Subtitles section Play video Print subtitles By definition we must move to renewable energy. I think people sometimes you know how I can I argue against that because to argue for it is to say that we will eventually run out of energy and die. I mean all of our civilization will collapse. So, obviously we must find ways to produce energy and renewable matter. The question is just how hard we should try, what pace we should go at. And I i think logically we should go as fast as we can. Because since we know we have to get there eventually, it's better to to get to renewable future, sustainable future sooner rather than later. And get there before we do the environmental damage, not after. Even if no one could say that maybe there isn't that much environmental damage. maybe the environmental damage maybe it won't be that bad. Why take the chance? You would say We also looking at really provide the energy that we need. A lot people don't perhaps appreciate that solar energy is already the source that the vast majority of us energy. Without solar power we would be a frozen ice bowl at about three or four degrees. above absolute zero. So really all we're talking about for the solar electricity is is taking the tiny tiny of energy that the humanity needs for electricity which I would say is super tiny compared to the amount of solar energy that hits the earth. You could recall that could see that the United States needs with about I'm a hundred-mile by hundred-mile group of solar power so you just take a corner Arizona and that would be they all the energy that the United States needs I think the important with with batteries is there really is no material shortage the request has essentially an infinite amount of metal as far as Mary's concert we have barely scratched the surface love the the resort for the metal resource availability above the earth's crust on and and this is a very fundamentally different thing from mining mining coal or oil or you know because a metal is recycled I'm so once you have enough metal to support a given size industry then it just keeps do it just keeps going into in recycling process i mean they may be a small amount that exits for such as recycling process but it's quite a small amount I'm and so 44 lithium-ion battery packs a in the case a Tesla to the that the be a cathode which is made of nickel cobalt aluminum is the most expensive part in the above the cell piano is made of carbon and and then there's a a thin steel shell around the cell so I'm the the really the only part about that is remotely SKS and I i sat down only slightly so is cobalt I'm and that's why we moved from a pure couple cather to nickel coal Flynn cather which use only about a quarter as much coupled I'm but this this as much because you could possibly want certainly as much as aluminum is as your you've made I'm and much shorter steel I and and the cobalt is it's very expensive but this certainly plenty available to support all the world's meets so there really is not some fundamental medals shortage a with respect that fact spend as much a end-of-life you recycle them I'm sit within you can do you think a battery pack is basically really high grade or and thats its it's much more efficient to recycle a battery pack I'm which has been essentially very high concentrations of nickel cobalt women than it is to mine rock which has a very low concentrations so you know it it's at end of life I'm a lithium-ion battery pack has so about ten to twenty percent of its value in and as as recycling I so you definitely pay it pays to recycle
B1 energy cobalt solar renewable battery nickel Elon Musk Thoughts on transitioning to 100% renewable energy 169 15 Allen posted on 2014/04/12 More Share Save Report Video vocabulary