The Shocking Naked Truth

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Jul 18, 2017
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I do not know if all the stated information is true, but some of the narrative does make one think about the worlds push for the electric vehicles, solar panels and wind turbines. I like the baked beans scenario. The following are not my words and are copied from another source and I jhave acknowledged the writer. Food for thought anyway?

When I saw the title of this lecture, especially with the picture of the scantily clad model, I couldn’t resist attending. The packed auditorium was abuzz with questions about the address; nobody seemed to know what to expect. The only hint was a large aluminium block sitting on a sturdy table on the stage.

When the crowd settled down, a scholarly-looking man walked out and put his hand on the shiny block, “Good evening,” he said, “I am here to introduce NMC532-X,” and he patted the block, “we call him NM for short,” and the man smiled proudly. “NM is a typical electric vehicle (EV) car battery in every way except one; we programmed him to send signals of the internal movements of his electrons when charging, discharging, and in several other conditions. We wanted to know what it feels like to be a battery. We don’t know how it happened, but NM began to talk after we downloaded the program.

Despite this ability, we put him in a car for a year and then asked him if he’d like to do presentations about batteries. He readily agreed on the condition he could say whatever he wanted. We thought that was fine, and so, without further ado, I’ll turn the floor over to NM,” the man turned and walked off the stage.

“Good evening,” NM said. He had a slightly affected accent, and when he spoke, he lit up in different colours. “That cheeky woman on the marquee was my idea,” he said. “Were she not there, along with ‘naked’ in the title, I’d likely be speaking to an empty auditorium! I also had them add ‘shocking’ because it’s a favourite word amongst us batteries.” He flashed a light blue colour as he laughed.

“Sorry,” NM giggled then continued, “three days ago, at the start of my last lecture, three people walked out. I suppose they were disappointed there would be no dancing girls. But here is what I noticed about them. One was wearing a battery-powered hearing aid, one tapped on his battery-powered cell phone as he left, and a third got into his car, which would not start without a battery. So I’d like you to think about your day for a moment; how many batteries do you rely on?

He paused for a full minute which gave us time to count our batteries. Then he went on, “Now, it is not elementary to ask, ‘what is a battery?’ I think Tesla said it best when they called us Energy Storage Systems. That’s important. We do not make electricity – we store electricity produced elsewhere, primarily by coal, uranium, natural gas-powered plants, or diesel-fueled generators. So to say an EV is a zero-emission vehicle is not at all valid. Also, since forty percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. is from coal-fired plants, it follows that forty percent of the EVs on the road are coal-powered, n’est-ce pas?”

He flashed blue again. “Einstein’s formula, E=MC2, tells us it takes the same amount of energy to move a five thousand pound petrol driven auto mobile a mile as it does an electric one. The only question again is what produces the power? To reiterate, it does not come from the battery; the battery is only the storage device, like a gas tank in a car.”

He lit up red when he said that, and I sensed he was smiling. Then he continued in blue and orange. “Mr. Elkay introduced me as NMC532. If I were the battery from your computer mouse, Elkay would introduce me as double-A, if from your cell phone as CR2032, and so on. We batteries all have the same name depending on our design. By the way, the ‘X’ in my name stands for ‘experimental.’

There are two orders of batteries, rechargeable, and single-use. The most common single-use batteries are A, AA, AAA, C, D. 9V, and lantern types. Those dry-cell species use zinc, manganese, lithium, silver oxide, or zinc and carbon to store electricity chemically. Please note they all contain toxic, heavy metals.

Rechargeable batteries only differ in their internal materials, usually lithium-ion, nickel-metal oxide, and nickel-cadmium

The United States uses three billion of these two battery types a year, and most are not recycled; they end up in landfills. California is the only state which requires all batteries be recycled. If you throw your small, used batteries in the trash, here is what happens to them.

All batteries are self-discharging. That means even when not in use, they leak tiny amounts of energy. You have likely ruined a flash light or two from an old ruptured battery. When a battery runs down and can no longer power a toy or light, you think of it as dead; well, it is not. It continues to leak small amounts of electricity. As the chemicals inside it run out, pressure builds inside the battery’s metal casing, and eventually, it cracks. The metals left inside then ooze out. The ooze in your ruined flashlight is toxic, and so is the ooze that will inevitably leak from every battery in a landfill. All batteries eventually rupture; it just takes rechargeable batteries longer to end up in the landfill.

In addition to dry cell batteries, there are also wet cell ones used in automobiles, boats, and motorcycles. The good thing about those is, ninety percent of them are recycled. Unfortunately, we do not yet know how to recycle batteries like me or care to dispose of single-use ones properly.

But that is not half of it. For those of you excited about electric cars and a green revolution, I want you to take a closer look at batteries and also windmills and solar panels. These three technologies share what we call environmentally destructive embedded costs.”

NM got redder as he spoke. “Everything manufactured has two costs associated with it, embedded costs and operating costs. I will explain embedded costs using a can of baked beans as my subject.

In this scenario, baked beans are on sale, so you jump in your car and head for the grocery store. Sure enough, there they are on the shelf for £1.75 a pack. As you head to the checkout, you begin to think about the embedded costs in the can of beans. The first cost is the diesel fuel the farmer used to plow the field, till the ground, harvest the beans, and transport them to the food processor. Not only is his diesel fuel an embedded cost, so are the costs to build the tractors, combines, and trucks. In addition, the farmer might use a nitrogen fertilizer made from natural gas.

Next is the energy costs of cooking the beans, heating the building, transporting the workers, and paying for the vast amounts of electricity used to run the plant. The steel can holding the beans is also an embedded cost. Making the steel can requires mining taconite, shipping it by boat, extracting the iron, placing it in a coal-fired blast furnace, and adding carbon. Then it’s back on another truck to take the beans to the grocery store. Finally, add in the cost of the petrol for your car. But wait - can you guess one of the highest but rarely acknowledged embedded costs?” NM said, then gave us about thirty seconds to make our guesses. Then he flashed his lights and said, “It’s the depreciation on the 5000 pound car you used to transport one pound of canned beans!”

NM took on a golden glow, and I thought he might have winked. He said, “But that can of beans is nothing compared to me! I am hundreds of times more complicated. My embedded costs not only come in the form of energy use; they come as environmental destruction, pollution, disease, child labour, and the inability to be recycled.”

He paused, “I weigh one thousand pounds, and as you see, I am about the size of a travel trunk.” NM’s lights showed he was serious. “I contain twenty-five pounds of lithium, sixty pounds of nickel, 44 pounds of manganese, 30 pounds cobalt, 200 pounds of copper, and 400 pounds of aluminium, steel, and plastic. Inside me are 6,831 individual lithium-ion cells

It should concern you that all those toxic components come from mining. For instance, to manufacture each auto battery like me, you must process 25,000 pounds of brine for the lithium, 30,000 pounds of ore for the cobalt, 5,000 pounds of ore for the nickel, and 25,000 pounds of ore for copper. All told, you dig up 500,000 pounds of the earth’s crust for just - one - battery.

He let that one sink in, then added, “I mentioned disease and child labour a moment ago. Here’s why. Sixty-eight percent of the world’s cobalt, a significant part of a battery, comes from the Congo. Their mines have no pollution controls and they employ children who die from handling this toxic material. Should we factor in these diseased kids as part of the cost of driving an electric car?”

NM’s red and orange light made it look like he was on fire. “Finally,” he said, “I’d like to leave you with these thoughts. California is building the largest battery in the world near San Francisco, and they intend to power it from solar panels and windmills. They claim this is the ultimate in being ‘green,’ but it is not! This construction project is creating an environmental disaster. Let me tell you why.

The main problem with solar arrays is the chemicals needed to process silicate into the silicon used in the panels. To make pure enough silicon requires processing it with hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, trichloroethane, and acetone. In addition, they also need gallium, arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, and cadmium-telluride, which also are highly toxic. Silicon dust is a hazard to the workers, and the panels cannot be recycled.

Windmills are the ultimate in embedded costs and environmental destruction. Each weighs 1688 tons (the equivalent of 23 houses) and contains 1300 tons of concrete, 295 tons of steel, 48 tons of iron, 24 tons of fiberglass, and the hard to extract rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, and dysprosium. Each blade weighs 81,000 pounds and will last 15 to 20 years, at which time it must be replaced. We cannot recycle used blades. Sadly, both solar arrays and windmills kill birds, bats, sea life, and migratory insects.

NM lights dimmed, and he quietly said, “There may be a place for these technologies, but you must look beyond the myth of zero emissions. I predict EVs and windmills will be abandoned once the embedded environmental costs of making and replacing them become apparent. I’m trying to do my part with these lectures.

Thank you for your attention, good night, and good luck.” NM’s lights went out, and he was quiet, like a regular battery.

Bruce Haedrich
 
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What is the answer then to driving down carbon dioxide emissions. Some are anti EV, some anti nuclear, there’s the anti renewables groupings. Porsche have contracts for 500 + million litres per year of synthetic fuel from a developing Chilean company. In truth it will be a mixed bag for a long while to come.
Perhaps fusion holds the answer. 🌅

As an aside. If you were to drink 1 litre of oat milk per week you save 1.4 kg of carbon dioxide cf dairy milk produced in UK. More if you lived in USA. Multiply that by the population of developed countries and the reduction is significant.
 
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What a load of unbalanced bunkum dressed up for click bait.

No sensible person believes any form of car whether ICE or EV has no environmental impact. Every human activity has some environmental impact, so the debate is not about Zero impact as that is an impossible dream, but its about reducing human impact.

You cannot simply say batteries are bad becasue they have some environmental impact, which is exactly what the quoted piece does. You have to look at the impact of what the alternative to batteries does, or in this case has done for over the last 100 years .

There is no reference to the impact of the exploration and extraction, refining, storage, distribution, spillage and use releasing what was locked up Co2, and other toxic pollutants of fossil fuels, has done massive environmental damage to our planet accelerating which is a far bigger concern. How many ecologies have been destroyed, how many species of flora and fauna have we already lost - it far exceeds the rates of losses from the points the piece makes.
 
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I couldn't see mention of the embedded costs of petrol and diesel production mentioned here-no different to producing a battery-huge environmental costs-loads of chemicals and waste-oil spills and the rest. No difference-just another biassed article from those who are in denial about the need to move to renewables. ( and I don't class nuclear power as such). Funny though!
 
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Sam Vimes

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What a load of unbalanced bunkum dressed up for click bait.

Agreed.

In fact I'm not sure what the audience was but it seems more like an Ego trip for the author. Look how clever I am!

Now its my turn :)

His credibility vanished, for me, within a couple of parapraphs. It seems fashionable to quote Einstein's mass energy formula as being the basis for understanding everything. It would have been more appropriate to have mentioned a quote atributed to Einstein which may have been based upon Newton's Three Laws stated several centuries before:-

“Energy cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another.”

Essentially - nothing in life is free.

Then theres the questionable stated about:-

"We do not make electricity – we store electricity produced elsewhere "

Which he later refutes by mentioning dry cell batteries that store electricity by chemical means. Well, ok they do store 'electricity' but its generated internally by chemical reactions. Not to mention Hydrogen Fuel cells.

And who's cell phone runs from a CR2032?

The message also includes a number of unqualified statements about embedded costs etc.

Life is complicated. We need to use energy conservatively and efficiently and we need to consider the wider impact on the environment.
 
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JTQ

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There is no reference to the impact of the exploration and extraction, refining, storage, distribution, spillage and use releasing what was locked up Co2, and other toxic pollutants of fossil fuels, has done massive environmental damage to our planet accelerating which is a far bigger concern.

Though in fairness, should that ever be a consideration, the piece was not about fossil fuels, their relative benefits or otherwise, it was about batteries.
 
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The one thing that I think they have correct is the mining of the raw materials as that could be a concern.
I don't think anyone disagrees the mining of certain materials today has problems, but the absence of the balance argument for the centuries old extraction implies what is happening now is mightily worse than what has gone on before - but is it?

You personally have used similar claims in several of your previous posts here and in other threads so its clear that you agree with the content of the quote. Most of these points have been robustly discussed and where other information has shown how poorly informed they are.
 
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Though in fairness, should that ever be a consideration, the piece was not about fossil fuels, their relative benefits or otherwise, it was about batteries.

That is a fair point, but the principle concern has been the use of batteries and the up and comming principle use of them and the the one that is driving developments has been the for motive transport. If that need were not the case a doubt the points would have even been raised.
 
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I don't think anyone disagrees the mining of certain materials today has problems, but the absence of the balance argument for the centuries old extraction implies what is happening now is mightily worse than what has gone on before - but is it?

You personally have used similar claims in several of your previous posts here and in other threads so its clear that you agree with the content of the quote. Most of these points have been robustly discussed and where other information has shown how poorly informed they are.

I posted the complete wording so that others could decide which was false and which was not false. At no point did I state that I agreed with some or all of it as that was up to the reader to decide.
 
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Almost a Christmas Pantomime. Great stuff covering all the angles done to death on here.
The main concern for Green is where do the raw materials come from and at what cost?
 
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Parksy

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Whatever is decided here, or whether any forum members agree with the points raised or not will make not one iota of difference to the agenda which aims to cut carbon emissions
These things are decided in parliament, not by a few blokes on a caravan forum.
I.C. engines are not about to disappear overnight even after vehicles using ICEs are no longer produced.
EVs are beginning to look capable of towing lighter caravans, and the current situation should improve.
These 'discussion' threads are again beginning to take on a personal and provocative aspect which really has to stop.
It's ok to post thought provoking topics but it's not ok to use the threads for personal antipathy to be displayed.
 
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It may be biased but it does give food for thought. Certainly some of the rare materials needed for batteries is a concern and not fully appreciated by many.
 
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It may be biased but it does give food for thought. Certainly some of the rare materials needed for batteries is a concern and not fully appreciated by many.
Yet there’s the other thread running that shows not only current battery development but future initiatives, and those are not looking at ten of years hence. Some could be in the next generation vehicles.
Page 14 of the link.
https://forums.practicalcaravan.com...trategy-the-govement-has-kill-caravans.63060/
 
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Whatever is decided here, or whether any forum members agree with the points raised or not will make not one iota of difference to the agenda which aims to cut carbon emissions
These things are decided in parliament, not by a few blokes on a caravan forum.
I.C. engines are not about to disappear overnight even after vehicles using ICEs are no longer produced.
EVs are beginning to look capable of towing lighter caravans, and the current situation should improve.
These 'discussion' threads are again beginning to take on a personal and provocative aspect which really has to stop.
It's ok to post thought provoking topics but it's not ok to use the threads for personal antipathy to be displayed.


".....and the current situation should improve."

Oh dear....................
 
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Sam Vimes

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Not as bad as cows but horse poo is a source of methane which is not good for the environment. :) But then most activities we undertake have some affect on the environment, its making this as minimal as possible that's the tricky thing.
 
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