Recent Comment
Share
Car batteries actually have the highest recycling rate of any waste product in the world. Since they are, effecively, blocks of valuable metals, it isn't hard to get someone to pay for them once they stop holding a charge. However, while that easily applies for lead-acid and nickel batteries currently being used in traditional and hybrid vehicles, it's not as simple for lithium ion batteries.
Lithium ion batteries just don't have much in them that is economically useful. Currently, lithium carbonate is pretty cheap stuff, and it just isn't economically viable to recover it from batteries. Of course, thtoxcoat could easily change. As more and more batteries are produced, the world's current capacity for lithium could easily be strained.
Additionally, from an environmental perspective, it would be really bad news to have a new kind of battery that no one wants to recycle. Even if it isn't economically viable, Li-ion batteries contain all kinds of weird stuff that we don't want leaching into the ground water.
Those are the two reasons why Toxco, a company that already recycles nickel and lead batteries, is getting into the Li-ion game. And, also, why the DOE just gave Toxco a $9.5M grant to develop lithium battery recycling technology.
Toxco has been recycling small lithium ion batteries for more than a decade already, but new chemistries and the possible bulk of vehicle batteries is requiring them to re-focus on lithium. Hopefully, recycling Li-ion batteries will soon be just as easy as recycling any other kind of car battery. If not, it will be harder to sell buyers on the "green" part of electric vehicles.
One thing I won't say is that we're just "trading one unstable fuel for another" and that soon we'll be dependant on unbalanced countries for our lithium. Lithium is not a fuel, it's way of storing power. It is not used up by car batteries and there is plenty of it in the world. Don't start worrying that lithium is the next crude oil, it's not, especially if we can get good recycling technology going.
Subscribe to this comment's feed
written by Bob Wallace, August 18, 2009
But I recall people talking about sometime running out of oil back in the 1950s. At that point in time the prediction was the 1980s.
Oak Ridge Lab was talking about electric cars with nuclear generated electricity.
I'm not sure they had come up with the bogus idea that nuclear would give us electricity "too cheap to meter" yet....
-
- +0
-
-
written by Daniel Kinsbursky, August 18, 2009
http://www.toxco.com
http://www.biggreenbox.com
-
- +1
-
-
written by MD, August 18, 2009
As in CO2...
CO2 increases the solubility of this ~ 10x...
So sequester CO2 and us it to increase Lion battery recycling and production...
Li2CO3 + CO2 + H2O → 2 LiHCO3
-
- +0
-
-
written by Anthony, August 18, 2009
-
- +0
-
-
written by Bob Wallace, August 18, 2009
It's likely that these batteries won't go straight from car to recycle facility.
Capacity is critical when you have to haul the battery around. A battery that is down to 80% capacity of what it was when you purchased it means a big dent in driving range and you're going to want to replace it.
But there are applications where 80% capacity is not important because the batteries will be stationary. It's likely that utility companies and wind farms will want to buy these used batteries to set up bulk storage in inexpensive real estate.
Just rack up thousands of these where they can be individually monitored and used down a lot further.
-
- +0
-
-
written by Carl Hage, August 18, 2009
The other message is a counter to those who claim we don't have enough lithium for EVs. Right now, it's too cheap to think about alternative or new sources, and the price can go much higher without affecting the battery price. There won't be a shortage for a long long time. (The report mentions past 2050 even without recycling, or whatever new technology our grandchildren come up with.)
-
- +0
-
-
written by Ghislain, August 20, 2009
-
- +1
-
-
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Didn't they say that about oil once?