364 War 724 day Transition to the fourth technological revolution

 

 

First a parable.

 

"A mouse climbed on top of a full can of grain. She was pleased. There was a lot of food. But as the jar emptied, the mouse sank lower and lower. Until she hit the bottom. Then there was no way to get out of the can..."

 

So it is in life on Earth. In the beginning there was firewood, and there were more people, so we would have to cut down all the trees in the world. And then there would be death for everyone.
A solution was found, we found a steam engine and coal. England won on this, this was the first technological revolution.

 

And if everyone rushed to mine coal, it would soon run out. And we would all die. But they found oil and oil refining. Internal combustion engines. The USA won on this and the era of the second technology began.

 

The third technological revolution was atomic energy, which is  till today.

Next comes the fourth technological revolution.

There are different options for what will happen in the next hundred years.

Or the continuation of the third revolution: this is the era of electric vehicles (as in China). Or a hydrogen car (as in Japan). A third option is possible - atmospheric electricity. Let's consider all three branches of this science about the fourth technological order. Why are we talking about this? Yes, because wars are going on today and will continue to go on for a long time until there is a transition to the fourth technological structure: very cheap energy and anywhere.

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Electric cars, the leader is China. BYD alone produced 3.02 million cars in 2023. Based on lithium and lithium phosphate batteries. Three quarters of the world's batteries are also produced by China. To produce batteries you need lithium, nickel, manganese and cobalt.

In the ocean, in the Clarion-Clipperton area, over an area of 4.5 million square kilometers at a depth of 4000 meters, there are stones with these minerals. It's trillions of dollars and it doesn't belong to anyone. And there will be a new war for these resources.

Lithium in a smartphone is 3-5 grams, a laptop is 20-50 grams, an electric scooter is 1-2 kg, a car is 10-50 kg, a truck is 400 kg. Today there are four main suppliers:

Argentina (4.8%), China (14.6%), Chile (30%) and Australia (46.9%).

Australia sends 90% of lithium to China because it is 51% owned by China.

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China also owns 51% of Argentina's lithium. The controlling stake in lithium in Chile is also China. The largest lithium reserves in the world are in the lithium triangle (Chile - Bolivia - Argentina). Rosatom and China win all production tenders here. Therefore, 76.4% of lithium batteries are produced by China, the European Union 8.3%, the USA 7.1%, etc. China today is a monopolist that controls all technological chains. China also controls cobalt production. 70% of cobalt is mined in Africa (Congo). And the owner is the Chinese company SMOS. 75% of nickel, wherever it is produced in the world, goes to China!

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Manganese is the main buyer of China, of course. The last element for batteries is graphite. More than 70% of world production is from China. Since 1980, China has stopped selling its oil and started buying it. And every year he buys more and more. In 1981, it bought 1 billion tons of oil, and in 2011 - 1.34 billion tons. In 1993, China was the largest importer of oil in the world. It spends 2% of its GDP on this – $2.27 billion. In 2005, it already spent 41.7 billion dollars. 2015 – 115 billion dollars! And 208 billion dollars last year!!! China took notice of this and began, 20 years ago, and began buying deposits for batteries around the world.

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There is a downside to this process:

resources are not unlimited and in order to charge the battery, you need to generate electricity. And if a family of 4-5 people needs 3-5 kW of electrical energy and there is far from enough of it in the world, then for one electric car you need at least 50 - 80 kW. For Truck - 300 kW. And there are too many cars. And it will be two orders of magnitude higher. Artificial intelligence will also double the world's energy consumption! And it is not clear how to dispose of used batteries. It looks like this path is a dead end.

The second direction is hydrogen and internal combustion engines, but using hydrogen. The leader is Japan. To produce hydrogen, you need to use electrolysis of water.

The cost is 4 dollars/kg of hydrogen. They sell for $10/kg. 1 m³ of hydrogen weighs 89.8 g (44.9 mol), so to obtain 1 m³ of hydrogen, 12832.4 kJ of energy will be expended. 1 kWh = 3600 kJ, so we get 3.56 kWh of electricity. Hydrogen also has a much higher energy density (33 kWh/kg) than batteries (about 1 kWh/kg) and than gasoline and diesel (about 12 kWh/kg), making it particularly advantageous for transport and as a mobile energy carrier.

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Being the most common element on Earth and in space, hydrogen (H2) nevertheless remains almost unclaimed: if in 2018 the world produced 4.4 billion tons of oil and 3.86 trillion m3 of natural gas (methane), then the production volume hydrogen does not exceed 70 million tons, that is, its production volume is 6285 times less than oil and 5514 times less than gas.

“Green” hydrogen, according to forecasts by the international renewable energy agency IRENA, will cost $4–6/kg by 2025, with the prospect of reducing prices to $2/kg by 2040. In 2020, Germany should produce up to 14 GW of hydrogen using hydrolyzers, and in 2030 – already 44 GW. The price of a hydrogen kilowatt using electrolysis today is 13 cents.

 

The target of all national hydrogen programs is to reduce it. According to the IEA, since 2010, about 10 MW of electrolyzers have been commissioned annually around the world. In 2018, 20 MW was already commissioned, and by the end of 2020, another 100 MW is expected to be commissioned. METI expects annual hydrogen consumption in Japan to rise from 4,000 tons in 2020 to 300,000 tons by 2030 and 5-10 million tons by 2050. According to the Strategic Roadmap for Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, the number of hydrogen vehicles should reach: 40,000 by 2020, 180,000 by 2025 and about 800,000 by 2030. In terms of hydrogen prices at the pump, METI expects that hydrogen car owners will be able to buy imported hydrogen for around $3 per 1 kg of hydrogen by 2030 (equivalent to $0.8/L gasoline), with the price dropping to $2 per 1 kg of hydrogen by 2050 ($0.5/l gasoline).

One kilogram of hydrogen is considered equal in energy value to one gallon (3.78 liters) of gasoline.

Currently, the world produces about 75 million tons of hydrogen. Only 100 thousand tons (about 0.1%) are produced using electrical installations. “95% of all hydrogen is produced using the technology of steam conversion (reforming) of methane and coal. The main by-product is carbon dioxide, and in such a process, reducing the carbon footprint is unattainable.

According to IEA estimates, the cost of producing hydrogen from natural gas is $1.5–3.5 per 1 kg. The cost per kilogram of hydrogen produced using renewable energy sources is higher—$2–6. In China it is the lowest, and in Japan the highest. At the same time, the costs of generation through renewable energy sources are decreasing every year. The IEA forecasts that hydrogen production costs will fall by 30% in 2030. How much hydrogen is in 1 liter of water?

One liter of hydrogen weighs 0.09 g, and one liter of oxygen weighs 1.47 g. This means that from one liter of water you can get 111.11/0.09=1234.44 liters of hydrogen and 888.89/1.47=604.69 liters of oxygen. It follows that one gram of water contains 1.23 liters of hydrogen.

For 1 kg of hydrogen you need 8.2 liters of water.

The second branch of energy production also has its difficulties. But much better than lithium batteries. Scientists are working to reduce the price per kW of energy. But this is not the same.

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AND WHAT?

These are fuel-free generators. That is, energy is taken from the atmosphere (Earth energy). And such generators were made a long time ago. But not implemented. The forces of energy monsters and small companies of enthusiasts are too incomparable.

The first victim of the fuelless generator was Tesla. After showing his generator and its capabilities to the public, he died very soon in a hotel. All documentation was seized by the FBI. There was no investigation into the death.

In 1986, Stellen Allen invented a car that could travel 180 km on one gallon of water. It was a blast! But on March 21, 1998, Stanley drank a cocktail and soon fell noticeably. A week later, his garage was broken into and his car was stolen.

In 1989, several water-powered vehicles were built in the USSR (Kharkov). And 10 trucks running on liquid hydrogen (ZIL-133F). Then the Union collapsed.

 

February 18, 2024