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V_V comments on [LINK] Waitbutwhy article on the history and future of space exploration, SpaceX and more - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: LizzardWizzard 08 September 2015 11:14AM

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Comment author: gwern 08 September 2015 03:33:16PM 2 points [-]

Did Tesla achieve that or did they just use bigger and more expensive Li-ion batteries?

I do know that battery technology steadily, if unflashily, improves over time; from my evernotes, see for example the Performance Curves Database for some charts or https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-that-battery-energy-density-improves-5-8-per-year or http://rameznaam.com/2015/04/30/tesla-powerwall-battery-economics-almost-there/

If I understand correctly, there isn't enough easily recoverable lithium in the world

I don't know about this specifically, but that sounds surprising: isn't lithium one of the most common elements in the universe?

Comment author: V_V 08 September 2015 07:20:18PM -2 points [-]

I don't know about this specifically, but that sounds surprising: isn't lithium one of the most common elements in the universe?

Hydrogen is even more common than lithium, but good luck mining it.

Comment author: Lumifer 08 September 2015 07:39:12PM 3 points [-]

Hydrogen is even more common than lithium, but good luck mining it.

It's just a matter of price. At a sufficiently high price for hydrogen there would be no problems in supplying very large quantities of it.

Comment author: gwern 08 September 2015 08:08:12PM 2 points [-]

Not even all that high - water is pretty common...

Comment author: Lumifer 08 September 2015 08:14:57PM *  1 point [-]

Basically, the price of energy to split water into oxygen and hydrogen is a hard ceiling for the price of hydrogen.

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