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Australian Mining — Can It Power All The New EVs?
Australia is already the largest exporter of lithium in the world and has the largest lithium mine in the world. Each quarter, the Australian government produces a report from the Department of Industry Science and Resources which discusses Lithium and most of the other minerals needed to support the EV revolution.
The report is 175 pages long and this article focusses on the sections dealing with copper, nickel, zinc, and lithium.
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Black Mass, Black Gold, And the Truth About EV Battery Recycling
“Black mass” is a term used to refer to the residual compound formed by shredding of li-ion batteries that have reached the end of their usable life cycle. It is a huge task and challenge to recover the valuable cathode elements (lithium, nickel, manganese, and cobalt) entwined within the battery and upcycling them into usable battery materials.
RecycLiCo is among the first companies to turn that black mass into what is referred to as “black gold.” They do this by recovering almost all of the cathode…
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Redesigned Zinc-Air Batteries ‘Better’ than Lithium, say Researchers
Researchers at Edith Cowan University in Australia have redesigned zinc-air batteries and have found the technology to be preferable to lithium-ion batteries – even for electric vehicles, and they claim to have overcome the technology’s notorious power output limitations.
Zinc-air batteries consist of a zinc negative electrode and an air positive electrode. The chemistry holds promise and is significantly more sustainable than lithium-based counterparts, but the poor performance of air electrodes and short lifespan has limited the technology’s power output.
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Alternative Power Report, August 2023
Download PDFRead several articles about the development of new alternative power products in the August issue of Alternative Power Report. Articles cover topics from golf carts as second vehicles, discoveries by VW research team, a new EV fast charging program in Europe and more news about hydrogen power.
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Hydrogen Engines Face Production Hurdles
Liebherr’s managing director of its combustion engine business unit, Stefanie Gerhardt, has outlined four major hurdles to resolve before hydrogen can become mainstream.
Gerhardt asserted that hydrogen combustion engines can be used everywhere where electrically powered machines and hydrogen fuel cells reach their limit. And she suggested that they would be particularly useful in construction applications where economy, robustness, and high performance are required.
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VW Unveils Four EV Breakthroughs
Guy Youngs VW’s US Innovation Hub just announced four breakthroughs in electric mobility and sustainable transport. First, the team used artificial intelligence on University of Tennessee’s high-performance computer cluster to develop a modular structure in the shape of tiny pyramids; the structure can be 3D-printed from liquid resins and can hold 30K times its own 0.15 lb weight (68g), so this frame would be up to 60% lighter than the steel frame.
Second, they have developed a method of using paper as a recyclable alternative to plastic parts and foils for EV interiors.
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Methane Is A Big Greenhouse Gas Problem
The world has a methane gas problem. Methane is over 80 times worse for forcing global heating over 20 years than its greenhouse gas sibling, carbon dioxide.
And yet we love to burn natural gas, which is mostly methane, to make electricity and heat. Our agricultural and food systems leave a lot of biomass lying around where a lot of it turns into methane and enters the atmosphere. Acceptable limits of leakage are suggested at 0.2%, however evidence suggests that actual leakage to be in the range of 1.5% to 3%
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EV Gas Emissions Evaluated
Argonne National Laboratory’s cradle-to-grave analysis considers everything from raw material extraction to vehicle scrappage to provide a holistic view of the sustainability of different vehicle and fuel technologies.
The analysis showed that EVs (which have no tailpipe emissions) also have fewer greenhouse gas emissions than conventional gasoline or hybrid electric vehicles when the entire life cycle is considered.
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Q2 2023 Economic Update Is Mostly Positive
GLOBAL REPORT
Guy Youngs SUMMARY. There are several factors that could contribute to modest growth in the second half of this year as we await final numbers for the quarter. This should lead to total production globally growing at +2.6% in 2023 (vs 2022). Given this 2023 growth, the outlook for the years into 2028 remains positive.
Apart from Russia and Ukraine, the main country to show a decline is South Korea, while Japan is barely positive. However, the segment picture shows some differences.
- Fuel prices have eased recently, but they remain a serious concern.
- Supply chains remain constrained.
- The war in Ukraine shows no sign of a speedy conclusion, despite recent successes by Ukraine.
- Ukrainian exports of wheat, other grains and fertilizer continue but are still low compared to pre-war levels.
- Inflation continues to be a concern and central banks are raising their interest rates. This will pose a risk to economic growth in all regions. Inflation and price increases are putting OEMs in a tricky situation.
- Risk of recession appears in several countries including the USA and Germany.
- Covid is still lingering with global deaths now at over 6.9 million, but the death rate has slowed considerably.
- Latent demand for machinery keeps bursting out into the open.
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