News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Tesla’s new patent involves using table salt to mine lithium. Parent comment

Re:Tesla’s new patent involves using table salt to mine lithium by rcMgD2BwE72F on Friday July 16, 2021 @06:56AM (#27854936)
More than 95% of the hydrogen produced comes from coal and gas[0]. If we manage to switch to hydrolysis, we'll have to generate at least twice the energy we'd need for Li-Ion batteries to due energy loss in weel-to-wheels measurements[1].

Also, there's no lack of materials for battery (NB: Tesla only uses LFP cells in China now, and achieve similar specs as their NMC chemistry used in the US).[2]

There's no shortage of materials in sight and it's far cheaper than hydrogen. Hydrogen has very few use cases were it's more efficient than batteries (industry, agriculture and aviation, mostly)[3].

[0](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_production)

[1](https://www.volkswagenag.com/en/news/stories/2019/08/hydroge...)

[2](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-china-idUSKBN26L26S)

[3](https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1397267000196534283)

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tesla’s new patent involves using table salt to mine lithium by robbiep on Friday July 16, 2021 @10:04AM (#27856329)
Just because hydrogen is mostly produced from carbon sources right now doesn’t mean it would be with significant scaling of hydrogen as a fuel source, it could be easily produced from electrolysis of water from renewable sources if the investment was there, but you still have the energy costs to produce it
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tesla’s new patent involves using table salt to mine lithium by ecpottinger on Friday July 16, 2021 @10:17AM (#27856448)
But still cost 2-3 times more energy, and energy costs money.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Tesla’s new patent involves using table salt to mine lithium by robbiep on Friday July 16, 2021 @10:27AM (#27856545)
We’re talking about a situation where big investments in lithium batteries have lead to a possible massive increase in the cost of lithium production, and you’re assuming we wouldn’t see similar enhancements in hydrogen production - electrolysis is one route but some of the catalytic pathways are showing some outrageous experimental efficiencies. Dream a little, that’s the subthread I started and the thread you’re necessitated to respond to if you want to have a productive discussion
[ Parent | on HN ]