Posted on 06/08/2017 3:42:57 PM PDT by Lorianne
A perfect storm is brewing in the 21st-Century energy market, and it has nothing to do with OPEC.
It’s about batteries that charge everything from mainstream electric cars to massive power walls and mountains of consumer electronics.
More specifically, it’s about what goes into those batteries—and it’s not just lithium.
The other element that makes up 35 percent of the lithium-ion batteries mass produced at Tesla’s (NASDAQ: TSLA) Nevada gigafactory—and at a dozen of other behemoths slated to come on line—is cobalt.
And it’s already in dramatically short supply.
A part of the answer to the cobalt deficit is 100 percent American, and this little-known miner is sitting on a prime Idaho cobalt project that is one of only two that looks likely to come online in the U.S.— and it’s right in Tesla’s backyard.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
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Even Toyota has several models that have similar fuel economy to the hybrid in conventional transmissions.
In mountainous terrain conventional vehicles are more efficient. Losing the battery is all it takes to make the conventional car the winner, due to the high initial cost of the hybrid.
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I coincidentally bought my hybrid on earth day. Useful to rub in the faces of my liberal friends when needed.
But people make a lot of assumptions about hybrid owners. Here in Texas, there a lot of pick up truck owners who hate hybrid owners. Strange prejudice. It’s just a car. And my other vehicle at the time was an F350 diesel.
Wouldn’t mind having another big diesel truck, but the mileage on mine was terrible.
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The newer diesels are garbage.
My elder son had been buying one about every three years, and almost driving for nothing until they went to the smaller engine with the turbos.
His lasted about 3 months before the first turbo burned out. Almost as soon as they had fixed it, the other one went. They bought it back because he buys several fleet pickups per year, and they didn’t want to lose the business.
Once upon a time the Ford diesel was good for 700 K miles. No more.
My dentist has a Prius and he is a solid conservative; my Father in law also has one and he is a wacked out leftist former school admin.
The politics come in with the HOV lane nonsense. No single occupant car belongs in those lanes, but CA allows electrics in, and the anger is building to a crescendo.
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