Landfills of EV batteries...
Like it or not, electric cars are here to stay. Every major manufacturer has at least one EV in their lineup. Do they sell? Yeah... kinda. Price incentives and options change all the time. More charging stations are being built and there is less fearmongering as there was a few years ago.My memory says the same group of people who complained about 5G cellular technology are the ones who complained about electric vehicles. Battery fires, landfills of dead EV batteries and negative issues were regurgitated over and over.
I haven't personally witnessed an EV battery fire. I'm sure it's a spectacular explosion with zero time to escape. I have seen car fires of the gasoline version... That's a monthly event on highways. There was one in a residential community near me that scorched the tall trees along the roadway. It's been more than a year and the void in tree growth is still apparent.
I know a few people who are driving EV's and have no complaints about them.
A few weeks ago, I attended a swap meet for model aviation and one guy had a table with old lithium-polymer rechargeable batteries he was selling for a fraction of the price for new ones. As these batteries age, they become less efficient and gasses form inside the sealed jacket and they begin to swell, making it obvious the battery life has been shortened. I asked what he would do if they don't sell and he told me they would be dropped off at the recycling center.
Prior to this, we were told to drain the power to zero and leave the old batteries in a bucket of salt water as it will neutralize the volatile metals when exposed to air where they can be disposed of like normal garbage... probably in a landfill somewhere.
The guy told me advances have been made to reclaim the precious metals these batteries contain and the technology is improving all the time.
I did an internet search and found that EV batteries are being reprocessed and not ending up in landfills as originally feared.
Batteries that were originally mined and manufactured in China get recycled in America, the new batteries are now considered to be made in America. The plus side of that equation is we didn't have to strip mine land in America to make these products.
Comments (13)
Insurance companies are refusing EVs. The batteries need major upgrading. Right now children dig up the needed minerals while companies destroy the land. How much recycling is actually being done. Just like normal where 15% is the rest goes into a landfill? Garbage trucks torch because of a battery.
Auto makers are backing off of making EVs. Lots sit full with no one buying them. Part is the charging that is too small of a distance driven. Part is the cost.
Insurance is against too because of the weight. In a crash they outweigh many cars on the road. In cold weather mileage falls. What is a semi gets stuck in snow. No heat. No way to charge. What happens to the highways when a semi that weighs tons, adds more with batteries. And then the load. There goes the pavement. There goes the hauling capacity. Drive that baby in New York city. Can you say traffic jam?
The cart is being put before the horse. Maybe ought to see if he can pull it first.
Due to health I am unable to pull start a petrol saw and purchased a bigger 56v electric chainsaw (a EGO) that uses efficient 10 AH that is charged by Turbo Battery Charger that cools battery and fully recharges in 60 minutes.
Orzzz, in some strange way, I like reading what you have to say and try to put myself in (the difficult part of) your shoes to figure out 'where you are coming from' as I've been following your comments for years. Your lifestyle is really on a different level from most of the world.
You were around in the 50's. Did you think more than 70 years of scientific research at a cost of billions was all wasted? I remember you poo-pooed one of my blogs about space exploration and I listed some of the world changing inventions that came from it.
Not every new technology can be immediately implemented.
Here's a small list of some 'spacey' direct or related inventions we get to use in normal life. Some more important than others:
Light Emitting Diodes (LED) technology
Scratch resistant coatings for glasses
CAT scan and radiography
Miniature CMOS cameras used in cellphones
Water purification systems
Foil and radiant barrier insulation
Robotic and prosthetic limbs
Cochlear implants
Computer mouse
Portable computers
Freeze-dried foods (improved method)
Rubber molding used in athletic shoes
Memory foam
Infrared thermometers
Insulin pump
UV air purifiers
Wireless headsets
You say the use of EV's will require another 30 years. Should all progress halt until you say we are ready now? You always choose the worst of a situation and not the possible.
One EV catches fire and thanks to Facebook and Twitter 3 million people get to read about the same fire over and over.
People are using EV's that fits their purpose. If it's working for you and your 50 mile radius so be it. If you are planning a 1,000 mile trip, consider renting a gas vehicle.
Do you know why electric bikes are exploding?
Research it. Not the battery technology. It's misuse on the part of the operator by overcharging.
Remember the girl who charged her cellphone under her pillow while she slept?
Misuse. The phone was trapped around insulation, with no way for the heat that would normally dissipate in an open environment. It smoked her pillow. She was lucky.
Large earth-moving equipment is used to mine minerals for batteries. Do you have any links to support your statement that children are used to dig for these minerals?
My blog is about EV batteries being reprocessed, so no new minerals need to be dug up.
Send the children home! Please, send them home...
What's your opinion of SPACE FORCE signed into law by former president Donald Trump?
The EV experts never mention this. Nor the highway-user tax. Right now it's paid from petroleum motor fuel. It's next going to have to come from electricity. For practical purposes, how will they differentiate between my Toyota and your reading lamp?
Due to health I am unable to pull start a petrol saw and purchased a bigger 56v electric chainsaw (a EGO) that uses efficient 10 AH that is charged by Turbo Battery Charger that cools battery and fully recharges in 60 minutes.
Not long ago, I had a Toyota Camry rental for a few weeks and amazed about the mileage. I did notice when I took my foot off the accelerator the speed of the car decreased much quicker than anything I experienced. It wasn't until I returned the car when I opened the glove box to get the rental agreement, I saw the owners manual and HYBRID near the logo.
In Layman's terms, it's a gasoline driven engine with electric motor assist. The braking system does some regeneration to charge to the battery while driving so they don't need to be plugged in like an all electric car.
reading about the ford maverick lately. it might be in the regular price range for many. there are others.
still not all the negatives about evs but covers most i think. shame that the larger part of the industry is backed by tax payer dollars when it shouldn't be. let alone be shoved down peoples' throats. extreme weather conditions and hauling alone could cause more than a few safety hazards.
estimated that 1 in 250 cars on the road are ev. 2.2%.
not a whole lot to bass any type of less fire hazard on. i think i ran across the number of 1.3 billion gas powered cars on the roads.
batteries are pretty expensive. might be better off of the op posts recycling processes. i've looked them up quite a while back. only about 90% recyclable. higher or lower depending i guess. the whole mining and manufacturing process? toxic.
gasses during the recycling process? mostly under control i hope.
Where will all the Lithium,Cobalt and all the other Strategic Metals come from,if the Mandate of full Electrification with Solar and Windpower plus EV takes place!
There aren't enough of them any where on Earth to feed the demand,and recycling won't be of any help,since that only is turning over the existing quantity of those Metals,however does not increase the amount that is required !
Researchers are hoping that a new, low-cost battery which holds four times the energy capacity of lithium-ion batteries and is far cheaper to produce will significantly reduce the cost of transitioning to a decarbonised economy.
Led by Dr Shenlong Zhao from the University’s School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, the battery has been made using sodium-sulphur – a type of molten salt that can be processed from sea water – costing much less to produce than lithium-ion.
Although sodium-sulphur (Na-S) batteries have existed for more than half a century, they have been an inferior alternative and their widespread use has been limited by low energy capacity and short life cycles.
Using a simple pyrolysis process and carbon-based electrodes to improve the reactivity of sulphur and the reversibility of reactions between sulphur and sodium, the researchers’ battery has shaken off its formerly sluggish reputation, exhibiting super-high capacity and ultra-long life at room temperature.
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Australia alone produces 52% of the world's lithium. Unlike Chile, where lithium is extracted from brines, Australian lithium comes from hard-rock mines for the mineral spodumene. China, the third-largest producer, has a strong foothold in the lithium supply.
In Australia, Talison Lithium Ltd (51% owned by the Chengdu Tianqui Industry Group and 49% by US-based Albemarle Corporation), is the world's largest producer of hard-rock spodumene, from the Greenbushes Lithium Operations, 250 km southeast of Perth.
Chile has the largest lithium reserves worldwide by a large margin. Australia comes in second, with reserves estimated at 6.2 million metric tons in 2023.
With 22 million metric tonnes of global lithium reserves and a single EV requiring an estimated eight kilograms of lithium, global lithium reserves may be exhausted by 2030 for EV use alone. Not only the limited volume but the limited concentration of reserves pose supply chain risks for manufacturers and governments.
AS Above
Sodium-ion batteries simply replace lithium ions as charge carriers with sodium. This single change has a big impact on battery production as sodium is far more abundant than lithium. In fact, you can use salt from the oceans to extract sodium just about anywhere in the world.
one was an engineer at the plant i work at. a tesla and he loved it but was extremely mindful of the season and distances he traveled with it. also had his own home charging station installed. his wife was still driving the gas powered suv.
the second person was higher up on the corporate ladder and just visiting my facility for corporate reasons. he wasn't so gung ho. said he liked it locally. for long trips and the trip north to the plant, he would only drive his regular truck.
ev batteries are said to be able to be recycled infinitely. no standard and strictly based by manufacturer on how they are broken down to be recycled. the break down seems to be quite the process. how ever, if any thing happens that the process should be spilled into the environment, no telling how much or what the damages might be. hopefully no where near as bad as a solar plant spill might cause.
every vehicle on the road emits particles into the air just from their tires alone. ev's emit quite a bit more due to the extra weight.
we're not even remotely close to a full transition to ev. tesla paid and pays for their own charging stations. the current misadministration wants the tax payers to expand and pay for all. even the subsidies to buy and ev are on the tax payer dime. i've heard they may not be too solid for the person making the purchase in many cases due to other requirements to get those subsidies.
i'll pass on ev. there's still too much work to be done for something that isn't truly green or reliable. we need to start working on more localized resources for manufacturing alone.
already mentioned, our power grid may not be the most reliable and less so in areas forced into "green" energy sources reliant on the weather. i don't see where every person would have a readily available charging station either. how's that gonna work stranded with a dead battery? $$$$.....that's how. much more expensive.
just how much pollution and waste they'll create still doesn't quite have enough full data. compared to what the normal powered vehicle is, there isn't really enough of them on the road yet. a larger majority of people can't see the sense in giving up the convenience of a ten minute fill up or so and back on the road. other inconveniences abound that could be more detrimental in other directions.
i'm still wondering about that infinite recycling. almost any thing we know of can only be broken down so many times before it's useless and more harmful.