OT. Electric pickup introduction

[Clare Snyder]

Maybee there was a reason I confused Ed's post for one of gregs??

[gfretwell]

Not in any serious way.

[Scott Lurndal]

The graph you cite shows that renewables have, indeed supplanted coal. To a certain extent CH4 has also supplanted coal (continuing a long-term trend), but the increase of renewables as a percentage is larger than that of CH4. (e.g in 2016, CH4: 1378 Billion Kwh, Renewables: 609 billion kwh,

2019: CH4: 1592 billion Kwh, Renewables: 720 billion kwh)

That's a national graph, it's also instructive to look at various states (like Texas, California and Iowa) which brought more renewables on-line than CH4 in the last few years. Buffet's utility in Iowa is very close to being 100% renewable (supplanting coal plants), for example (he bragged on it in his last BH letter).

[rbowman]

The problem in the Lithium triangle is the environmental degradation by the brine and high water requirements in an arid region.

Cobalt is the other part of the equation and is principally sourced from the DRC. Child labor issues are the best you can hope for in that shit hole.

There are other compounds being developed but the lithium/cobalt combination is the most efficient at the moment. Most of China's cobalt comes from Africa. The Chinese are very concerned about the human rights of people who are not Han.

Then there is Tibet and lithium.

The environmental damage there may even be greater than in the lithium Triangle.

BTW, Australia is the largest single producer of lithium, most of which goes to China.

But what the hell as long as Americans can have the conveniences and virtue signal by driving a Tesla.

[rbowman]

Are you really that stupid? There are other compounds that show promise but right now the game is compounds of lithium and cobalt.

[rbowman]

Huge, untapped, reserves at this time. There's a lot of hype but who will be the winner?

[rbowman]

[gfretwell]

You must be looking at a different graph. The blue bar (nat gas) is the one that got bigger as coal dropped since 2005 or so.

[Scott Lurndal]

And you clearly didn't read my original post, where I said in the last couple of years; I made no claims about 2005-2018.

[dpb]

And even if were, presumes there's a running stream within 200 miles...

[trader_4]

Trump is trying hard to reverse that. It's part of making America great again, burn more coal.

[Ralph Mowery]

Coal is renewable. Just takes a couple of million years for it to renew.

Seems that everything has its disadvantage. Wind generators kill birds. Coal polutes air and water. Atomic enegery can cause problems like in Japan, Russia, and Three Mile island. Water power stops with drouts. Solar only during the sunny days.

Only thing I know of in abundance is the hot air in Washington. About 500 generators worth.

[Clare Snyder]

Actually other than for "ultraminiature" apps cobalt is losing ground fast to phosphate and thaliate chemistries which do NOT require cobalt