Future Electric Boats

[thinkxingu]

Originally Posted by Biggd

I was an auto mechanic for 50 years and I can assure you, there is nothing clean about fossil fueled cars and trucks.

I contributed 50000 dirty oil filters to landfills in my career and I was only one small time mechanic, not to mention all the other greasy, grimy parts I threw away in my 50 year career.

I came home every day smelling of oil and gas with hands I could never get completely clean.

I'm surprised I'm still alive after all the chemicals I used over the years and all the carbon monoxide I was breathing in over the years.

Oh, I agree for sure, but—as best I know it—the process for mining to produce the batteries and solar materials connected to most electricity being produced by fossil fuels makes the discussion much more complex.

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[Redbarn]

Again I don't care about the green stuff but...
Most of the mining would take place even without electric cars and boats. However despite what people would have you believe lithium for example is actually very abundant even here in the USA and companies are working on better extraction methods. This would be great for USA gdp. Even with that said people read Facebook posts about mining like it requires x amount of pounds of over burden removed etc to make one pound of lithium. I always laugh because moving that many tons of dirt for mining equipment is litterly nothing. I was a dirt dummy a long time ago 😂

With all that said eventually mining for these materials will become very limited. The batteries are essential pure ore. After they hit there useable life as a car battery they can be used in energy storage and then recycled. They are nearly 100% recyclable contrary to Facebook posts. What would you rather go mining out of dirt or have already refined ore sitting in a nice box for you. The metals don't go bad they are all still in there. Eventually end of life batterys will be big business and trade like a commodity.

[John Mercier]

Lithium and other elements can be ''mined'' through evaporative towers.

The point of going electric is the broadening of the choices; and more efficiently use our power grid.
Every energy source can be turned into electricity... but not diesel or gasoline.

NH's electric generation is about 60% nuclear, 6% biomass, 6% all other non-carbon sources, and the remainder is mostly natural gas.

Because of pipeline constrictions, I believe that we import all of our gasoline by ship... and now have some LNG shipping also. The NE power grid goes from base to peak... and thus has some capacity in off-peak periods to supply more to our State/area. Using that existing capacity is what the government is attempting to do.

It is very wasteful to have capacity that must be paid for that goes unused.

If they really were concerned with going green... they would reduce energy usage... which would most likely be a sailboat or rowboat.

[Redbarn]

Originally Posted by John Mercier

Lithium and other elements can be ''mined'' through evaporative towers.

The point of going electric is the broadening of the choices; and more efficiently use our power grid.
Every energy source can be turned into electricity... but not diesel or gasoline.

NH's electric generation is about 60% nuclear, 6% biomass, 6% all other non-carbon sources, and the remainder is mostly natural gas.

Because of pipeline constrictions, I believe that we import all of our gasoline by ship... and now have some LNG shipping also. The NE power grid goes from base to peak... and thus has some capacity in off-peak periods to supply more to our State/area. Using that existing capacity is what the government is attempting to do.

It is very wasteful to have capacity that must be paid for that goes unused.

If they really were concerned with going green... they would reduce energy usage... which would most likely be a sailboat or rowboat.

Great points. I would also add almost all that power is created here using American resources. Gas and diesel often times is coming from over seas and is not in Americas interest.

[John Mercier]

Originally Posted by Redbarn

Great points. I would also add almost all that power is created here using American resources. Gas and diesel often times is coming from over seas and is not in Americas interest.

We've been net exporters for quite awhile now.

NH... and NE... have issues.

The negative outcome of the Northern Pass threw cold water on the build out and upgrade of new transmission and pipelines.

Small generators are able to squeeze into the grid without the upgrades... basically due to the amount of generation that is sited; but that places more emphasis on things like solar.

The batteries, and maybe someday hydrogen, allow narrowing of the gap from base to peak.

[Biggd]

Originally Posted by thinkxingu

Oh, I agree for sure, but—as best I know it—the process for mining to produce the batteries and solar materials connected to most electricity being produced by fossil fuels makes the discussion much more complex.

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That's where government regulations come into the discussion, but we all know how people don't like government regulations. Every car company and battery maker needs to be forced into recycling their products, we know they won't do it voluntarily!
Also new solid state battery development will reduce the need for lithium and create better and safer batteries.
It's a process, it took over 100 years to perfect the fossil fuel burning vehicle.
With the technology we have today it won't take nearly as long.