just like oil, meaning we might engage in political conflicts to obtain them, just like oil. Mining anything invokes an environmental yowl. Ask astronauts their opinion of that monster tumor that is Alberta’s tar sands. Milton Friedman glorified the mnemonic TANSTAAFL, meaning “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” EVs qualify. Current research now focuses on solid-state lithium-ion batteries that do not require liquid electrolytes. They offer higher- energy density, are made of ceramics and polymers (like the battery in your fat uncle’s pacemaker), resist bursting into flames, and are faster to recharge. VW and Toyota are early advocates, with the latter promising a prototype any minute. Such batteries are expensive, however, perhaps too dear for low- buck devices like smart phones, and they react unhappily to freeze-up. (Fargo residents may now stop reading.) Research is intense in China, South Korea,
Sport Outer Banks 4x4, which everyone views as a truck, for God’s sake. EV technology, by which is meant battery technology, hasn’t quite stalled but remains idling outside Saginaw. The business of obtaining lithium and cobalt, for starters, has gone ugly early.
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY, FINITE RESOURCES
In Argentina, Chile, and Australia, a half million gallons of water are required to fashion one ton of usable lithium, and there’s a vivid debate about how much remains. Cobalt mines, most in the Congo, have already elicited human-rights violations, and cobalt is fast becoming one of the so-called “conflict materials,” like tin, tungsten, gold, and George Michael records. Lithium and cobalt are finite resources, just like oil, and are sourced primarily off-shore,
2021 PORSCHE TAYCAN 4S
2020 AUDI E-TRON SPORTBACK
American Consequences
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