What’s your overall view of how the energy transition will go (assuming the AI transition doesn’t overtake event)? What do you think about claims like this one that we don’t have enough mining or mineral reserves to support the transition plans that people are depending on?
The current trajectory is towards a mix of natural gas + solar + wind, with natural gas balancing unreliable renewables. Better flow batteries might make solar + storage more competitive, but without natural gas, Europe would need some seasonal electricity storage, which is much too expensive.
There are many different minerals; you can’t lump them all together. Short-term, lithium availability is a big problem for batteries, but in terms of reserves I don’t think that’s the main issue. Nickel is also up a lot, which is part of why people are using LiFePO4 more despite the lower specific energy. (Some people have proposed collecting seabed nodules, but there’s a reason they’re called “manganese nodules”—they’re mostly manganese, which is much cheaper. I don’t expect that to be economically competitive with even low-grade nickel ores.)
More copper mining output should be coming up, but I still expect prices to be a lot higher than they used to be, and you need copper for electric motors. The high-concentration ores of copper and nickel are what’s limited; there’s more supply at lower concentrations, but that can be a lot more expensive.
What’s your overall view of how the energy transition will go (assuming the AI transition doesn’t overtake event)? What do you think about claims like this one that we don’t have enough mining or mineral reserves to support the transition plans that people are depending on?
I expect continued heavy use of:
US natural gas from fracking
Chinese coal
LNG in Japan
The current trajectory is towards a mix of natural gas + solar + wind, with natural gas balancing unreliable renewables. Better flow batteries might make solar + storage more competitive, but without natural gas, Europe would need some seasonal electricity storage, which is much too expensive.
There are many different minerals; you can’t lump them all together. Short-term, lithium availability is a big problem for batteries, but in terms of reserves I don’t think that’s the main issue. Nickel is also up a lot, which is part of why people are using LiFePO4 more despite the lower specific energy. (Some people have proposed collecting seabed nodules, but there’s a reason they’re called “manganese nodules”—they’re mostly manganese, which is much cheaper. I don’t expect that to be economically competitive with even low-grade nickel ores.)
More copper mining output should be coming up, but I still expect prices to be a lot higher than they used to be, and you need copper for electric motors. The high-concentration ores of copper and nickel are what’s limited; there’s more supply at lower concentrations, but that can be a lot more expensive.
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