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According to Footman James' study, reality is far different because classic cars with those evil, gas-burning engines are better for the environment than new electric vehicles. The thing is people who believe the opposite just look at tailpipe emissions, behaving as if that’s everything in the equation. They don’t consider pollution generated by the manufacturing process. In the study, Footman James mentions that in the UK a classic car on average is driven 1,200 miles a year and puts out 563 kg of CO2 as a result. But a new VW Golf is made by generating 6.8 tonnes of CO2e....

Ford Motor Co.’s hot-selling Mustang Mach-E electric SUV and other plug-in models are being rendered unprofitable by rising raw material costs. “We actually had a positive bottom line profit when we launched the Mach-E, commodity costs have wiped that out,” Chief Financial Officer John Lawler said Wednesday at the Deutsche Bank Global Automotive Conference, referring to 2020, when the vehicle went on sale. “You’re going to see pressure on the bottom line when we launch our EVs, they’re not going to be positive.”

Clash comes as global demand surges to power batteries for electric cars.. A northern Nevada mine that is the largest-known source of lithium in the United States for electric car batteries is facing resistance from a radical environmental group and some of its American Indian supporters. The mine at Thacker Pass is on Bureau of Land Management property in rural Nevada between two mountain ranges about 25 miles south of the border with Oregon. The fight reflects other political battles between liberals and far-left factions within the Democratic Party, with larger ramifications for the party’s agenda. Lithium is the key...

Top lithium producer Albemarle Corp (ALB.N) may have to shut its Langelsheim plant in Germany if the metal used in electric vehicle batteries is declared a hazardous material by the European Union, its finance chief told Reuters. Lithium's pivotal role in electric vehicles makes it an important commodity in meeting global targets to cut carbon emissions, and it was added to the EU's list of critical raw materials in 2020.

President Biden has tucked another $500 million to fund production of the minerals used to make batteries for electric cars into the Ukraine aid bill passed by Congress. Both Biden and Ukrainian leaders had said that the $40 billion emergency aid package was essential for Ukraine's war against Russia. But tucked into that package was not only military aid but half a billion dollars to be allocated under the Defense Production Act to companies obtaining critical battery minerals like nickel, cobalt, lithium and graphite, Bloomberg first noted. That's in addition to the $750 million the Defense Department (DOD) was authorized...

Battery technology is the new bull's-eye for companies striving to meet the world's growing appetite for electric vehicles. Battery companies and automakers are investing heavily to build cheaper, denser and lighter batteries. New technologies run the gamut. Some give old battery chemistries a new twist for incremental improvements. Others change the battery form factor or battery assembly for significant gains in performance or costs. In the future, radically different chemistries and other big breakthroughs are expected to emerge. "Batteries are the new gold rush as far as automakers are concerned," said Ram Chandrasekaran, a mobility analyst at Wood Mackenzie who...

Study finds that faults beneath the Salton Sea ruptured during Colorado River floods and may have triggered large earthquakes on the southern San Andreas FaultSouthern California's Salton Sea, once a large natural lake fed by the Colorado River, may play an important role in the earthquake cycle of the southern San Andreas Fault and may have triggered large earthquakes in the past. Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of Nevada, Reno, discovered new faults in the Salton Sea near the southern end of the San Andreas Fault. By examining...

A short film about my favorite post-apocalyptic hell-hole, the Salton Sea.

In and around the shrinking, toxic Salton Sea, there’s enough lithium to meet the United States’ entire projected demand and fuel the electric vehicle revolution. Three companies are working to demonstrate new lithium extraction technologies in the area, and if their tech works at scale, it could produce the greenest lithium that the world has ever seen.How The Troubled Salton Sea Could Become The World’s Largest Lithium Supplier | May 4, 2022 | CNBC

Experts: U.S. could enter the lithium market in a very big way. U.S. must reduce its reliance on lithium imports from the lithium triangle. Geothermal technologies could unlock large lithium deposits in the U.S The US could enter the lithium market in a very big way. At least, that’s what some experts are claiming. The global demand for lithium is on the rise, especially in the US. This should come as no surprise, as lithium-ion batteries are essential to electric vehicles and energy storage. Still, the question remains: is the US capable of breaking its reliance on lithium imports from...

Best known therapeutically as a treatment for bipolar disorder, lithium has long intrigued researchers with its potential age-defying properties. The element has been shown in lab experiments to extend the lifespan of fruit flies and roundworms, while observational studies have suggested tap water naturally laced with trace amounts of lithium might improve human longevity. Researchers at The University of Toledo have recently found that low-dose lithium acts as a powerful anti-aging agent in the kidneys. However, researchers have found that one of the major molecular targets of lithium is GSK3-beta—an enzyme that is associated with cellular aging in the kidney...

You can always count on government to make things more expensive when they claim they want to help make things more affordable. For example, President Biden and his green commandos are helping drive critical electric battery component LITHIUM through the roof! Lithium hydroxide futures prices are through the roof making already expensive electric cars even MORE expensive. So much for making electric cars affordable! Of course, The Federal government will now have to subsidize GM and Ford and increase Federal tax credits to encourage consumers to purchase outrageously expensive electric cars. Thanks Joe for issuing your enactment of the Defense...

NEWRY, Maine (AP) — The race is on to produce more lithium in the United States. The U.S. will need far more lithium to achieve its clean energy goals — and the industry that mines, extracts and processes the chemical element is poised to grow. But it also faces a host of challenges from environmentalists, Indigenous groups and government regulators. Although lithium reserves are distributed widely across the globe, the U.S. is home to just one active lithium mine, in Nevada. The element is critical to development of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that are seen as key to reducing climate-changing carbon...

The race to a low-carbon future via electric vehicles already comes with a hefty price tag. But that price tag may enlarge even more in the coming months if the skyrocketing cost of lithium serves as any indication. What are the details? The cost of lithium carbonate — a key ingredient used in the manufacturing of electric vehicle batteries and other low-carbon energy resources such as solar panels — has jumped 95% already in 2022, and is up almost 500% year-over-year. According to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a leading price reporting agency, battery-grade lithium carbonate (EXW China, ≥99.5% Li2CO3) was averaging...

resident Joe Biden and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg were roundly mocked by conservatives last week for suggesting that working-class Americans struggling to pay the ever-climbing prices at the pump should consider simply buying an electric vehicle instead. It was the Biden-era equivalent of Marie Antoinette’s (admittedly apocryphal) adage, “Let them eat cake.” Yet this simple solution floated by Democrat elites might just be even more fantastical than expecting average Americans to be in the financial position to switch to an EV as they struggle to afford groceries. Turns out, the U.S. doesn’t only rely on Russia for oil imports —...

For more than a decade, Chinese companies have spent billions of dollars buying out U.S. and European miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt belt - the world’s richest source of a mineral that has become critical to the global transition to cleaner energy. Now the Chinese firms are running into trouble after a court ordered one of the largest to temporarily cede control of one of its mines. Just one electric vehicle can require between 10 and 30 pounds of cobalt to build its battery, depending on the manufacturer, though Tesla Inc. and other auto makers are now...

**SNIP** The lithium car battery issue is twofold. First, there is clear concern around the level of virgin raw material mining needed for their manufacture. This reliance on metals and minerals as the foundation of this technology presents significant environmental and social issues. However, there are now increased efforts to reduce this through the development of new technologies. **SNIP** Most electric vehicles run on lithium-ion batteries. Each cell of a lithium battery generates electricity when its lithium ions move from one side (the anode) through an electrolyte to the other side (the cathode). The lithium in the anode is cheap...

Australian mining company European Lithium is in the process of securing two promising lithium deposits in Ukraine, aiming to become the largest lithium supplier in Europe and an essential part of an integrated European battery supply chain. The two deposits, discovered and subsequently explored in the 1980s and 1990s, are located in Shevchenkivske in the Donetsk region and in Dobra in the Kirovograd region of western Ukraine. Both sites are said to be “under-explored” according to modern methods and “contain significant expected resources”, according to a statement by the Australian company, who have so far made a name for themselves...

The Felicity Ace was being towed to land when it began to list to starboard in heavy seas about 250 miles off the Portuguese island chain and took on water in heavy seas, according to the ship's manager. The Portuguese navy confirmed that it sank in a location outside of Portugal's territorial waters that is over two miles deep.

Soaring battery metal costs are leading to a renewed interest in ithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries. Manufacturers are looking to cut cobalt use as they are looking to cut costs and improve their ESG profile. Tesla is making the switch to LFP mandatory in all its markets after a positive reception in the U.S. In the vast majority of cases, technological innovation leads to newer, cheaper, and more efficient designs than their predecessors. But every once in a while, technological progress goes into reverse gear when progress turns out to be turbocharged regress. ... During an investor presentation last year,...