[HN Gopher] Tesla's former CTO is building a giant lithium-ion b...
___________________________________________________________________
Tesla's former CTO is building a giant lithium-ion battery
recycling operation
Author : Osiris30
Score : 296 points
Date : 2020-08-29 13:46 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.wsj.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.wsj.com)
| mauvehaus wrote:
| "At the same time, the supply of used batteries is exploding."
|
| That's an interesting/unfortunate choice of words given the well-
| documented issues with lithium-ion batteries :-)
| gibolt wrote:
| Maybe they are predicting the just released Galaxy Note 20 will
| be a repeat of the 7?
| sukilot wrote:
| No. All kinds of batteries explode in recycling centers, not
| just faulty ones.
| xoxoy wrote:
| interesting timing...considering there's a lot of scrutiny from
| whistleblowers and short sellers around scrap inventory on
| Tesla's balance sheet and Tesla's real relationship with this
| company.
|
| will need to dig around but recall seeing a screenshot of either
| an analyst call or archived page that suggested someone let it
| slip this was a Tesla subsidiary and not a completely unrelated
| entity.
| ianai wrote:
| Uh why does that matter?
| xoxoy wrote:
| the whistleblower Marty Tripp alleged that as Tesla ramped up
| Model 3 production their battery production facility was
| creating hundreds of millions in wasted battery product.
|
| Scrap inventory has a severely depreciated value - the emails
| that have surfaced suggest they may have tried to hide it
| under "Work in Progress" where they could value it fully.
|
| If they actually wrote down $100M+ in battery inventory that
| would be a massive shock - no investor is considering that
| level of scrap in valuing the company right now.
|
| If they have a secret subsidiary they could sell it to this
| entity at some bloated price without anyone knowing.
|
| This company then becomes some highly indebted entity that
| will probably eventually go bankrupt but save Tesla's
| valuation.
| sukilot wrote:
| How is that legal? (Besides the boring answer of the
| fundamental corruption in the concept of the corporation.)
| I can't outsource all my debts to a zero-net-worth friend
| who then declares bankruptcy.
| xoxoy wrote:
| it's not
| [deleted]
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| "How is that legal?" is never really a relevant question
| when it comes to Tesla or Elon Musk.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| Writing down $100M+ in battery inventory would be a big
| hit, especially with their profit margins being thin, but I
| wouldn't consider it a big shock. At $20000 per pack,
| $100M+ in battery inventory is 5000+ cars, which is less
| than a percent of total production so far. Having a
| significant number of defects early in the production
| process is common.
|
| Ultimately, it's up to them how to value it, within reason
| and the law, just like it's up to them when to sell
| emissions credits.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Would it change the fact they will still be 100x times
| overvalued?
| xoxoy wrote:
| the valuation could go in a second if there's a hint of
| running low on liquidity - or that either assets appear
| bloated or liabilities understated
|
| also it's the clearest sign of accounting fraud...but
| apparently the SEC doesn't care to investigate that
| anymore.
| bob33212 wrote:
| That is a reasonable concern from an accountant point of
| view. But time and time again Elon has shown that he isn't
| operating with the normal MBA CEO mindset. He is operating
| as an engineer, and all that matters in the engineering
| world is that if you can successfully build the technology
| and factories to remake these packs at a low cost, your
| total costs will be significantly lower than your
| competition. It doesn't take an MBA to understand the
| implications of that.
| bob29 wrote:
| In that case, why would the "unprecedentedly brilliant
| engineer-ceo" Musk not develop battery recycling
| technology as a division within Tesla, solely reaping the
| rewards of cheaper battery packs?
| afrojack123 wrote:
| Its clear your not an engineer nor know anything about
| Elon. He purchased Tesla and scrubbed the founder's name
| from it. Hardly what you call an engineer. Most
| engineer's don't know complex financial and legal tricks.
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| With respect, if you leave out the sophisticated games
| Tesla plays with finance and PR you're missing a big part
| of what has made the company effective.
|
| In order to qualify for the S&P 500, Tesla needed a
| cumulative four quarter profit. Q1 and Q2 2019 were "take
| out the trash" quarters, with $702 million and $408
| million in losses respectively, for a cumulative loss of
| $1.11 billion.
|
| In the four quarters since that time, Tesla has posted
| profits of $143, $105, $16 and $104 million, for a
| combined profit of $368 million. The previous two
| quarters were heavily juiced with credit sales to shore
| them up to be a slight profit.
|
| This fits the criteria for S&P 500 inclusion, and also
| solidifies the notion that Tesla can be profitable - it's
| just taking losses like Amazon, investing in the future.
|
| A company that purely focuses on engineering and ignores
| the short term would have instead sold credits as they
| came in, and not structured expenses and income to
| achieve the result that they did. If Tesla had instead
| posted 6 losses in a row of ~$125 million they'd be
| materially worse off, both from an investor perception
| perspective and by not qualifying for the S&P 500.
|
| There's absolutely _nothing wrong_ with playing these
| games. The "shorts" point them out to denigrate the
| company, but I don't think that makes sense. The fact
| that Musk has such tight control over the company is a
| major competitive advantage. The CEO of VW could not have
| done the same thing.
| xoxoy wrote:
| if this is indeed a Tesla subsidiary, it's accounting
| fraud
| recuter wrote:
| How could it possibly be?
|
| Tesla had $100M+ of scrap inventory they pretended was
| still good and then somehow created a subsidiary out of
| thin air and "sold" the scrap to it?
|
| I don't understand where the $100M the subsidiary paid
| materialised from. How is any of this possible.
|
| What's preventing others from having secret fake
| subsidiaries and printing money out of nowhere?
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| How about M invests $100M in company B, he writes them a
| cheque, company B purchase waste from company C for
| $100M, by cheque. Company C loan M the money, by cheque,
| or give him it.
|
| M isn't out any money. B has a lot of waste to process,
| batteries maybe. C has $100M extra on their balance
| sheet. There'd be some wastage: capital gains taxes,
| ancillary costs.
|
| Does that kind of thing work?
| maxerickson wrote:
| Funding such a fraud could make sense for holders of
| large amounts of Tesla stock.
|
| Spend $100 million to prop up billions.
|
| Note that I'm commenting in the abstract, not commenting
| in support of fraud as an explanation. I have no
| information or opinion about this battery recycling
| company.
| xoxoy wrote:
| I mean it's hardly a secret if it's on the cover of WSJ.
|
| The question is who funded this company and what
| transactions have they made with Tesla?
|
| but obviously no one will tell you those two things.
| bob33212 wrote:
| All corporate accounting has some amount of bending the
| rules. Conferences and team meetings at high end resorts
| which are not counted as compensation for example. The
| rules exist because of people like the Enron bean
| counters who spent their time and energy scamming the
| system rather than actually building something.
|
| It is fine if you don't like Elon or how he runs his
| company, but it is absurd to suggest that this is a shell
| company and not an actual effort to improve recycling
| technology.
| xoxoy wrote:
| Why is it absurd when it's run by the former Tesla CTO? I
| mean it couldn't be less clear what the relationship
| between this company and Tesla is.
|
| Did Tesla fund this company? Or Elon? What transactions
| have taken place between Tesla and this co?
| est31 wrote:
| Such rule bending didn't end well for Wirecard.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > It doesn't take an MBA to understand the implications
| of that.
|
| And _that_ is perhaps the greatest advantage of all that
| Tesla has over many other companies, especially in the
| car industry, but generally (excluding only Amazon and
| parts of Apple /Google): Tesla is not run by beancounters
| with a next-quarterly only mindset, but by someone with a
| long-term vision and a general engineering focus with
| _deep_ pockets.
|
| Not many companies these days go for extensive, ground-
| breaking, costly R&D that Tesla does, and those that do
| rarely go to the length of Tesla/SpaceX. For most
| companies that level of investment would _flatten_ their
| stock value, shareholders would be angry... but Elon Musk
| (and similarly Jeff Bezos) are impressive personalities
| that manage to keep the beancounter hawks at bay.
| xoxoy wrote:
| > costly R&D
|
| huh? you realize that Tesla spends less than $300M a
| quarter in R&D when companies they now dwarf like Ford
| and GM consistently spend more than $1B each?
|
| in fact Tesla's R&D spend has noticeably shrunk since
| last year, which is another head scratcher considering
| how many projects they claim to be working on, including
| a "full rewrite of FSD"
| yowlingcat wrote:
| > less than $300M a quarter in R&D when companies they
| now dwarf like Ford and GM consistently spend more than
| $1B each?
|
| I don't think the two of you have points in contention.
| That is to say, I think it is accurate to say that Ford
| and GM _spend_ more on R&D but Tesla _executes_ more on
| R&D. In fact, I would say that very discontinuity forms
| much of the basis for Tesla's very (some would say
| irrationally) high P/E ratio!
| xoxoy wrote:
| I don't buy the efficiency argument.
|
| Either they are publicly exaggerating the scope of the
| projects they are working on (eg the "million mile"
| battery and "full rewrite of FSD"), severely underpaying
| engineers and understaffed, or something else.
| bob33212 wrote:
| If you read this book it will make sense
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Innovator%27s_Dilemma
| gibolt wrote:
| If you have ever worked at a large company, the
| inefficiencies are explicitly obvious, built into the
| culture and structure of the company.
|
| Starting from 0, valuing employee opinion, and removing
| red tape saves countless employee hours and makes good
| people stay.
| baggachipz wrote:
| It doesn't; they're an anti-tesla shitposter[1] who tries to
| foment FUD at any opportunity. The company's not perfect and
| possibly over-valued, but they take any chance to attempt to
| sow negativity about them.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23921487
| apacheCamel wrote:
| Back in my day, I worked at Bestbuy and if you have ever been in
| one, you may notice that we have a "recycle" area in the front of
| the store. It is a separated bin, labelled with "wires", "cds",
| "batteries", etc. The one that always confused me the most was
| "batteries" since almost EVERY time they would empty that bin
| into our recycle bin in the back, they would dump the batteries
| into the trash because _almost_ all of them were non-lithium-ion.
| My manager said we couldn 't recycle regular batteries so they
| needed thrown away and sorting through the absolute mound of
| batteries was too much to do.
|
| I know we would receive laptop batteries, phone batteries, and
| other rechargeables but they never made it into the bin. I hear
| now, anything with a screen costs money to recycle at Bestbuy.
| They really seem to be taking a step in the wrong direction.
| Better labelled bins, and easier access to recycling areas will
| make it easier for the average person to recycle, which in my
| opinion, is a net gain for us all.
| paulcole wrote:
| The truth nobody wants to hear is that you can recycle all the
| batteries you want but the planet is still fucked.
|
| Live in a small home/apartment, don't eat meat or dairy
| products, don't drive or fly in planes, and don't have kids.
| That's how someone who lives in a modern developed nation can
| "do their part" for the planet. I live that way but almost
| nobody else is willing.
|
| Wringing your hands that batteries get thrown out instead of
| recycled is like complaining the toilet is running when the
| house is on fire.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| This is one of those problems that the US can't solve because
| they keep electing people who don't want to solve it.
|
| In other places they just mandate this stuff.
| iso1210 wrote:
| So in Germany iphone batteries are user replaceable?
| myself248 wrote:
| Does this mean that your manager was throwing NiCd batteries
| (many old power tools, in particular) into the trash?
| ckocagil wrote:
| Have you tried replacing a phone battery recently? It involves
| using hot air to soften the glue, a lot of manual labor,
| unplugging wires, and carefully replacing the battery. Then you
| need to glue everything back together and pray the device
| works.
|
| There's a straightforward solution to this and the recycling
| problem:
|
| 1. Mandate that every mass produced device with a li-ion
| battery have a simple mechanism to remove the battery
|
| 2. Add a very small tax to each device with such battery (in
| the order of cents)
|
| 3. Pay the same amount back to whoever brings the battery to a
| recycling plant
|
| There you go. This system has only one knob (the amount paid
| per battery) and by tweaking it you can adjust the incentive to
| recycle. You sit back and let the market sort out the details.
|
| Not to mention that this would extend the lifetime of phones by
| making it easy to replace the battery.
| jariel wrote:
| Sounds like some regulations are needed around high-value
| substances that are recyclable -> needs to be 'extractable'.
| fsflover wrote:
| > Have you tried replacing a phone battery recently? It
| involves using hot air to soften the glue, a lot of manual
| labor, unplugging wires, and carefully replacing the battery.
|
| Not if you choose a company that cares about the environment:
| https://fairphone.com
| saxonww wrote:
| This is very similar to what's done today for car batteries
| in most of the US: you pay a deposit or core charge when
| buying a new battery, and it's refunded when you return the
| old one for recycling.
|
| https://batterycouncil.org/page/State_Recycling_Laws
| mmrezaie wrote:
| In Europe when you buy a battery you are already paying the
| tax for recycling, and places where they sell these
| batteries have to accept the dead batteries and send them
| for recycling.
| Spare_account wrote:
| This is exactly what is described in Bestbuy three
| comments upthread, but in reality what is happening is
| the batteries are dumped in the trash.
|
| What _really_ happens to the batteries that you
| responsibly deposit in the recycling container at your
| local supermarket?
| afrojack123 wrote:
| Yep. I agree with this. I remember when cell phone batteries
| were easy to remove. Just take the cover off the back and put
| in a new one. However, this doesn't help the corporations
| sell more products.
| dehrmann wrote:
| An iPhone is 3x thinner than a Nokia 3310, but has a
| battery with 3x the capacity of the 3310.
| lostlogin wrote:
| And some variants of the 3310 claim a month of battery
| life. It isn't an particularly fair comparison as they
| are very different devices that both get called 'phones',
| but that is a great battery life.
| https://thinkmarketingmagazine.com/new-
| nokia-3310-battery-li...
| ThePadawan wrote:
| My Samsung Galaxy S3 had a thickness of of 8.6mm and a
| 2100mAh battery that was removable via the back cover
| [0].
|
| My Samsung Galaxy S6 has a thickness of 6.8mm and a
| 2550mAh battery that requires unglueing to replace [1].
|
| I'd much rather carry around the extra 1.8mm for the
| extra repairability.
|
| [0] https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9300_galaxy_s_iii-4
| 238.php
|
| [1] https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_galaxy_s6-6849.php
| afrojack123 wrote:
| True. I was unaware of this.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > 1. Mandate that every mass produced device with a li-ion
| battery have a simple mechanism to remove the battery
|
| Apple has argued that they can fit a bigger, harder to remove
| battery into devices, and the added capacity because it's
| bigger makes up for it being hard to remove. I've changed
| batteries on a Thinkpad X1 Carbon, and it's very
| straightforward; I'm not sure how much truth there isn't to
| that argument on laptops. Phones are so small that I find
| that explanation more plausible.
| shajznnckfke wrote:
| Maybe Apple could be given a choice here: user-replaceable
| battery with a refundable core charge, or they have to
| build a battery recycling program with the same sort of
| core charge applied at purchase.
|
| The core charge would be returned if the user sells the
| phone to any legit business (funded by the core charge
| originally paid to Apple). If the user sells the phone on
| eBay, the buyer can recover the core charge later, so it's
| part of the market value of any phone that has a battery in
| it.
|
| The charge also could be recovered if the phone is given to
| a recycling center. It's on Apple to figure out how to get
| the batteries out and pay whoever does that work. Apple can
| decide whether to do the engineering to make the battery
| replaceable up front, or fund the delicate labor of taking
| apart the phone later.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > or they have to build a battery recycling program with
| the same sort of core charge applied at purchase
|
| They will already recycle your battery for free. I think
| they will actually also recycle other manufacturers'
| batteries for free as well, and also any random loose
| batteries you hand them.
|
| Seems pretty reasonable to me?
| shajznnckfke wrote:
| I think the missing piece here is the core charge, which
| makes the average user think of the battery as something
| of value that shouldn't just be thrown in the trash.
| Currently, I think a lot of users with an obsolete phone
| with a smashed screen would just throw it in the garbage.
| no_wizard wrote:
| The sad reality with phones is whatever Apple doss most if
| not all other manufacturers follow one way or another.
|
| Samsung used to allow you to remove your battery easily but
| they also stopped at least in their flagship phone, last
| time I looked at one anyway. I know they also offer phones
| that do allow for this but the flagship phones really set
| the tone I feel for the downstream expectations over time.
|
| Rather unfortunately I don't think Apple sees value in
| removable batteries, which while I understand the trade
| offs I think is a net negative in this case
| wongarsu wrote:
| On my Dell XPS replacing the battery also only involves
| unscrewing a few screws and unplugging one connector, then
| putting that back together with the new battery. It
| couldn't be simpler, and that's in the space constraints of
| an ultrabook.
|
| On phones there's a better case for fixed batteries, but at
| least I don't mind another millimeter thickness if that
| means I can replace the battery.
| sushshshsh wrote:
| I miss the good ol days when my T410 just simply
| unclipped. Completely modular, no screwdriver required,
| almost like battery replacement was a feature!
| eropple wrote:
| For a while, up until the T480, you had both an external
| _and_ the internal battery. So if you had a few batteries
| it was pretty trivial to swap them while on the go--and
| sometimes you really do need 18 hours of battery life on
| a laptop, even if you aren 't pleased about it.
| hhjj wrote:
| While i agree laws are very welcome to fight those problems i
| think you should let capitalism do it work and implement laws
| more like: 1. Define recycling cost of product 2. Apply tax
| on cost
|
| Better recycling may not be equal to ease of replacement.
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| can we do this plan, except make the well-financed corporates
| take care of the cost of cleaning up the toxic waste that
| they made?
| sukilot wrote:
| For the tiny fraction of people who need to change battery,
| just do the labor. Everyone else can enjoy a better phone
| until the OS is obsolete and the device is physically
| degraded.
| afrojack123 wrote:
| >For the tiny fraction of people who need to change
| battery, just do the labor. Everyone else can enjoy a
| better phone until the OS is obsolete and the device is
| physically degraded.
|
| You are a corporate tool. Congrats on spending more money
| for the same item every year.
| dang wrote:
| Personal attacks will get you banned here. So will
| unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments, which you've
| unfortunately also been posting. Could you please review
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and use
| HN in the intended spirit? We'd be grateful.
| on_and_off wrote:
| thinner maybe, better is subjective.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| Removable batteries of the same size have less life and
| need to be replaced more frequently. For a given volume
| of battery, no removable gives you longer life for a
| single use and a longer usable life in general before it
| needs to be replaced.
| ses1984 wrote:
| You know what's faster than quick charging? Swapping a
| battery.
|
| You know what carries less risk of fire than quick
| charging? Swapping a battery.
| MAGZine wrote:
| They're the same battery. Maybe packaged slightly
| differently, but being able to remove it does not affect
| it's ability to supply power.
| doiwin wrote:
| You won't have to use hot air if you go with a phone with
| replaceable battery.
|
| They are fewer these days, but they still exist:
|
| https://www.productchart.com/smartphones/sets/3
| judge2020 wrote:
| Are there any tradeoffs with easily replaceable batteries?
| Maybe water resistance, thinness, compactness, etc?
| drrotmos wrote:
| You can still make a device with easily replaceable
| batteries water resistant (or even water proof), but it's
| easier (read: less bulky) to do it with a non-replaceable
| battery.
|
| Compactness is definitely a major tradeoff though.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Yeah, my Galaxy Xcover is IP68 (dust/water resistant) and
| the battery is trivial to replace. I think the situation
| is the same for CAT and other rugged phones.
| avar wrote:
| One reason screens don't break as easily as they used to on
| modern phones is because they tend to have a sturdy metal
| frame that the screen and backside are glued onto under
| tension.
|
| This is one of the main things to beware of when you need
| to open up a phone with a heat gun and repair it. I've
| broken a couple of screens shortly after a repair until I
| realized I needed to be more meticulous about how I glued
| the cover back on, and to keep it in a vice until the glue
| dried.
|
| I don't see how you could have a hot-swappable battery
| without making the whole thing a lot more bulky. Personally
| I think this whole "make it repairable" movement is mostly
| missing the mark when it comes to modern phones.
|
| Maybe Apple is different, but if you break something on a
| modern $300-500 Android phone such as the screen,
| motherboard, sub-board etc. you can easily order a
| replacement from China for $10-50.
|
| You need to own a couple of things like a heat gun, and
| maybe a soldering iron, but you'd also need a torx
| screwdriver set etc. for a "repairable" phone. The cost
| difference isn't that great.
|
| Phones are wildly more repairable than most other
| electronics you can buy nowadays or would have bought in
| the 70s-90s. I know if I e.g. break the USB C port on my
| phone I just need a new $5-10 sub-board. Compare that to
| breaking something essential on my washing machine, drier,
| TV etc., those things are typically easy to open, but a lot
| harder to actually repair in practice.
| fsflover wrote:
| > I don't see how you could have a hot-swappable battery
| without making the whole thing a lot more bulky.
| Personally I think this whole "make it repairable"
| movement is mostly missing the mark when it comes to
| modern phones.
|
| Do you also think that Fairphone is "a lot more bulky"
| and "missing the mark"?
|
| https://fairphone.com
|
| I think that Apple simply designs their devices with
| planned obsolescence for more profit.
| ses1984 wrote:
| I think 70s-90s appliances are a lot easier to repair
| than phones, you usually can source the parts from a
| local electronics shop, and they don't require the
| dexterity of a surgeon to work on.
| avar wrote:
| How do you source those parts? Figure out which part of
| the main board of your TV amplifier burned itself out
| with an electric meter, oscilloscope etc., and know
| enough about electronic repair to source a replacement
| resistor, capacitor etc.?
|
| Sure, that's possible, and I'll give you that if you're
| manually soldering something on a circuit board that'll
| be a breeze compared to the surgery of trying the same
| thing on a modern phone.
|
| My point was that for the average consumer without deep
| electronics repair knowledge the situation has become
| _much_ better. If your $500 TV broke you weren 't going
| to find a $10 replacement for its main board that you
| could pop in with just the skill of operating a
| screwdriver. But with modern phones you can do that with
| just a heat gun, credit card and a screwdriver.
|
| Thus I think even though e.g. replacing the internal
| memory or CPU on these devices has become practically
| impossible, they're a lot more repairable in practice
| than most other electronics, current or historical.
| ses1984 wrote:
| I had a phone with a broken part, I went through two $45
| parts before giving up and writing off the phone as a
| total loss. The part had a ribbon cable that you needed
| to thread through a hole in the case and I ripped the
| cable on both parts.
|
| Meanwhile I've repaired my old washing machine quite
| easily.
| qes wrote:
| > I know if I e.g. break the USB C port on my phone I
| just need a new $5-10 sub-board. Compare that to breaking
| something essential on my washing machine, drier, TV
| etc., those things are typically easy to open, but a lot
| harder to actually repair in practice.
|
| It's much easier to find the replacement part for the
| phone - as long as it's not more than maybe 5 years old -
| then it is to find the replacement part for the washing
| machine.
|
| That's been my experience, anyway. Perhaps I'm just not
| aware of where to go for appliance parts.. but I don't
| have much problem finding anything else I ever want to
| buy on the internet.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Perhaps I'm just not aware of where to go for appliance
| parts.
|
| Usually the manufacturer has them, though they may
| optimize for selling to service professionals, and these
| days there tend to be third-party sellers more focussed
| on consumers, as well (and you can often get parts on
| Amazon.)
|
| IME, getting the right part number is often the hardest
| thing, though usually docs available from the
| manufacturer (even for units no longer sold) can be
| downloaded that provide this, and lots of time searching
| by description and appliance model can find the part,
| too.
| avar wrote:
| > Usually the manufacturer has them
|
| My experience with this has been terrible for e.g.
| circular saws & power drills, to name one example.
|
| I had a part I needed for a Makita circular saw & Black &
| decker power drill. In both cases buying every
| replacement part would easily cost 10-20x of the retail
| price of a new saw or power drill, compared to maybe
| 1.5-2x in the case of a modern phone. The aftermarket for
| OEM car parts is similarly brutal for most manufacturers,
| but for some happy reason phones are the exception.
| avar wrote:
| Yes, that's what I'm saying. That you're not going to
| easily find replacement parts for your washing machine,
| but you will for your phone.
| obmelvin wrote:
| > I've broken a couple of screens shortly after a repair
| until I realized I needed to be more meticulous about how
| I glued the cover back on, and to keep it in a vice until
| the glue dried.
|
| Can I ask what phone(s) you are talking about? I replaced
| the battery of an iPhone 7 recently, and maybe it was
| just early in the evolution of these designs, but putting
| the screen back on with the sealant ring was the easiest
| part. Personally found it much harder to break the
| adhesive - definitely the longest step, but this was my
| first modern phone battery replacement.
| avar wrote:
| I repaired a Nokia 8.1 and a Xiaomi Mi A2 recently. I
| used the (commonly used) B-7000 glue for both. It takes
| up to 48hrs (or more) to fully dry, I didn't wait enough
| so I think it dried pretty loosely on the Nokia 8.1. As a
| result the screen broke soon thereafter. Went better on
| my second try.
| ckocagil wrote:
| At a cursory glance there might be. However this
| restriction will force companies to experiment with other
| designs. Maybe they'll have to use proper gaskets. Maybe
| phones will end up being 1mm thicker. These _might_ be
| negative, but IMO it's still better than the status quo:
| right now we're not putting a price on the hidden costs of
| littering the earth and wasting lithium. Ignore these
| externalities long enough and they will come back to bite
| you, the prime example being carbon emissions and global
| warming.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| maybe in the future we'll see people mining lithium and
| other resources from landfills.
| Tossrock wrote:
| "Before its acquisition he had been the cofounder and
| technical director of a small company called Dumpmines,
| which was in the business of digging up and processing
| old landfills, recovering the valuable materials that had
| been thrown away in a more wasteful age." - Kim Stanley
| Robinson, Green Mars, 1993.
| pdoege wrote:
| Yes, there are lots.
|
| Largest of which is that the manufacturers have to balance
| onerous return penalties vs. weight and size.
|
| The solution is to use a monocoque and glue everything
| down.
|
| Thus, consumers buy the cheapest plans, carriers push the
| costs onto the manufacturers, manufacturers push the costs
| back to the consumer for repairs, ad infinitum.
|
| There are phones with user replaceable batteries available.
| They aren't great sellers. Until consumers vote with their
| wallets or regulations the dynamic will not change.
| toast0 wrote:
| > There are phones with user replaceable batteries
| available. They aren't great sellers.
|
| It's hard to vote with my wallet on replacable batteries
| because I already have to vote on other issues. In
| today's market my priorities are 3-4GB of ram (which is
| insane, but that's what it takes to prevent my launcher
| from swapping out, and it's really frustrating when it's
| swapped out), 3.5mm headphone jack, and usb-c. Once you
| have those three things, I would prefer a removable
| battery, but whatever. Also, apparently you need to
| specify decent vibration, because motorola doesn't have
| it.
| chaosharmonic wrote:
| This. Mine are: display output, bootloader unlock,
| waterproofing. And that's maybe three good, current
| phones at any given time.
|
| Also, while a headphone jack would be great, once kernel-
| level support for ADC v3 is smoothed out (4.19 is the
| first LTS to have this, and has only started showing up
| on Android devices this year) my real dream is _two USB
| ports_.
| Reason077 wrote:
| Batteries also seem to be getting better in recent years,
| which reduces the need for them to be easily replaceable.
|
| With previous generations of iPhone, my battery was
| usually pretty much toast after 2 years of use. Greatly
| reduced battery life, random shutdowns at low battery
| charge, and in one case even swelling which pushed apart
| the phone's case.
|
| But I've had my current phone, an iPhone X, for almost 3
| years now (since November 2017). The battery hardly seems
| to have degraded at all despite intensive use and daily
| charging. Battery status reports it still has 91% of
| original capacity, and that hasn't changed for a while.
| pavlov wrote:
| Non-replaceable batteries is one of Apple's saddest
| legacies. They invented this design for the iPod, and
| carried it over to the iPhone. Eventually it was copied
| across the industry.
|
| Before June 2007 every mobile phone had an easily
| replaceable battery, except some extremely niche "design
| phones" like the Nokia 7280 [1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_7280
| epistasis wrote:
| This is weird framing, because I have replaced about four
| batteries on iDevices. Two on my own, and two at a
| corner-store repair shop.
|
| I'll gladly take the daily convenience of sturdier, more
| durable devices over the once-every-two-years convenience
| of a battery replacement with less labor. It's an
| excellent design trade off, IMHO.
| asutekku wrote:
| You did not answer the question, but started an Apple
| rant.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I think it's allowed to respond to someone else's post
| without answering their questions.
| asutekku wrote:
| Yes, but it should somehow relate to the original post.
| late2part wrote:
| You said:
|
| _1. Mandate that every mass produced device with a li-ion
| battery have a simple mechanism to remove the battery_
|
| How do you propose to mandate this?
| WalterSear wrote:
| You make the sale of non-replaceable battery devices too
| onerous in California.
| jedberg wrote:
| Create a law that says that if the battery is not user
| replaceable then the manufacturer must replace it for free
| when its charge capacity drops below 90% of its original
| capacity.
|
| That would shift the market pretty quickly towards user
| replaceable batteries.
| eli wrote:
| California already has an ewaste fee added to devices, no? Or
| maybe that doesn't cover phones.
| dalbasal wrote:
| The operative part isn't the fee, it's the deposit.
|
| If it isn't profitable to recycle, you can make it
| profitable by making the fee reclaimable when it's
| recycled.
| aeternum wrote:
| Should we make it artificially profitable to recycle?
| Recycling is often resource-intensive, we need to be
| careful we don't create a system in which we're using
| more energy and resources to recycle just to make
| ourselves feel good.
|
| It's quite possible that throwing all the used batteries
| in a dump now then digging them back out in the future
| once recycling tech has improved and raw resources become
| more scarce might be the best way to go. This cycle has
| already occurred with old electronics (companies are
| successfully mining garbage dumps for the gold connectors
| and traces).
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| Yup. That's what they do with lead and batteries and
| their core charge.
| avar wrote:
| > Add a very small tax to each device with such battery (in
| the order of cents) [and pay it] back to whoever brings the
| battery to a recycling plant.
|
| We do this with the likes of glass bottles and beverage cans
| and lot of them just end up in the trash. It only makes sense
| economically because consumers can bring them back in large
| batches, but even then the money you get back often doesn't
| justify the extra hassle economically.
|
| If you're going to raise the price until it does you've just
| recreated the cobra effect[1].
|
| 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
| koheripbal wrote:
| In mine and many neighborhoods, there are folks who go
| through every bin on the street and collect them to bring
| them to the recycling booth in bulk. That is only possible
| because of the incentive.
| kbenson wrote:
| > It only makes sense economically because consumers can
| bring them back in large batches, but even then the money
| you get back often doesn't justify the extra hassle
| economically.
|
| Depending on how implemented, you can combat this. In CA,
| it's a deposit you pay on purchase. You get that deposit
| back on turning in the recyclable item. There are problems
| (it's illegal to bring items in from out of state for
| obvious reasons, and the bulk rate paid to the collection
| centers for the material needs to be closely kept track of
| (or just let them deal with it and require they accept all
| items in the program to be official, I dunno).
|
| A Federal law would be easier, as then you wouldn't have to
| worry about transfer between states, and we already track
| goods at the border with customs. Better ability to control
| fraud would allow higher deposit rates, and I imagine you
| could charge based on mAh or something (maybe with a
| logarithmic scale so car batteries are enormously
| expensive, but still something you have to pay for and want
| to recycle). If every phone had a $10-$15 deposit for the
| battery, I think that's enough that people would definitely
| recycle, or other people would do it for them.
|
| There's info on how well the program is working here.[1]
|
| 1: http://www.bottlebill.org/index.php/current-and-
| proposed-law...
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I don't think it's really comparable; no one is going to be
| breeding batteries like cobras, regardless of the reward.
|
| Indeed, the comparison with bottle deposit programmes is
| apt-- there are people in my city who rifle through
| blueboxes on the curb pulling out refundable items. Maybe
| this bothers some people, but it seems like a reasonable
| thing; you couldn't directly pay someone to do that work,
| but you can incentivize it to happen anyway, same as
| shopping carts get gathered up and returned by homeless
| people for a dollar a pop. If a token reward motivated
| people to scrounge disposed-of electronics pulling out
| lithium-ion batteries for return, that would be terrific!
| avar wrote:
| > no one is going to be breeding batteries like cobras,
| regardless of the reward.
|
| Yes they are. You can buy Li-ion batteries of the mAh
| size commonly used in phones for $1-2 in bulk on
| AliExpress. Any price incentive to return them is going
| to either be too low for most people to bother, or so
| high that you'd have an incentive to produce batteries
| just to throw them away.
|
| > If a token reward motivated people to scrounge
| disposed-of electronics pulling out lithium-ion batteries
| for return [..., it works for bottle deposit programmes!]
|
| This works for bottles because e.g. on a Friday night in
| a major city trashcans downtown are going to be full of
| drink bottles. This works because there's a lot of them,
| they're big and obvious, and people consume them in large
| quantities.
|
| A battery in a phone that you keep for months or years
| isn't worth digging through general trash for.
|
| I recycle my own batteries because it's easy to do while
| I'm at it for some feel-good about reducing pollution.
| I'm not against recycling. I'm just saying that I don't
| see how a price incentive for this makes sense.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I should have clarified: for the lithium battery case,
| I'm not talking about people going through residential
| trash, but rather than the incentive would make it
| worthwhile for small operations to sort through e-waste
| bins from retailers and so-on.
| notatoad wrote:
| >you'd have an incentive to produce batteries just to
| throw them away.
|
| the point of a deposit is that it's charged on the
| production, and only refunded on the return. you're not
| just paying people to return batteries. If there was a $5
| deposit on a phone-sized lithium-ion battery, it would no
| longer be possible to buy those batteries for $1-2
| because the deposit would have to be charged on import.
| avar wrote:
| Right, so all of the incentives of evading cigarette
| taxation, except this time around there's a machine
| that'll accept the "cigarettes" you have for sale, and
| your "customer" won't be able to tell the difference
| between a cigarette and a tube of Styrofoam.
|
| This sort of deposit scheme makes sense and works for
| e.g. glass beer bottles because in practice they're high-
| volume items (a consumer might return a 24 bottle
| crate/week), and the bottles/crates are actually still
| useful items in themselves and can be immediately
| returned to consumer circulation after some washing and
| gluing a new label on them.
|
| The price/volume/weight of glass bottles & beer crates
| also makes any sort of return fraud impractical.
|
| As opposed to Li-ion batteries which are going to be
| broken when they're returned. How is a vending machine
| that gives me money for a deposited phone battery going
| to know the difference between a battery and a piece of
| wood I covered in some duct-tape and wires?
|
| And all for what? Reducing Li-ion pollution? It isn't
| some massive problem in developed countries, and people
| mostly do sort their batteries in recycling if given the
| chance.
|
| So again, I'm not arguing that the recycling is a bad
| idea, but that this idea of giving it a price incentive
| in this case is a terrible idea.
| notatoad wrote:
| how did this turn into a discussion on the merits of
| vending machines? you can recycle things without vending
| machines.
| mattkrause wrote:
| I paid a $10 "core charge" when I bought a new car
| battery, which was refunded when I brought the old one
| back so that it could be recycled. I don't see why this
| would be impractical for phone batteries too.
| hansvm wrote:
| That seems like exactly the wrong thing to incentivize.
| If it's in a blue bin it's going to be recycled like it's
| supposed to anyway -- you've just transferred a bit of
| wealth from people who buy bottles to people who rifle
| through recyclables. If we want a wealth transfer, can't
| we think of a better way to accomplish it?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Maybe for cans, but major brewers in Ontario use a small
| number of standard bottles, and when those come back
| through the return system, they are in fact pressure
| washed and refilled-- a far more environmentally
| efficient process than sending them for general-stream
| glass recycling.
|
| I worked briefly at the Molson plant in Etobicoke and
| they literally have machines which cut apart skids of
| 12-pack boxes, wash off the old labels, all of it.
| olejorgenb wrote:
| Skimming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Container-
| deposit_legislation it seems return rates range from low
| 70s to high 90s percent for deposit-refund schemes around
| the world - not perfect everywhere - but plenty of
| countries have 95% rates which is as good as one can
| expect.
|
| I'm sure the rates would be a bit lower if poverty was
| eliminated. Plenty of people collection bottles from trash
| cans and parks. The high rates imply that most people
| recycle bottles consumed in their own house though.
| 05 wrote:
| Use isopropyl (rubbing) alcohol to soften the glue.
| MiroF wrote:
| This actually might be a sign of improvement... I think
| increasingly we are putting restrictions on recycling so that
| we actually do recycle them.
|
| Until recently, I think quite a bit of recycling is a sham.
| I've spent a bit of time as a hobby tracking down recycling (in
| my high school growing up, etc) and effectively none of it made
| it to actually being recycled.
| schoolornot wrote:
| This only applies to New Yorkers but there is a law on the
| books that requires retailers to accept used batteries of the
| same type they sell for recycling. I bring mine to a local
| Apple store and they gladly take them every time. Often I have
| a PC battery or two in the bag too.
| est31 wrote:
| The same rule exists in Germany as well: distributors, if
| they sell batteries, also have to accept them. Same goes for
| (fluorescent) light bulbs. I think this rule is quite nice as
| it saves cost for waste disposal, using existing distributor
| infrastructure.
| sukilot wrote:
| Are they required to recycle those batteries, or merely
| "accept" them?
| usrusr wrote:
| Speaking for Germany: accept, as in paying for proper
| disposal (which may or may not involve recycling). The main
| goal is keeping batteries out of regular refuse streams.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Your story highlights a common issue with recycling: so much of
| it is virtue signalling bullshit. I get to feel good about
| separating my trash (and somehow like my consumerism wasn't a
| net negative anyway), but it still goes all to the same dump.
|
| Of course not all recycling is BS as this article shows. But we
| should change the automatic narrative of "recycling=good,
| landfill=bad" because it encourages practices that are wasteful
| both for the economy and environment.
| dmd wrote:
| For 4+ years when I lived in a Philadelphia suburb, we were
| required to separate recycling from trash, and further into 3
| different categories... and then the truck would come and
| right in front of us dump the trash and all recycling into
| the same truck all together.
| stevep98 wrote:
| The truck that collects my garbage has two sections. The
| driver selects which section the bin will dump into. It's
| difficult to see from the curb what's going on. Are you
| sure this wasn't the case for you?
| dmd wrote:
| Yes, very sure. Even talked to them about it once- they
| said there were plans to have recycling facilities later
| but currently (in 2008) it all just went the same place.
| sukilot wrote:
| Required how?
| dmd wrote:
| Town ordinance, unless I misunderstand your question.
| _jal wrote:
| Weird to call this virtue signalling when it is something
| closer to municipal fraud. Many (most/all?) places have
| different pricing for waste vs 'recycling'.
|
| Or maybe not; it just demonstrates 'virtue signalling' has
| about as much semantic payload as 'fake news' at this point.
| One consequence of internet-driven constant political
| engagement is that neologisms devolve into shibboleths really
| quickly.
| [deleted]
| bhahn wrote:
| I don't think this is virtue signaling at all. Virtue
| signaling implies, to me at least, a person that is trying to
| make himself/herself look better to others. In almost all
| cases that I see in Los Angeles and other large US cities,
| people just recycle because it's in front of them (eg. city
| provides a recycling bin to all houses), and have no other
| specific intentions.
|
| I do agree though that recycling does help feed the *vicious
| cycle of consumption by hiding or misrepresenting the
| negative externalities.
|
| (Edited to fix virtuous typo. Meant vicious)
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I have seen _multiple_ occurrences of someone in a home (a
| guest in mine, for one) or office generate some garbage and
| ask where the recycling is, and when the response (e.g. in
| my house) is "oh, we just recycle cans" or "sorry, we
| don't have a recycling bin", the response has been
| somewhere between "Are you planning on serving baby seal
| for lunch?" and "Are you skipping lunch and going straight
| to the Klan rally?"
|
| I used to get into an argument about how recycling really
| only makes much sense when it's energetically cheaper (e.g.
| aluminum), but I was usually just wasting my breath so now
| my normal response is that baby seal is just the appetizer.
| buran77 wrote:
| > people just recycle because it's in front of them
|
| People skip the reduce&reuse and go straight to recycle
| because it allows them to signal that virtue without
| actually doing all that much after all. It is still better
| than nothing but it's more signal than virtue. It's quite
| possibly the least anyone can do in terms of effort, throw
| the copious amounts of trash in 2-3 bins instead of one.
|
| It's the same with EVs. Where the focus should be to reduce
| the use of cars (with many, _many_ benefits that come as
| side effects), we actually encourage people to drive more
| by moving the costs upfront in the purchase price and
| making driving even cheaper. This means people will have to
| get their money 's worth by driving more. It also allows
| people to have a massive carbon footprint while still
| virtue signaling via the fact that they drive an EV, or
| recycle the battery.
|
| I don't have to look any further than my closest neighbor
| who buys a new SUV every 2 years, the latest being a Model
| X. Just a couple of months ago in casual conversation he
| pointed out the fact that I own a (admittedly old, decade+)
| gasoline car, even if with a tiny engine. It would be much
| cleaner to buy an EV he says. No consideration to the fact
| that recently I drive my car under 2000Km per year and ride
| a bicycle or public transport as much as I reasonably can.
| sukilot wrote:
| Vicious cycle of consumption.
| Reedx wrote:
| Not sure why you're getting downvoted. Wish-cycling is a
| thing, and it's very wasteful. People consume more when they
| think it'll be recycled. Then it goes in the wrong bin, often
| shipped to a recycling center where it takes up resources to
| get sorted out. Ultimately just taking a longer path to
| landfill.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| The term "wish-cycling" is part of an attempt to put the
| blame on consumers.
|
| As an alternative, charge corporations exactly what it
| costs to recycle anything found in the waste stream. Which
| puts the responsibility on someone who can actually change
| things to reduce this cost. The only way to avoid this
| charge entirely is to add a "This is not recyclable" logo
| that is big enough that no-one will miss it.
|
| Only then can we can blame consumers that continue to buy
| those items, but not before.
| dd36 wrote:
| Producer responsibility would solve a lot of problems.
| jbay808 wrote:
| Who is signalling virtue, and who are they signalling to?
|
| When I take batteries to the recycling center, that's not
| something that my friends typically hear about.
| dd36 wrote:
| OP is virtue signaling the virtue signaling police.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Good bit of fraud by a major retailer there. That sort of thing
| needs serious punishment.
| [deleted]
| CalChris wrote:
| It will cost me $49 to replace the battery on my iPhone SE.
| Moreover Apple will recycle the battery. This seems fair.
|
| Doing it myself would require $34 in parts plus tools and skill
| I don't have.
|
| https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+SE+Battery+Replacement/6...
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| The issue isn't whether the marginal cost of replacing it is
| reasonable, the issue is why does it need tools and skills
| that people don't already have.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > the issue is why does it need tools and skills that
| people don't already have
|
| Because these are extremely lightweight, compact, water-
| resistant devices. There isn't room for old-style battery
| compartments. Every micrometer is squeezed here.
| Jugurtha wrote:
| I couldn't parse this paragraph:
|
| > _To JB Straubel, one of the brains behind Tesla Inc., TSLA
| -1.13%^ that refuse holds the key to driving the electric car
| revolution forward--and making the vehicles affordable enough for
| everyone to own one._
|
| Could someone help?
|
| > _Mr. Straubel said in his first in-depth interview about his
| new venture since it was formed in 2017 while still at Tesla._
|
| Was that with Tesla's blessing?
| peteretep wrote:
| Are you missing that "refuse" can be a noun?
| Jugurtha wrote:
| Absolutely. I'm a native French speaker, but the comma
| separating the ticker symbol from the company name mislead me
| into understanding "one of the brains behind Tesla Inc [..]
| that refuse", and given the common pattern in articles in
| which either employees, shareholders, or investors join their
| forces against X, I bought it hook, line, and sinker. Thank
| you! I completely ignored the possibility.
| jhardy54 wrote:
| Refuse (noun): worthless or useless part of something.
|
| (Prounuced 'ref-use', rhymes with 'refuge'.)
| Jugurtha wrote:
| Much appreciated!
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| Where are you from? I'm en-gb native and refuse doesn't rhyme
| with refuge.
|
| Ref-use: ref as in referee, use as in noose, or loose.
|
| But then in en-gb we'd say "waste" or maybe "rubbish".
| coldpie wrote:
| In en-US, refuse (verb) is pronounced reh- _fuse_ ( "I
| refuse to do that."), while refuse (noun) is pronounced
| _ref_ -use ("This refuse must be disposed of.") The accent
| switches syllables.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| It was easy to guess this article was written by Tim Higgins
| before I even clicked the link.
| afrojack123 wrote:
| https://thebulletin.org/2009/01/the-limits-of-energy-storage....
|
| Get the word out. Batteries are bad hydrogen is good. Current
| hydrogen gas will have more energy than batteries at peak
| technology growth. This matters because hydrogen cars are
| cheaper, more scalable, and more inclusive than battery cars.
| Rich people get battery cars, you get a battery bike.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| The claim that hydrogen cars are cheaper and that battery cars
| are just for the rich in comparison is entirely unfounded. I
| have no idea where this idea came from as it is not borne by
| reality.
|
| Compare two vehicles of the same overall type. A Toyota Mirai,
| one of the only hydrogen cars available, with a Long-Range
| Model 3.
|
| Msrp: $58,550 for the Mirai, $46,990 for the LR Model 3.
|
| Range: 312 miles for the Mirai, 322 for Model 3 LR.
|
| Curb weight (!): 4075lbs for the Mirai, 4072lbs for the Model 3
| LR.
|
| Top speed, 0-60mph: 111mph and 9s for the Mirai; 145mph and
| 4.4s Model 3 LR
|
| Cost per mile: $0.33 per mile for Toyota Mirai in LA
| https://www.toyotasantamonica.com/toyota-mirai-
| faqs/#:~:text....
|
| About $0.05 per mile for the Tesla Model 3 LR (19 cents per kWh
| in LA for households average, ~4 miles per kWh) for home
| charging and $0.07 per mile for Model 3 LR with Supercharging
| (about 28 cents per kWh).
|
| Battery-electric cars are basically cheaper and more convenient
| and more efficient and better in virtually every single way.
| (Even lighter for more range, which I was surprised at.)
| afrojack123 wrote:
| Subtract the $15,000 fuel deposit for the Mirai. The price
| will come down at scale.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| It's not a "fuel deposit." There's no option but to pay it.
| It's marketed as "complementary" fuel. I consider it
| effectively a manufacturer's subsidy for early adopters,
| similar to Tesla's free Supercharging (which I didn't
| include here as I consistently didn't include any subsidies
| or incentives). The consumer doesn't get that money if they
| choose not to use the "free" fueling.
| dang wrote:
| > That's ridiculous.
|
| _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be
| shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."_
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| (The parent comment has since been edited.)
| sacredcows wrote:
| Please stop
| kolinko wrote:
| Also, the article you quoted treats energy density as the only
| deciding factor when choosing energy storage.
|
| It ignores both the cost and environmental damage of each
| energy source.
|
| If we discover a way to extract energy from little kittens more
| efficiently than from oil, according to you we should start
| building kitten farms for fuel. This is absurd :)
| afrojack123 wrote:
| Natural gas is 50% less polluting than traditional oil and
| petrol. This means you can double production before you see
| same effects. This is huge and acceptable by governments.
|
| Alternatively think of the low energy output of solar and
| wind power. In order to get more energy, you have to use more
| land and real estate. Are we supposed to chop down the entire
| rainforest and destroy poor people neighborhoods to get more
| energy.
| imtringued wrote:
| I hate it when people use the "chop down rainforest" meme
| without any actual knowledge of why it is happening.
|
| No, people are not chopping down the rainforest for solar
| panels and integrating wind turbines into a forest is
| absolutely trivial with minimal loss of land. [0]
|
| The primary reason why rain forests are being destroyed is
| by what I personally call "disposable agriculture". Poor
| farmers set a part of the rainforest on fire. The resulting
| ashes drop down on the land and the farmer starts tilling
| the soil. The ashes act as a natural fertilizer. The farmer
| then plants his monoculture field and exports the harvest.
| The top soil in the rainforest is not very deep. Without
| trees it is prone to being blown or washed away.
| Additionally exporting the harvest means that organic
| matter is being taken away from the location which further
| depletes the topsoil. After 3 years the land is worthless
| and the farmer has to move onto the next location. Rinse
| and repeat. A single farmer can easily destroy hundreds of
| acres of rainforest.
|
| Depletion of nutrients is not exclusive to the rainforest
| though. Regular farmland also suffers from this which is
| why farmers have to use artificial fertilizer. You can farm
| in the rainforest even if you can't afford fertilizer. This
| is why it is being destroyed.
|
| [0] https://static2.bigstockphoto.com/5/1/3/large1500/31531
| 1371....
| afrojack123 wrote:
| You totally missed the point. You need more land for
| renewable. It won't be the rainforest now. But it will be
| something else.
| dang wrote:
| Swipes like "you totally missed the point" break HN's
| guideline against calling names in arguments. Please
| review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| and stick to the rules when posting here.
| imtringued wrote:
| Hydrogen infrastructure suffers from huge energy losses. Unless
| you are powering aircraft, heavy industry, large scale grid
| storage or hybrid cars there is not much point in choosing
| hydrogen. You get much more mileage out of a single kWh with a
| BEV.
| kolinko wrote:
| hydrogen keeps status quo - big corporations supplying fuel
| stations. battery drives help with decentralisation - you can
| charge your car back at home from your own solar.
|
| Also, hydrogen has how much - 60% energy loss?
| afrojack123 wrote:
| Status quo doesn't matter. Cost does. Efficiency doesn't
| matter. Cost does. Economics<-> Engineering <-> Science Link
| the 3 and you will understand. Economics: Rare earth metals
| are scare, expensive, and political. Hydrogen sourced from
| natural gas is abundant and 50% less pollution than oil and
| petrol. Hydrogen is operating expense(pay on usage),
| batteries(pay upfront). Engineering: Storage is everything.
| Batteries have about the same Mega Joules overall as hydrogen
| storage in a car because the hydrogen has to be compressed.
| You can compare the range between Model 3 and Hydrogen fuel
| cell cars and see the ranges are similar. MJ/kg is ultimately
| what determines cost and batteries have significantly worse
| MJ/kg than hydrogen tanks. Science: Peak battery innovation
| will only be able to match current hydrogen fuel cells MJ/kg.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Hydrogen cars are both more expensive (both upfront and
| operational) AND less efficient than comparable electric
| cars while having less range, less convenient recharging
| (no home or work charging, can only fill in a few stations
| in California), and being slower.
| afrojack123 wrote:
| Give it some time.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| So that batteries become both lighter and cheaper and the
| advantage grows?
|
| I don't think time favors hydrogen cars. The underlying
| technology was available over 50 years ago (used on
| Gemini spacecraft as hydrogen fuel cells in the mid
| 1960s, and in stationary form in the early 1930s, first
| developed in the lab in the _1830s_ ). Lithium chemistry
| has advanced dramatically in the time since it was first
| invented. There were no rechargeable lithium chemistry
| batteries 50 years ago, even in the lab. And they didn't
| enter practical use until the 1990s and significant
| yearly progress continues today.
|
| Time favors lithium chemistry rechargeable batteries.
| dehrmann wrote:
| > big corporations
|
| Whenever I see people use this phrase in a debate context, I
| give the argument less credit because it's meant to evoke an
| emotional response, but adds little to the discussion.
|
| There are all sorts of companies , some big, some small, some
| more profit-driven, some less, some with more flexible
| ethics, etc. A company being big or small doesn't inherently
| make it bad, and small companies aren't inherently good.
|
| It might also disrupt the status quo. Electrolysis (I assume
| this is where you're getting your hydrogen) just takes water
| and electric. People might even have home systems that can do
| it. That said, I still think hydrogen is, for the most part,
| silly, because of the electric requirement. Might as well use
| the electric as electric.
| abhv wrote:
| The story is unfortunately sparse on the details of how the
| recycling works (whether there is any truly new idea).
|
| Based on the "furnace" picture and language about melting down
| the batteries, it seems like their approach is to just treat the
| incoming batteries as "enriched ore" and proceed with an energy-
| intensive, standard, metal extraction process.
|
| So what they save is the huge amount of energy and dirtiness
| required to dig in the earth (in the few suitable places on the
| earth) for rocks with <.5% metal content and crush those rocks
| into dust, which is substantial, but not revolutionary?
| X6S1x6Okd1st wrote:
| Incrementalism strikes again!
| imtringued wrote:
| So what? Steel, copper, aluminum are recycled this way as well
| and nobody is complaining that it's not revolutionary enough.
| rklaehn wrote:
| Does it matter if it is revolutionary? A lot of things that
| tesla does are not revolutionary but a very large number of
| small improvements that end up resulting in a qualitative
| change.
|
| E.g. everybody is talking about exotic battery chemistries
| while Tesla is able to wring out significantly more performance
| from their existing chemistry by doing tabless electrodes.
|
| You could argue that the focus on revolutionary progress versus
| incremental improvements is sometimes holding us back.
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Tesla's competition wanted to make sure that their margins
| don't decrease, as most of their stock holders are chasing
| dividends. Dividends made sense in the 20th century (and
| those companies had better performance), but since 1990-2000
| companies that reinvested all their money into R&D and gave
| back 0 dividends had better returns even disregarding the tax
| advantages.
| MetalGuru wrote:
| Is this the whole shift from value to growth stocks? See it
| ever tipping back the other direction again?
| [deleted]
| xiphias2 wrote:
| Sure. I don't. The world is getting faster all the time.
| zarkov99 wrote:
| This has always puzzled me. As a stockholder what is the
| use of a stock that never pays dividends? What does
| ownership of a bussiness mean when you have no share of its
| profits?
| cptskippy wrote:
| That's pretty much how it's always worked, most companies
| rest on their laurels saying "just wait, xyz is around the
| corner" while companies like Intel, and now TSMC, delivered
| that corner.
| snazz wrote:
| I think that this bias of "revolutionary over incremental"
| might be holding science back in a variety of other areas as
| well. It's kind of like how I've heard that Google's
| promotion structure incentivizes new services and initiatives
| over improving old ones, leading to deprecations and extreme
| redesigns for little tangible benefit.
| agumonkey wrote:
| There are companies in Germany doing small container recycling
| machines.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxCFDWMPu38
|
| Apparently they use remaining electricity to power the
| crunching step.
| Meandering wrote:
| Amazing system. This should be the industry standard.
| nickik wrote:
| Getting large scale is what matters more then if it is
| revolutionary.
| aarreedd wrote:
| How does a company get an article like this published?
| notatoad wrote:
| you might find this interesting:
| http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
| mymacbook wrote:
| Not many technical engineering leaders have a passion for
| leaving the world better than they found it, especially in an
| area where they consumed a lot of raw materials to make their
| life's greatest work.
|
| Very few companies are doing more than lip service on the very
| difficult (sometimes impossible) task of dirty work to get
| recycled materials into the supply chain as a viable (and
| someday better) alternative than new raw materials from the
| earth.
|
| This has so many implications if successful - you can compete
| with mining 1:1. It allows a company to handle disruptions in
| the traditional supply chain, etc. But, today this is hard to
| do and you often only see post-consumer recycled materials used
| behind-the-scenes (e.g. a plastic frame holding a non-essential
| chamber) or in packaging (e.g. bamboo ink, cardboard boxes
| without white paint), but it's rarely used in what the consumer
| sees (notable exception: The Google Nest Mini "fabric" is made
| from plastic bottles).
|
| As more devices rely on batteries, we need to think about how
| we can start harvesting those materials for re-use ourselves
| and not just shipping overseas and closing our eyes. It's much
| more expensive to intentionally source recycled materials today
| and that is, unfortunately, a losing proposition for most
| manufacturers.
|
| -----
|
| https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/google-newest-nest...
|
| https://appleinsider.com/articles/19/04/18/apples-2019-envir...
| sukilot wrote:
| Call a friend at the newspaper. Be "interesting".
| merricksb wrote:
| https://archive.md/09542
| czottmann wrote:
| Thank you!
| monadic2 wrote:
| Why is battery disposal such a municipality-dependent shitshow in
| the US? The vast majority of cities I've lived in, with the
| exception of san francisco, essentially encourage people to throw
| their batteries directly in the trash by providing no disposal
| mechanism via municipal waste collection. This is much, much more
| dangerous in the short term with lithium ion batteries.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/3LYRl
| reco wrote:
| Does anyone know what the price is for bulk e-waste a company
| like this would pay? Or how to find it?
|
| I've been interested in setting up some free local e-waste
| collection for recycling, but it seems like the cost of
| collection and sorting is more than the price I can get for it.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| The existence of this company itself is pretty old news, Lora
| Kolodny reported on it in 2018:
| https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/06/tesla-cto-jb-straubel-redwoo...
|
| What's new is Tim Higgins giving JB Straubel space in the pages
| of WSJ to run a PR campaign for his company.
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