| the-pi-guy said: Most estimates on the numbers of cars in the world are only in the 1 to 1.2 billion range. There are only about 570 million cars in the European Union and the US combined. There are other ways to make batteries that don't use Lithium. This also ignores possible future innovations with batteries. |
I wish I had shared the same amount of optimism as you did if it were not for the fact that material science has reached a limit on battery technology ... :/
Lithium's physical properties for storing charge are as ideal as it gets for energy per volumetric density. Particularly, Lithium is a very light metal which makes it a very good anode material. There's very little chance that we'll be able to make a breakthrough within the next two decades on battery technology ... (lithium is nearly 3 decades old from it's commercial production at this point)
Lithium also has a limited charge cycle making it very expensive to maintain as well ...
| the-pi-guy said:
Well, long term we are also going to have to do something about gas. There is only so much oil and coal to go around. |
Well we have another 70 or so years to think about it so let's not rush things by forcing austerity upon the people because even a dictator won't stay very long in power once they squeeze the public out of their very own livelihoods to the point of staging a revolt ...
If we're forced to ween ourselves off of hydrocarbons then the least worst candidates among them is arguably nuclear fission but there needs to be a big political change for the public to accept this source of energy despite constant fears of Chernobyl or Fukushima ... (maybe 4th generation reactors are the panacea that'll give us safe nuclear fission energy source)
