Re:Life Cycle Energy Consumption and GH Gas Emissions from L...
by mikeash on Thursday June 15, 2017 @11:01AM
(#14561022)
The interesting question is what greenhouse gas emissions will look like once transport becomes mostly electrified and electrical generation becomes mostly non-emitting.
It's no surprise that producing batteries in the current carbon-heavy economy emits carbon. The big benefit will come when you can start to close the loop and take advantage of these non-emitting technologies in order to build more non-emitting stuff.
To make a crappy analogy, imagine pushing cars in the late 19th century as a solution to the problem of hose droppings accumulating in the streets. (Which was a real problem at the time.) It might be interesting to look at how many horse droppings are produced just supplying an automobile factory and how that compares to the horse droppings saved by the automobiles they produce, but it doesn't really tell you what the world will look like when automobiles become common, and especially when they can start being used to transport materials and workers to the automobile factories.
It's no surprise that producing batteries in the current carbon-heavy economy emits carbon. The big benefit will come when you can start to close the loop and take advantage of these non-emitting technologies in order to build more non-emitting stuff.
To make a crappy analogy, imagine pushing cars in the late 19th century as a solution to the problem of hose droppings accumulating in the streets. (Which was a real problem at the time.) It might be interesting to look at how many horse droppings are produced just supplying an automobile factory and how that compares to the horse droppings saved by the automobiles they produce, but it doesn't really tell you what the world will look like when automobiles become common, and especially when they can start being used to transport materials and workers to the automobile factories.