracted.
Wise young people need to focus on the new career opportunities new technologies present.
Top executives recognize the challenge of creating a corporate culture, much less a public culture, attuned to welcoming technological change. At a recent conference, CEOs of 100 leading companies in 17 different industries concluded it is easier to incorporate rapidly changing technology into an existing system than it is to create a corporate culture willing to embrace technological changes.
Consider the introduction of lithium-ion batteries. In the United States, electric cars using these batteries need to compete with existing cars, and they require charging stations to replace gas stations. As a clean energy source, huge lithium-ion battery packs that provide power to electricity grids need to compete with coal and natural gas. When a leak at California's Aliso Canyon natural gas facility forced the San Diego Gas & Electric company and Southern California Edison to try to provide Los Angeles and San Diego with electricity from grid-scale batteries, AES Energy Storage built a lithium-ion battery installation in under six months, compared to the years it takes to obtain permits to construct polluting power plants near heavily populated urban areas.
Logic suggests car manufacturers and electric companies avoid "marketing myopia" by seeing themselves with a wide lens that positions them in transportation and energy industries that need to invest in up-and-coming alternatives. Companies are beginning to do just that. AES and Siemens now have a joint venture. California Edison is working with Tesla, known for manufacturing electric cars, and Mercedes-Benz and BMW also are involved in stationary power storage projects with utilities.
Nonetheless, reliance on private investment limits the development and use of lithium-ion battery technology. Again, there is a role for teachers and students who take a realistic view of what fosters technological advances. Denying the effect of fossil fuels on climate change does nothing to encourage government investment in clean energy from lithium-ion batteries or tax relief for battery manufacturers. And how about government support for lithium exploration (top producers are Australia, Chile, Argentina, and China) and safe disposal of used lithium or, better yet, support for efforts to "mine" recycled lithium?
In fact, Elon Musk claims all the nickel used in his Tesla electric car batteries is reusable at the end of a battery's life. If true, that is good news, because nickel mining, mainly in Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Russia, and the Philippines, kicks up sulphur dioxide and pollutes rivers with oxidized nickel waste. Dr. David Santillo at Greenpeace's research laboratories reports crushing and transporting nickel produces dust containing copper, cobalt, and chromium, as well as nickel, that causes respiratory problems and cancer. Rather than continue to mine poorer and poorer strains of nickel, Santillo suggests an effort to recover and reuse nickel already extracted.
Wise young people need to focus on the new career opportunities new technologies present.
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