Canadian team discovers power-draining flaw in most laptop and phone batteries

[starsmine]

13 minutes ago, mdk777 said:

Maybe some day. However, I don't think the availability of charging stations , much less high speed charging stations is anywhere like what you envision in the Midwest.

Down time would be hours, many hours if you count the time required to route to and from the charging stations off my intended course of travel. 

 

Yup, it would be great for my wife who has a 5 mile commute.

 

Yes, we just passed in the US a (how many trillion?) dollar Bill to fund things like charging stations.

Yet, 

I lived by a by-pass in Pittsburg....It took 30 years from inception to completion.

High speed rail has been funded in CA....from 1996 to now....no one is riding...

They passed funding for a SMALL(like 6 miles) section of I35 hear in Austin to be revised....it is only scheduled to be done in 8 years....my guess is more than 10 if not 12.

 

My point? Universal high speed charging stations sounds great.

 

If I live to see, I will be amazed. 

Mid west is full of them. And you are not going off course. 

Lets try a trip from fort worth texas to chicago

Damn thats a lot of choices

or lets go from pittsburg to SuFu
https://chargehub.com/en/charging-stations-map.html

 

 

 

[Obioban]

24 minutes ago, mdk777 said:

Maybe some day. However, I don't think the availability of charging stations , much less high speed charging stations is anywhere like what you envision in the Midwest.

Down time would be hours, many hours if you count the time required to route to and from the charging stations off my intended course of travel. 

 

Yup, it would be great for my wife who has a 5 mile commute.

 

Yes, we just passed in the US a (how many trillion?) dollar Bill to fund things like charging stations.

Yet, 

I lived by a by-pass in Pittsburg....It took 30 years from inception to completion.

High speed rail has been funded in CA....from 1996 to now....no one is riding...

They passed funding for a SMALL(like 6 miles) section of I35 hear in Austin to be revised....it is only scheduled to be done in 8 years....my guess is more than 10 if not 12.

 

My point? Universal high speed charging stations sounds great.

 

If I live to see, I will be amazed. 

What is your actual route? I'm curious if there's already fast chargers along it.

 

5 mile commute sounds like a terrible use case for an EV, unless you really hate cold cycling your engine. That's like 1-2 gallons of gas a week-- will take decades to break even. Ideal use case for a plug in hybrid, though.

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, lotus10101 said:

 Basically what I was getting at...Everyone crys about the wrongs of the past but are complacent, turning a blind eye to todays horrors, we scream about pollution but shun the technology that can save us, patting ourselves on the back when we get our trash in the correct recycling bin but never thinking to check where it goes after the truck leaves...Shame

 

"there is a greater evil with which we must fear most and that is the indifference of good men"

~Monsignor - Boondoxsaints~

and what did we give up that nuclear power plant for?

russian gas, and french nuclear

best part about the french? they built their nuclear plants right next to the border. Poetic irony.

[Ripred]

35 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

and what did we give up that nuclear power plant for?

russian gas, and french nuclear

best part about the french? they built their nuclear plants right next to the border. Poetic irony.

See the same thing here in the states, California closes their power plants then virtue signal how much better than the other states they are then buy power from Texas when there renewables can't keep up  

[wanderingfool2]

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Economically unviable.... (especially if you take into account the amount of e-waste it would generate)

Battery solutions with renewables wouldn't necessarily generate too much e-waste.  As more batteries for mega packs are being created, they are also being created for recycling in mind.  I believe Tesla stated before they had 92% recovery rate in recycling of batteries (and I think it was a higher percentage in regards to the rare earth metals, as the 92% incorporates all "raw" material so that includes things like graphite).

 

The "cost" of renewables also tend to be lower than most other options (there is nuclear, but the issue is unless you run nuclear for like 50 years it's cost works out to be about neutral).  My general stance on the whole renewables and nuclear is that we need a healthy amount of everything wind, solar, nuclear, and hydro.

 

3 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

You are overly optimistic with that, doubt wind farms are getting built so that it can serve the national need plus some parts europe.... Not to mention the price differential between national energy and "borrowed" energy.

You still miss the concept of "it isn't windless everywhere".  Yes, I referred to a more global scale but just as an example.  If you take Britain, you will likely never have it so that there is no wind at all in the country.  Similar things apply everywhere, unless you are physically in a small country then the likelyhood is that there will be areas where the wind blows (and some areas that have wind like 99% of the time).  A few locations like that and you can get an average kind of base load for electricity.

[CarlBar]

@jagdtigger One of the low countries, (think it's the netherlands), is currently building a massive offshore wind farm setup that will provide considerably more power than they need, and thats just the first phase of construction, they're planning to expand it several times over, in the long run. There's also talk though not a ton of specifics on storage, and the north sea is pretty reliably windy.

 

Bear in mind Europe allready generates 30-40% in most cases of it's actually used electricity via renewables, some are over 50%. It's still a big step to get to 100% and account for electrification but Europe has been pushing on it steadily for a while now.

 

And thats ignoring the fact that even if the renewable percentage didn't move, swapping vehicles to electric would dramatically lower CO2 output even with the electricity coming heavily from fossil fuels.

[bcredeur97]

I bought my iPhone X on launch day and it's endured 1,712 battery cycles 

I refuse to replace it. Got to get to 2000 now LOL

[Obioban]

57 minutes ago, bcredeur97 said:

I bought my iPhone X on launch day and it's endured 1,712 battery cycles 

I refuse to replace it. Got to get to 2000 now LOL

I’d have to imagine you’re doing a cycle/day at this point, assuming it’s the original battery, so

should be at 2000 by the time the iPhone 15 comes out

[jagdtigger]

9 hours ago, CarlBar said:

building a massive offshore wind farm setup that will provide considerably more power than they need

Probably betting on the EU continuing down the current path and calculating with some big $$$$....

 

 

9 hours ago, CarlBar said:

And thats ignoring the fact that even if the renewable percentage didn't move, swapping vehicles to electric would dramatically lower CO2 output even with the electricity coming heavily from fossil fuels.

They wouldnt, it would cause a pretty severe energy shortage if percentages didnt move. Guess which power plants are the easiest and fastest to fire up(literally)?

[dalekphalm]

9 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

They wouldnt, it would cause a pretty severe energy shortage if percentages didnt move. Guess which power plants are the easiest and fastest to fire up(literally)?

No... I think you either misunderstood what @CarlBar said, or you missed the point.

 

Two scenarios:

A ICE car, driving down the road, polluting CO2

 

An EV at a charging station, charging from Coal sourced electricity that pollutes CO2

 

Even with Coal, the absolutely worst offender for CO2 emissions, an EV charging from Coal will still produce less CO2 emissions over the lifetime of it compared to an ICE vehicle. This factors in factory emissions from building the cars, as well as emissions to operate the vehicle.

 

Why? It's simple. Efficiency of scale. A Power Station, whether it be coal, oil or Natural Gas, will be more efficient, and pollute less, compared to an ICE vehicle generating the same equivalent amount of power to drive a car.

 

So, even if your electricity comes from Fossil fuels, in the long run, it still pollutes less than an ICE car.

 

The "break even point" (which factors in the higher upfront factory emissions from an EV) is longer for Fossil Fuel power grids compared to grids that use Nuclear or another green source, yes, but the break even point is still generally well within the period someone would own the car. I believe worse case scenario, after 6 years with a very dirty Coal plant, you'd break even with a highly efficient ICE vehicle. After 6 years, it's pure emissions savings, even when using dirty coal.

[jagdtigger]

13 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Even with Coal, the absolutely worst offender for CO2 emissions, an EV charging from Coal will still produce less CO2 emissions over the lifetime of it compared to an ICE vehicle.

Highly doubt that. For one its more polluting to manufacture an EV to begin with, charging aint loss-less (far from it), then there is the issue of the dead battery ~10 or so years later, plus at that point the whole car gets scrapped because changing the battery will cost more than the car's value at that point.......

[dalekphalm]

29 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Highly doubt that.

Whether you doubt that is literally irrelevant. Basically every study that has ever looked at the lifecycle of vehicles, that includes manufacturing emissions plus grid/tailpipe emissions confirms this.

29 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

For one its more polluting to manufacture an EV to begin with,

Addressed in my original post.

29 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

charging aint loss-less (far from it),

Granted, there is losses. This is accounted for when calculating the break-even period. Electric is also far more efficient in terms of energy loss compared to ICE vehicles.

29 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

then there is the issue of the dead battery ~10 or so years later,

10 years is an estimate on your part, and I doubt that's based on anything. There are 10+ year old Tesla's on the road right now.

29 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

plus at that point the whole car gets scrapped because changing the battery will cost more than the car's value at that point.......

The car might get scrapped when the battery dies, yes. But what do you think happens when an ICE dies? Most people don't do engine swaps. Most of them sell their now junk car to a scrap yard for like $300. Swapping an engine, even on the cheap, is still very expensive.

 

Plenty of EV batteries will last 20 years. Now sure, there are some people who own their own cars for more than 20 years, but that's not exactly the norm.

 

Here's an example of Battery Degradation stats for Tesla Model S and X vehicles:

This shows that vehicles reaching 250,000 km of usage (about 155,000 miles) only had about 10% battery degradation in terms of range loss. And it's a fairly linear curve, so we should be able to fairly accurately extrapolate this into future mileage.

 

Even if we assume the degradation somehow accelerates after 250,000 km, you'd still be looking at something like 75%+ of the original range after 500,000 km.

 

Some of these Tesla's will reach a million KM on the battery (just like some ICE can reach a million KM on the engine).

 

And, when the vehicle "dies", and the battery is "no longer good enough" for being an EV battery, it can easily be repurposed - usually as grid storage (grid storage is the ideal usage for an old EV pack that is no longer suitable for a vehicle).

 

Plus there are companies out there right now that specialize in refurbishing your old EV battery, replacing dead or dying cells as needed, etc - to give it new life. This is more common for EV's like the Nissan Leaf, because older Leaf's use a very simple battery management system that isn't nearly as robust as something like Tesla uses.

[jagdtigger]

15 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Whether you doubt that is literally irrelevant. Basically every study that has ever looked at the lifecycle of vehicles, that includes manufacturing emissions plus grid/tailpipe emissions confirms this.

Studies that can be steered in any way by  choosing your datapoints to suit your needs..... Sorry but nowadays the only thing that is under "environmental protection" is just plain green-washing.....

[dalekphalm]

8 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

Studies that can be steered in any way by  choosing your datapoints to suit your needs..... Sorry but nowadays the only thing that is under "environmental protection" is just plain green-washing.....

... so you have zero evidence to back up your claims. I guess we have nothing further to discuss. I question if you even read my first post, since you made multiple questionable statements that were already addressed - which I reiterated of course in my last reply.

 

The fact of the matter is, over the lifetime of the vehicle, an ICE pollutes more CO2 than an EV, even when an EV uses fossil fuel sources (maybe the EV would be worse if you only ever charged it using a really inefficient tiny portable generator or something). If you want to pretend that's not true, I'd have to question your motives. Do you work for the fossil fuel industry or something? Do you pretend anthropomorphic climate change is fake?

[Ripred]

6 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

... so you have zero evidence to back up your claims. I guess we have nothing further to discuss. I question if you even read my first post, since you made multiple questionable statements that were already addressed - which I reiterated of course in my last reply.

 

The fact of the matter is, over the lifetime of the vehicle, an ICE pollutes more CO2 than an EV, even when an EV uses fossil fuel sources (maybe the EV would be worse if you only ever charged it using a really inefficient tiny portable generator or something). If you want to pretend that's not true, I'd have to question your motives. Do you work for the fossil fuel industry or something? Do you pretend anthropomorphic climate change is fake?

[starsmine]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Studies that can be steered in any way by  choosing your datapoints to suit your needs..... Sorry but nowadays the only thing that is under "environmental protection" is just plain green-washing.....

????
?????
????????
 

 

2 hours ago, jagdtigger said:

Highly doubt that. For one its more polluting to manufacture an EV to begin with, charging aint loss-less (far from it), then there is the issue of the dead battery ~10 or so years later, plus at that point the whole car gets scrapped because changing the battery will cost more than the car's value at that point.......

????
??????
?????????

Dude
https://afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.html#wheel

You can do the math yourself

An EV Production car
15 tonns of CO2 (10+5 for battery)
An ICE car 
10 Tonns of CO2

now, lets take a honda civic, 260 grams per mile.


Now a tesla 3, 5 miles per kilowatt.
Coal is 2.26 pounds of CO2 per killowatt. 
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11
so tesla 3 powered off coal is. .565lbs per mile, or  205 grams per mile.

35 gram difference per mile which is basicly a best case scenario for gas vs electric. 

28.5 miles per kilogram
28,500 miles per tonne

142,000 miles to break even in terms of emmissions when powering your model 3 off of just coal plants. Vs a 1.5L honda civic. 

 

But the literal worst state for power mix (you can find your own sources for Europe), West virginia is still only 92.3% coal. meaning its CLEANER then that, it will take less then 142k miles. 

2.26*.9238(coal) + 2.44*.0026(oil) + .97*.0736(Im putting all renewables into gas for worst case)
2.088+.006344+.071392 = 2.22lbs per kW/h OR 201 grams per mile. a 39 gram per mile delta
Or rather, 127K miles to break even with the honda civic.
IN THE WORST CASE STATE when compared to one of the most efficient ICE cars. 

You dont get to go around and say "I doubt it" when the numbers are in front of your face.

Not to mention the lack of NOX
And with battery recycling becoming a thing, battery manufacturing emissions are dropping precipitously. 

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

Studies that can be steered in any way by  choosing your datapoints to suit your needs..... Sorry but nowadays the only thing that is under "environmental protection" is just plain green-washing.....

So a way to look at it, if the claim that EV's generate more CO2 than ICE by means of production, the question becomes where does that extra bits come from.  Generally it would have to come from the battery, and the resources taken to mine that.  As we go towards more EV's though, and the extraction processes change we can get less pollution there.  That brings down the delta between ICE and EV's on when they are manufactured.

 

On another note, with the coal power plants and etc.  It's part of standard data.  ICE vehicles at the top of the line in efficiency is 40%.  That number isn't one that can be manipulated by trying to go green (to make it look worse).  The transition to this efficiency occurred before EV's were a thing where the gov't pushed to get vehicles to that...so you had car companies that would dispute the efficiencies if it was higher truly higher than 40%.  So we can say that the 40% number is very accurate.

 

With that said, coal is a very cheap initial set of energy, but things such as solar, nuclear and hydro actually have a lower cost per kwh eventually...so overtime power will be shifted towards those.

 

If you care to produce data points, feel free to.

 

1 hour ago, dalekphalm said:

The fact of the matter is, over the lifetime of the vehicle, an ICE pollutes more CO2 than an EV, even when an EV uses fossil fuel sources (maybe the EV would be worse if you only ever charged it using a really inefficient tiny portable generator or something). If you want to pretend that's not true, I'd have to question your motives. Do you work for the fossil fuel industry or something? Do you pretend anthropomorphic climate change is fake?

So here's the thing, if it's purely powered by coal plants that aren't doing CO2 capture then it's actually worse.

 

https://www.energy.gov/fecm/transformative-power-systems

Average efficiency in the US is currently 33%.  New plants are better, but the point is in reality we live in a 33% efficiency for coal.

 

With that said, as more devices cars goes towards EV's, there will be more and more push for the cleaner energy as overall those have the lower cost per kwh total operating cost.

[CarlBar]

@wanderingfool2 be careful with that 40% figure for ICE. ICE's don't have the same efficiency across their entire RPM range. So unless your primarily driving at a constant speed that lines up well with the gearing you'll see lower values. This is one of the big things that gives Hybrids such a boos, they can use the electric mode for that and only use the ICE for steady state and high acceleration moments, (the other aspect is regenerative braking). So they get the upper end of the ICE's efficiency nearly all the time.

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, CarlBar said:

@wanderingfool2 be careful with that 40% figure for ICE. ICE's don't have the same efficiency across their entire RPM range. So unless your primarily driving at a constant speed that lines up well with the gearing you'll see lower values. This is one of the big things that gives Hybrids such a boos, they can use the electric mode for that and only use the ICE for steady state and high acceleration moments, (the other aspect is regenerative braking). So they get the upper end of the ICE's efficiency nearly all the time.

I'm aware of that, but when someone is trying to talk about efficiency and not believing how bad the engines are it's better to give the more optimistic number.  If I do the more average numbers, it leaves room to argue that the efficiency is "higher"

[CarlBar]

10 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I'm aware of that, but when someone is trying to talk about efficiency and not believing how bad the engines are it's better to give the more optimistic number.  If I do the more average numbers, it leaves room to argue that the efficiency is "higher"

 

Fair, i just wanted to make sure you were aware, that and a touch of OCD.

[dalekphalm]

On 2/3/2023 at 4:32 PM, wanderingfool2 said:

So here's the thing, if it's purely powered by coal plants that aren't doing CO2 capture then it's actually worse.

 

https://www.energy.gov/fecm/transformative-power-systems

Average efficiency in the US is currently 33%.  New plants are better, but the point is in reality we live in a 33% efficiency for coal.

 

With that said, as more devices cars goes towards EV's, there will be more and more push for the cleaner energy as overall those have the lower cost per kwh total operating cost.

Let's look at the numbers.

 

The Natural Resources Canada Fuel Consumption Guide rating for the Honda Civic sedan is 168g/km for CO2 emissions. That's for the 1.5L engine 2023 model.

https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/sites/nrcan/files/oee/pdf/transportation/fuel-efficient-technologies/2022 Fuel Consumption Guide.pdf

Page 13, for reference.

 

So if we travel 100km, it will produce approximately 16,800g (16.8kg) of CO2.

 

Average US Coal emissions is roughly 2.26lbs/kWh, or converting to metric, that equals 1025.119 - or 1025g/kWh.

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=74&t=11

They break down each source type: Coal, Natural Gas, and Petroleum.

 

Now, in the same link from NRCan above, we can see the kWh/ 100km ratings for a Nissan Leaf - an average run of the mill EV (Page 43).

 

The combined rating is 18.9 kWh per 100km driven.

1025g x 18.9 kWh/100km = 19,372.5g (19.4kg) of CO2.

 

So in this case you're correct. A Nissan Leaf using 100% Average US Mix coal will produce about 15% more CO2 emissions. The point is conceded.

 

Now, if we look at a more efficient EV, such as the Tesla Model 3 RWD variant, it has an efficiency of 15.8 kWh/100km combined rating. This would result in 16,195g (16.2kg) of CO2 or about 600g less than the Honda Civic.

 

A study on Indian coal plant emissions wields similar, yet slightly more optimistic results:

https://www3.epa.gov/ttnchie1/conference/ei20/session5/mmittal.pdf

Page 14 and 15

 

Average CO2 emissions range from 0.92kg/kWh to 0.95kg/kWh - let's assume worst case.

With this new figure, a Leaf contributes 17,955g (18kg) over 100km. The Model 3 RWD could contribute 15,010g (15kg) of CO2 over 100km.

 

So in either case, the Leaf would still produce more CO2 over 100km than the Civic, if it was charged 100% on Coal power. In the case of a Tesla Model 3 RWD, it appears that it would produce less CO2 emissions over 100km in both the best and worst case scenarios, vs the Honda Civic - again, if only charged on 100% coal power.

 

This is good information for people to compare and make informed decisions. But it's important to note that basically nowhere (Not even West Virginia as noted above) uses 100% coal power. And any of those places can and probably will shift further away from coal in the future, which would mean an automatic emissions reduction on your EV - whereas the Civic will never have an emissions reduction.

[mr moose]

9 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

 

So in either case, the Leaf would still produce more CO2 over 100km than the Civic, if it was charged 100% on Coal power. In the case of a Tesla Model 3 RWD, it appears that it would produce less CO2 emissions over 100km in both the best and worst case scenarios, vs the Honda Civic - again, if only charged on 100% coal power.

 

 

Now imagine ethically sourced* abundant lithium and charged up from a nuclear power station. 

 

*many complaints about the unethical sourcing of Bolivia's lithium.

[suicidalfranco]

1 hour ago, mr moose said:

Now imagine ethically sourced* abundant lithium and charged up from a nuclear power station. 

 

*many complaints about the unethical sourcing of Bolivia's lithium.

kinda love that the same persons pushing for EV tend to be against blood diamonds. But for some reason look the other way when cobalt gets mentioned. And the two minerals come from the exact same place. Mined by the exact same ethnic group of people. Under the exact same circumstances. With the exact same repercussions.

But hey, "no exhaust pipe in my car, look at me! I'm saving the planet™"

 

 

[dalekphalm]

14 hours ago, mr moose said:

Now imagine ethically sourced* abundant lithium and charged up from a nuclear power station. 

 

*many complaints about the unethical sourcing of Bolivia's lithium.

That would be great. And places like Canada are well on their way to that reality, though Cobalt and Lithium still have a ways to go for improvements in their labour and environmental impacts.

13 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

kinda love that the same persons pushing for EV tend to be against blood diamonds. But for some reason look the other way when cobalt gets mentioned.

You have to pick your battles. Child labour and unsafe cobalt mines, for example, are both terrible things. But globally, they're less terrible than the risk that climate change poses.

 

And fortunately they are also problems we can solve. Lithium and Cobalt deposits exist outside of those countries with unethical labour rights. We should expand those sources and also pressure those governments to fix their labour rights issues.

13 hours ago, suicidalfranco said:

And the two minerals come from the exact same place. Mined by the exact same ethnic group of people. Under the exact same circumstances. With the exact same repercussions.

But hey, "no exhaust pipe in my car, look at me! I'm saving the planet™"

Producing less exhaust is helping to "save the planet". It might be a small contribution, on an individual level, and there are many avenues available for one to do "their part", but we shouldn't just give up on EV's because some countries have bad ethics practices.

 

And frankly, climate change is an existential crisis. No, the Earth won't be destroyed. The ecosystem will eventually adapt to whatever changes climate change brings. But humanity may not survive that change, or if it does, it will be with massive negative impacts.

 

We can do something about it though. While also doing something about ethics violations in third world countries.

[Roswell]

On 2/1/2023 at 11:26 AM, mdk777 said:

I also drive 500 to 700 miles a day on a regular basis

This is a really suspect statement to anyone that actually has experience… you know, driving.