Batteries
Published on July 23rd, 2015
by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
9
July 23rd, 2015 by Jeff McIntire-Strasburg
Critics of electric vehicles like to argue that they’re really not greener than gas-powered cars: those tailpipe emissions just move to the source of electricity (which, in the US, is often coal or natural gas), and that electric vehicle battery will eventually require disposal. The first argument doesn’t take into account the efficiency of electric motors — which still means lower emissions — and the second ignores the fact that the batteries for EVs are recyclable.
Paul Nadjarian, the CEO of Mojo Motors, addressed the second issue last week in a post at sustainablog. Let us know what you think in the comments…
Battery Recycling: How We’ll Keep Electric Vehicle Batteries Out Of Landfills
In an attempt to reduce carbon emissions, American policy makers set out to have one million electric plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015. While the environmental benefits of electric and hybrid vehicles are clear, they do come with certain challenges. By far the biggest challenge is figuring out what is to be done with the electric plug-in and hybrid batteries after they are finished being used.
The good news is that, according to Joseph Acker, the President of Retriev Technologies, a battery recycling company, “All car batteries can and should be recycled.”
The most important component of vehicle batteries is lithium. Lithium is already in high demand as it used in rechargeable batteries for laptops, mobile phones, and digital cameras. In 2015 the estimated demand for Lithium is 138,500-265,000 tons and in 2020 the demand may reach 175,000 to 500,000 tons, with most of the demand going towards batteries.
Currently the majority of the world’s supply of lithium comes from Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. While recycling batteries to extract lithium makes perfect sense, financially it is not worth it since the cost to recycle the lithium exceeds the cost of mining new lithium.
Most of the value in recycling car batteries comes from the amount of nickel, cobalt, iron and other metals for reuse. Mr. Acker explains, “the difference in battery values depends on the nickel and cobalt content. There is a trend where manufacturers are trying to reduce the amount of nickel and cobalt in batteries but this trend is reaching a lower threshold based upon performance.” The manufacturers are trying to reduce costs but if this results in inferior batteries they could be forced to change their ways.
While most of the batteries are made with Lithium, not all electric plug-in and hybrid batteries use it. Many early hybrids like the Toyota Prius, Honda Insight, and Honda Civic hybrid run on a nickel-metal hydride battery. The NiMH battery is a better alternative to lead since it is lighter weight and can store more energy. That said, NiMH batteries do have their disadvantages including a high rate of self-discharge. Also the cadmium in the batteries is toxic and can’t be put in landfills so they’re seen as worse for the environment.
Most consumers that drive a hybrid or electric vehicle care greatly about the environment so it’s important to ensure that the battery is disposed of properly. For consumers that see their vehicle until the end of its life, what options are there for the battery? The battery should not be sent to a random scrapyard to be recycled, as the parts need to be processed properly. Throwing away these batteries is not an option as they can be hazardous and cause pollution. If an electric car battery is mishandled it could be a potential fire hazard or give off a shock.
In order to ensure that the battery is disposed of properly, Mr. Acker says, “ The likely place to dispose of an electric battery is the manufacturer’s dealership (if the vehicle still has life remaining) and an auto salvage yard (if the vehicle has reached end of life. The best place to dispose of an electric battery is Retriev Technologies, the only Li Ion Battery Recycling Facility in the USA.” In Japan, Honda developed a process where customers can drop off their used batteries to dealers and rare metals are reused in new batteries.
Once they’ve been used, the batteries only retain about 70-80% of their original capacity so while this is not enough to use in a vehicle they can still find other uses. The US Department of Energy awarded $9.5 million to Toxco in order to build the first recycling facility for lithium-ion car batteries. Major electric car battery manufacturers such as Tesla have already begun to send battery packs to them.
Until proper infrastructure is in place there have been alternative ideas as to what to do with the batteries. One possibility is using electric and hybrid batteries to store electricity. A homeowner can bundle electric-car batteries to solar panels to store electricity for their house. A solar or wind farm that generates energy throughout the day can store electricity in the batteries for later consumption.
The car manufacturers are also looking into aftermarket uses of electric batteries as well. Nissan is working with Green Charge Networks to sell a mass-market energy storage system built on Nissan Leaf batteries. General Motors is also pursuing a similar plan where they will use Chevy Volt batteries to help power the General Motors Enterprise Data Center. The batteries will work in conjunction with the wind turbines and solar array while also providing a source of back-up power is need be.
As hybrid vehicles become more prevalent it’s going to become more important to find safe and environmentally friendly ways of disposing of the car batteries. Given that the average life of an electric car battery is about ten years, we’re about ten years away from needing solutions to dispose of one million car batteries with millions more to come.
Paul Nadjarian is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Mojo Motors. His extensive background in the automotive industry includes running the Parts Accessories category at eBay Motors, the Internet lead management group at Ford Motor Co., and co-founding GreenLeaf Auto, an auto-recycling venture within Ford. Mojo Motors features vehicles for all types of buyers, whether they are looking for a Dodge Ram 1500 in New York or a Chevrolet Impala in San Francisco.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
Featured Photo Credit: apiguide vis Shutterstock
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Tags: Argentina, battery recycling, Bolivia, Chevy Volt, Chile, General Motors, Green Charge Networks, Honda Civic, Honda Insight, Japan, joseph acker, lithium, mojo motors, nickel-metal hydride, Paul Nadjarian, retriev technologies, Tesla, Toxco, toyota prius, US Department of Energy
About the Author
Jeff McIntire-Strasburg Jeff McIntire-Strasburg is the founder and editor of sustainablog. You can keep up with all of his writing at Facebook, and at Google+
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If a car ends up at a salvage yard, good chance the battery gets removed at some point. Whether it gets recycled would depend on if the salvage yard got some money out of it. Or if there was legislation that made it illegal to dump it in the trash. That legislation would probably be critical at the place where they crush cars.
“That said, NiMH batteries do have their disadvantages including a high rate of self-discharge. Also the cadmium in the batteries is toxic and can’t be put in landfills so they’re seen as worse for the environment.”
I have seen brief local e-waste campaigns where you can take your electronic goods that they don’t want in landfills to some location and it will be taken for free. There is also a hardware store chain that was taking flourescent bulbs and batteries (and may still be). But there should be more of that if landfills really can’t handle these products. I would bet that the vast majority of NiMH batteries (either replaceable or non-replaceable) get put in the trash just because it is so much more convenient. Most people are even probably unaware that the battery they are throwing out has and icon consisting of two lines drawn over a trash can, signifying that it shouldn’t be thrown in the trash.
Australia didn’t get a mention as a lithium producer. It’s the world’s largest supplier, just beating out Chile last year: http://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/energy-investing/lithium-investing/2013-top-8-lithium-producing-countries/
Better lithium than coal, eh?
With Australia’s lithium output expanding to 18,500 tonnes with a new mine, one year’s production could produce enough electric cars to eliminate oil use equal to Australia’s total annual oil consumption.
Unless when they write lithium they mean lithium carbonate. That would change things.
What would be nice is that the current EV manufacturers would allow you to keep your car batteries as you buy from them a replacement, and then there would be a third party converting company that would convert the old car battery as an additional battery storage module for your solar PV system or for off-peak cheap recharging for use during the peak load times, all from home. I have tremendous uses for my farm if I can add these used batteries in modules.
I was raised on a remote farm in South Australia. In the 70s. All the old lead acid truck batteries were wired into a battery bank in a small shed beside the house. Next to it was a windmill that had a truck alternator connected to the rotating spindle at the top. It was a standard farm windmill – the kind that usually pumps water. That setup was called a free-light. All the farms had them before powerlines brought mains power. Each battery was no longer capable of starting a truck, but in aggregate they powered the house and the shed. It’s taken us a ridiculously long time to wake up to the benefits of renewable electricity!
But first, the batteries will be used for utility storage. A battery pack can reuse most of the mechanicals and electricals. Only the cells themselves need to be reprocessed and those are in standardized packages, either prismatic or cylindrical.
I wonder if the secondary use and recycling is taken into account in GHG comparisons. Apparently, it is.
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11367-014-0788-0#page-1
I don’t recall seeing what the life expectancy of batteries is in their second iteration. If, as I anticipate, it is long, we’re going to end up with an immense and growing storage capacity.
It just gets better.
Creative Commons (CC) article source: https://cleantechnica.com/2015/07/23/electric-vehicle-battery-can-recycled/