Russian 'election'

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Catfish

That Russia feels betrayed.. whatever, it sure insrumantalises its gas exports to the Ukraine, and we have to keep that in mind, of course.
But what about gasoline and prices? Don't those companies and politics instrumentalise us as well? The only advantage i see to going full alternative energy, and electromobility, is to shake off what our "allies" do to us all the time. With those friends, you do not need enemies.

Rare earths and lithium can and will be used (and China already has) to project political pressure. Mining Lithium also is a very dirty thing, and there are calculations showing that the ecological costs of electrically driven cars and bikes are not less than those of fossile fueled cars and bikes. I recently bought myself an e-bicyclce additonal to my Brompton and my ordinary use bicycle, but I did nit buy that for any ecological illusions or becasue it is chepaer than a Moped. Its more comfortable and it is luxurious, and that are the only two reasons why I bougth it. These things need to get produced, these costs have to be calculated as wlel, and batteries have a finite lifetime, their replacmeent and prduciton also needs to be taken into account. The immense loss of value of e-cars due to this is somethign that gets almst no cosndieration. But every six months, the car infustry see a new generation of batteries getting fielded by some manufacturer. Go figure.

Not even mentioning that so much energy in Gerany gets bought from other countries that produce it in ncuear and dirty fossile power plants...

E-mobility currently and techncially is not such that it indeed saves climate and th eplanet. it is a means of making its believers feel good and think they collected some eco points in their heavenly eco-bilance.

Buy these things, if you want, if oyu like them, if you enjoy them, like I bought that e-bike. But do not buy it for financial and ecological illusions. Buy it for pleasure and luxury, if you buy it. About the first I laugh, about the second - well, no objections from me regarding the second.

Geostrategically and geopolitically, rare earths and lithium are not different from oil.