Nickel oxide is literally green, which is good for your very "green" electric car that's saving...

[NNadir]

...the world.

And the world, after all this talk, is saved, isn't it?

If one reads the scientific literature on battery technology, one hears a lot about three elements that are not lithium but are in "lithium" batteries. You know, the batteries that everyone talks about saving the world. These elements are cobalt, nickel and manganese.

Of course, the scientific literature is nowhere near as sexy as "clean"technica where bourgeois anti-nukes can worship their "green" cars and other "green" consumer stuff.

Anyway...

In my useless tenure here, I've sometimes expressed that I have no use for "journalists" talking about engineering and scientific topics, but irrespective of my commentary, most everybody loves journalistic accounts.

Here's a good one, from journalists, that even I found rather amusing: It's all about How Norilsk, in the Russian Arctic, became one of the most...

Norilsk is helping all the Clean Techies go "green."

From the Norilsk article:

Norilsk Nickel is the world’s leading producer of the high-purity Class 1 nickel that electric vehicle industry leaders like Tesla CEO Elon Musk are seeking.

But of course, this article isn't as cool as an article at Cleantechnica.

They love Elon over there, at Cleantechnica, where they worship his Ayn Rand inspired Howard Roarkian ass as he heads out to Texas to make himself some 'lectric cars.

In pure Susan Collins style, though, he's as "concerned" about nickel as he is about cobalt. Really. He is. He's "concerned."

We all love us some Musk here too.

It appears that 9,500,000 acres of boreal forest, close to 15,000 square miles, has been killed by, um, getting that "green" nickel.

But...but...but...Chernobyl.

The majority of the world's cobalt is from the "Democratic Republic" of Congo, where it's mined largely by de facto slaves. I've talked about that a lot, but I'm not sexy like a Tesla car and to be honest, I never thought all that much about nickel mining. I thought it all came from Canada. What do I know?

Interestingly the original facilities that now are responsible for the Norilsk nickel mines was built in 1942 by slave labor in Stalin's Soviet Gulag. It was more productive to work slaves to death than to shoot them straight away, although either option worked. It was all for a good cause back then, fighting Hitler. Stalin was able to beat Hitler because he managed his slaves better. But defeating Hitler was not quite as good a cause as the one Elon Musk is honorably engaged in, as he does the Collins "concern" waltz all around "green tech."

Nickel oxide is green. Really. It is.



https://www.indiamart.com/proddetail/nickel-oxide-green-12300923862.html

And of course, we need those batteries to back up all those Amazonian clear cut balsa and petroleum based epoxy resins to hold together our heat treated fiberglass for our wonderful wind industry's turbine blades, because if the wind doesn't blow for weeks, we will still need to access cleantechnica.com to learn about how "green," we are, so let's pile up a few mountains of batteries to cover ourselves during Dunkelflautes.

(To see the thermodynamic losses associated with batteries, it's useful to cruise around CAISO. Yes, they have grid scale batteries in California, but it appears they haven't done doodle squat to put snow on the Sierra Nevadas.)

Something called "reality:" There is not enough cobalt and nickel on this planet to successfully make a dent in climate change - even a dent - with all this "stuff," electric cars, grid batteries, and all the other "Clean Tech" we hear about.

We're kidding ourselves. We don't have a fucking clue about how things work, and how "green" stuff is made. We only know what's "green," because we have Cleantecnica.com to have web pages devoted to the shiny stuff. Love me some of that car stuff.

If we consume, we're saving the planet, so consume, consume, consume...

And don't worry...

Be happy...

Don't worry. Be happy.

Don't worry. Be happy.

Over at Clean Technica you can always learn about how bad nuclear energy is, because well, it doesn't need batteries to work.

Not sexy, like a Tesla car.

Rather then open a science book, or - gasp - an original scientific paper, let the swell reporters at CleanTechnica tell you all you need to know about how "green" you are. As "green" as nickel oxide, that's how "green" you are. You couldn't possibly need more than that; because all you really need your electric car. Repeat after me: "I want one; I want one; I want one; I want..."

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

[msongs]

1. too bad we did not get the Ford nuclear car, a chernobyl in every crash

Ford Nucleon concept car

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Nucleon

[dweller]

2. Hey, it's rear engine based

Like a VW … just not anywhere as cute as a bug

✌🏻

[NNadir]

3. Too bad no anti-nukes ever open science books to give a shit about energy beyond...

...wikipedia.

One of the more consistent, and possibly appalling things - among many appalling things - about anti-nukes is that they think they're witty.

I don't agree. There's no wit in letting seven million people die every year from air pollution while they offer stupid one liners.

Nuclear energy doesn't have to power the car CULTure for the benefit of bourgeois consumers to be superior to everything else. It doesn't have to be risk free to be superior to everything else. It only has to be better than everything else, which it is.

But one would have to open a science book to know that, to know about thermochemical hydrogen cycles, heat networks, thermodynamics, the chemistry of carbon capture, the chemistry of fuels, all those subjects that don't come up in a two second poke at Wikipedia.

How many people died from Chernobyl again? As many as will die from air pollution in the next 24 hours while we all wait for those "green" electric cars like Godot? I ask anti-nukes this question often when they chant "Chernobyl." They apparently lack the wits to answer.

For the record, there are lots of nuclear advocates who want to "electrify everything." I'm not impressed with their knowledge of thermodynamics either.

I'm sure that some anti-nuke will come along with a Wikipedia link full of wit to let me know. They're a predictably shallow bunch, intellectually, morally, educationally shallow. Speaking only for myself, I think whatever wit they think they have is as shallow as their educations, their intellect, and the ethics, but that's just me.