Can you recycle an old EV battery?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 8 เม.ย. 2021
- Lithium-ion batteries have enabled us to build electric cars that let us drive around without burning fossil fuels. But how green are these batteries actually? And where do they end up once they're spent?
We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world - and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What can we do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.
#PlanetA #Battery #Recycling
Read More (Links):
Electric vehicle market:
about.bnef.com/electric-vehic...
Lithium criticality:
www.nature.com/articles/s4146...
Working conditions in Cobalt mines:
www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/pub...
Lithium-Ion Vehicle Battery Production:
www.ivl.se/download/18.34244b...
Lithium-ion battery recycling market (excerpt of full report):
static1.squarespace.com/stati...
More on the Nobel Prize winners:
www.nobelprize.org/uploads/20...
Reporter: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann
Video editor: Johanna Rath
Supervising editor: Joanna Gottschalk
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If manufacturers are made responsible for recovering spent batteries, they will design them better for re-use and recycling.
no, they will drop the concept of electric cars and move on to something more profitable or efficient. Like bus, or trains
@@ereder1476 Yeah, I think we tend to ignore the very real costs of R&D, which is probably the worst business expenditure because you don’t know if you’ll get anything out of it. You can easily spend years on a project and it end up going nowhere. It’s part of the reason new drugs can be so expensive, the cost of developing them is high and you have to make up the costs of the dozens of drugs that failed. Innovation isn’t guaranteed.
Everything is cost driven. It be easier and cheaper to dump them in same old abandoned quarry in Northern Canada. Plastics, waste paper, batteries or other can only be recycled to more than 20% to break-even. The 80% is waste.
@@ejcash7234 You do realise electric cars are not efficient and the only reason they are made and that there is a market for it in the 1st place is government aids and tax return for buying one?
@@ejcash7234 Dump them in Canada? By God, that's insane-good, decent people live there! My favorite place is off the coast of Somalia:)
8 minutes is really short for such a complex topic, barely enough to scratch the surface. Would be great to see a video which dives into the details.
details are easy to grasp...
oil.. coal.. atomic are ued to build and power batteries...
when used up, batteries are a waste problem
@@duggydugg3937 People with a biased and closed view of the world are not interested in details. They can't take the risk to learn something new that might not fit into their beliefs. For them everything is clear, black or white without any grey zones.
@@meerkathero6032 Best solution to a problem is not to have made one.
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@@duggydugg3937 Other than Hawaii and a tiny outposts...where on Earth is oil used for electric gen? Used up batteries *are not a problem* they are high grade ore. Your information is from the early 1970's, time to learn something new maybe?
I feel like there is a lot of misinformation on the web about this topic and I feel I should share what we are seeing in Canada. Hybrid vehicles with large nimh battery packs are showing up at scrap yards and initially they are more dangerous to deal with for the average worker because the dc voltage is quite high around 300v. So there is extra cost involved with making the vehicle safe to put in the crusher. So far I have made many attempts to sell or reuse these batteries but you can't even give them away. No recyclers will take them that I have talked to and we are stuck storing them indefinitely. I don't understand how this is better for the environment. 7-10 years is not good enough for a major component like that.
you can test the cells and resell the good ones lol
I didn’t know Nickel metal hydride batteries were being used as they’re not as efficient as lithium based cells. Interesting. And that is some seriously high voltage!
would they be useful for people with solar panels to use as storage ? that is if they can still hold a charge
yeah we need to get more innovative to hold the carbon at bay but its a start and sounds like the lithium battery has a brighter future than the nimh battery packs
more inovation is coming in renewable energy and carbon soaks
@@sprintershepherd4359 "more inovation is coming" 10 fucking years I've been reading this. E motors/batteries are an old technology. they lie, it's not about knowledge or engineering, it's about money. rich people are so fucking cheap.
If recycling is carried out carefully and properly, there are no issues. When old EV batteries arrive at VW's recycling plant, they are discharged prior to being recycled. The residual energy within those batteries is used to partially power the recycling process.....
Svolt just recently started its production lines for cobalt-free batteries.
I really appreciate that you put every image sources at the bottom corners. That's should be the norm of YT videos.
You nailed it on the head at the end. The more sustainable solution is fewer cars. More mass transit, biking and walkable cities.
Nah, let all the people of the world that are afraid of global warming just hide under their beds. I'd appreciate the reduction in traffic when I'm out in my 34 year old Jeep, with it's mean, nasty gasoline engine just firing toxic chemicals up into the atmosphere.
Only way to have less cars (or anything, this is not just about cars, idk why we fixate on them) is to have less people.
More people, mostly in 3rd world countries, which cannot afford expensive technology, simply means higher consumption of everything, as well as higher production of waste.
I am no social engineer or whatever...just saying that the population growth simply outweighs any such efforts, so maybe we should better spend the money and resources on cultivating 3rd world, instead of pushing a niche (yes, niche, the fossil emissions are just about 0,8% of planetary CO2 emissions) thing.
@@thespalek1 we need affortable or gratis birth control for developing countries
Never going to happen. Look tesla. He's pushing this cheap ass autos. €15000. When they reach 2-3 years old, you can buy that g.... for €3000. Used leaking batteries going to be EVERYWHERE . Good luck
You have no idea what you are talking about. It is so clear to me. Learn basics of economics first please.
It takes energy to make gas cars as well. In addition, a lot of the carbon emissions in gasoline are hidden, which is to say it takes a lot of energy to produce gasoline during the drilling, extraction and especially refining processes. All of this must be taken into comparative account unless you are the Wall Street Journal.
overhead of ~ 20 % from what you get at the pump. It is often taken ito account. The difference considering car production is around the production of the battery. The electric motor, power electronics vs Engine etc seems not to be so far off.
Where from all the electricity produced. Major power generation is from thermal power plants. So electric cars are producing lots of CO2 emissions at its source.
@@rajumarine the most inefficient electric car is more nature friendly than any gas car
Let's face it, on the front end, people will invest in high profit sales of electric vehicles, batteries and so on but on the back side, people will not invest in high cost to low profit recycling or pollution control.
I believe the increase of battery usage will continue to increase pollution in our air and the waterways. Mismanagement of recycling these batteries will undoubtedly create much more pollution than we are being told because recycling is costly or very low profit.
Reverting to mass transit is the answer to lowering pollution.
Lithium Ion Batteries will be replaced by hydrogen fuel cells
@@rickrozen2341 lol no to expensive for cars maybe for ships and planes. But regular people not gonna use hydrogen
@@icekk007 It’s a good thing then that lithium grows on trees.
But but but... American automotive is american pride... If we use mass transit, that will effectively kill it off... We cant do that to hardworking American workers.
@@kevint1160 You can be snarky all you want, but you will never get Americans to give up their cars anymore than you could get them to give up their guns. Never gonna happen.
If there is an efficient public transport system and safe bicycle routes hopefully very few people will want cars.It would certainly make life more pleasant in big cities.
People aren't ready to have this conversation
I'm really confused now,.... I was thinking about buying an electric car but it seems they are not as green as I thought 🤔
Funny that, they could have just called Duesenfeld in the city next door which already achieves a recycling rate of 91% on automotive LiOn batteries. They even power part of the process by the energy content in those batteries as they have to discharge them anyway at the beginning of the recycling process. The main problem is currently that there are not many EV batteries needing recycling, most can and are still used in secondary applications and EV numbers are still very small.
ok. but why wait until the numbers of EV's increases and not get prepared for that day. also, it's not only about EV's but LiOn batteries in overall (phones, laptops, wireless devices)
@@arianitonline8748 Those small device batteries are much more difficult to recycle, which is the main reason that currently the recycling factor for those is much lower, although they make up currently beyond 90% of all batteries to recycle. The reason is very different form factors, chemistries and of course the fact that one needs to disassemble the device first to get to them as replaceable batteries are not a thing anymore.
In cars the packs, and in many cases the modules, are built to be replaceable and are therefore much easier to remove. However, building a recycling plant without enough supply is unsustainable, after all there has to be a sound business plan behind that. That said, the big OEMs already do recycle their own batteries, like Tesla and VW for example.
@@Soordhin ok, I understand you. but we don't nee to think like "let's see and then do" anymore. we have to be prepared
@Shannon & Darek good. but one thing I don't understand. recycling tesla baterries also means getting rid of your car, since tesla is building them as one part, the battery being part of the body. why? how does that make any sense?!
@@arianitonline8748 You can remove the battery from the car and put in a new one. That makes a lot of sense, too, since the wear and tear for an electric car is much lower. Combustion cars have much more parts that break more easily. And because EVs are much simpler, in the rare cases of problems, the repair is easier and cheaper. Therefore the car is still very valuable. Getting rid of it would be a waste. However, I have not heard before that you cannot remove the battery from an old car. Are you sure that is right?
Sorry this sounds like a replay of nuclear energy and plastics. Look where we ended up with these.
where? in modern world?
So, we ended up with ITER and many other new developments to come...
@@u1zha iter is pie in the sky. Thorium reactors or even regular nuclear are more realistic
We don't have a very good record with e-waste recycling - about 12.5% percent - what makes Li ion batteries more likely to have a higher recycling rate?
car batterys are the most recycles item on the planet. e waste is a totaly diffrent subject
@@sxyrx7 you're talking about lead batteries m8 not lithium-ion
"lithium is finite"... Everything is finite and most of the materials once recycled they are become low quality raw materials so no, you cannot "recycle indefinitely".
Well you could but eventually the price will be higher than getting new raw materials.
The Earth has been doing that for millions of years...
If you've broken it back down to the raw lithium cobalt and nickel you've reset the clock and any product produced from the elements recycled will be as good as new, meaning infinite recycling. The problem is making that cheaper and more efficient than extracting from the ground.
Well the earth gets energy from the sun, which is finite as well, without that it cannot run the "recycle" processes. If we run out of pretrol the regeneration of that would take million of years so...
You can already do that actually, but the amount of energy requiered is immese. It just goes against Laws of thermodynamics, on each "cycle" you will always consume more energy. Going a bit philisophical here but The Earth cannot simply sustain infinite growth as capitalism requiere, the only current way to sustain that in the short future is to have people collapsing and dying for us so we can watch YT on our PCs and phones, and everyone seems to be ok with that.
i would say that other areas need to focus on public transportation so there’s less cars on the road. public transportation could become cleaner if they use batteries too.
BYD (chinese automaker) has found a way to avoid the shredding, their "blade" batterie is designed for efficient disassembly.
Dry coating may also help to recover valuable materials.
elon drones : bro, batteries are 99,9% recyclable
reality : nah let's just dump them here and wait for someone else to take care of it
Sodium battery is a better choice in stationary use case.
@@vodkaboy Dumping things is a US thing
In atleast EU that is illegal.
Batteries are being recycled and the economy will get much better when old ev start being scrapped.
There are very high environmental charges on batteries in Europe to takr care if the recycling costs at the moment before volume us reached.
"There is a limited amount of lithium"
Yeah and oil, coal, Iron...
Recycling petrol is a bit harder.... that is the current alternative....
@@ps3301
_"Sodium battery is a better choice in stationary use case."_
Well really flow batteries but it ends up with economics...
The volume is some kind of lithium battery, now TESLA is going for Iron Phosphate good enough for a TESLA good enough for storage.
The volume for batteries are for EV's so that type will be used for storage for some time...
There are better solutions but it will take time to get up to volumes and lower price, in the end that is the decider.
It is all about volume/price that is why TESLA used 6000? 18650 cells in a car not really ideal.
@@qinby1182 "Regarding Li-ion battery recycling the [EU] Commission has proposed a quota of 25% for 2025 and increasing to 70% by 2030"
What EU doing with batteries? Cause recycling now is just a fraction of all batteries EU using... recycling, you mean shipping to poor countries where it ends up dumped somewhere, but on paper it's recycled?
This is really a political push for more change and more development. If GHG emissions and global sustainability was the primary concern, there are other better things to do.
Excellent reporting / editing; interesting and entertaining. Well done! :)
But you haven’t explained where the battery’s currently go once they are spent from all usage
I like Malte's voiceover with this interesting and concise film about old EV batteries their re-use and renewal.
Apart from a landfill somewhere I wonder whatever happened to all the old pre-cobalt & lithium batteries?
Lead-acid batteries are recycled at a rate over 90 % today.
In Switzerland for over 40 years, there's the company called BATREC who does nothing else than recycling batteries. Typical Alkali primary batteries that are used in clocks, toys, tools etc. etc. The only reason why they don't LI-Ion secondary batteries as of now is that lack of material flow.
If you have to mine it out of the earth it's a temporary solution. Recycling of course helps greatly, but ultimately we run out. CO2 extraction for fuel might be a good option. Start pulling CO2 out and figure out more and more efficient ways to burn that fuel to end up with a surplus of CO2 based fuels and less in the atmosphere. The power grid in most countries can't sustain electric car power demands.
The introduction took up almost exactly half of the video.
The EV car that burned in Austin took multiple fire trucks to put out the fire because the batteries kept reigniting.
As with everyone who uses battery for audio system knows, used batteries can still power wall clocks, toys, and things.
While recharging that kind of battery is impossible, I'm hoping for an used lithium-ion batteries.
But please make it clear in the packaging that we're using used one. Or better yet, make a marketplace for it.
EV doesn't reduce any environmental costs - it just makes people feel good
I used to think this. But when you look into how fuel is mined and produced, it doesnt look better in any way.
However, there is a lot to be said in looking for ways to reduce our reliance in cars in general.
Yet. ICE cars took many years to be as efficient as they are today, EVs are still being somewhat figured out and even then they are not bad already. Give it some time.
By the way, we can actually recycle batteries almost 100% and they are good as new, no compromises.
The biggest thing we have to overcome today is energy. I strongly belive thorium power will dominate as soon as the startups get their designs out and running.
This abundant carbon free energy will allow us to recycle in an economically positive way. The dream of a sustainable economy will finally have a chance.
@@ignasanchezl"Can" and "do" are two very different things - ewaste recycling is pathetic, and if we are going to talk about recycling, look at what has happened with plastic bottles, cardboard, newspaper, steel, etc. - steel went from $300/ton to nothing and then is now at $100/ton in my area
@@MorgoSargas I'm more than happy to give the market and science all the time in the world. I am NOT ok with the government mandating an inefficient, incomplete, unreliable technology for 20-30 years while the science "works out the bugs" - and they won't, because the minute they don't have to compete, they will no longer innovate - just look at the post office and DMV
When batteries die, usually it’s individual cells that die and you can replace the cells. One day someone like me will be able to buy a Tesla with a dead battery for 5 grand and open up the battery, repair it and go down the road or use the drivetrain and motor for a hotrod.
Goodenough is a legend really
No, he's real. I saw him the other day.
@@chesshooligan1282 he's the best chance we got to for our batteries woes
Electric cars seems less ecological, than combustion engine. But electric cars makes less damage in countries it is used at. So it damages nature of the poor countries, that produses them. Great idea!
Maybe one day when battery tech is better, but its sure not now
The materials were already dug up in those places before the rise of EVs as such batteries were already made for other devices though with the increased demand it surely has accelerated the digging.
If you're comparing the ecological impact - why don't you look at the impact of invasions of countries for oil, wars that are fought over oil rich land, the oil spills that kill animals & poison water. In reality, both are bad but the petrochemical industry has had 100 years + to clean up their act, they havent, and have continued receiving government subsidies and sweeping the disasters under the carpet. The battery industry is in it's infancy & it's going in a much better direction
Electric cars seem* less ecological *than combustion engine cars*. But electric cars make* (or better: cause) less damage in the countries they're* used in*. So they* damage nature in the poor countries that produce the ressources* (not the electric cars).
@@Loopyengineeringco why don't you look at the impact of populists spreading lies?
A short but well informed and factually correct assessment of the fact that lithium ion batteries come at considerable cost to both the environment and people yet the EV manufactures and governments around the world choose to ignore this.
Yes, but the way things are now and going is much worse!
One thing not mentioned is the actual amount of Lithium and Cobalt that is used, it's a small percentage of the actual battery cell.
@@mcyoung21121 Very true but battery production is in its infancy and will use more of these materials as demand rises.
@@mcyoung21121 True.... but a small percentage in 1 cell, times 3000 cells per vehicle, times 100 million vehicles is a stupidly large amount of material that you have to find a way to reuse. Pulling that much of anything out of the ground is destructive, pulling that much rare earth metals out of the ground is stupidly destructive.
The hope is it's a less damaging route than ICE. I hope it is, but plastics were hailed as environmental saviors at first since we didn't have to exploit the environment for the materials we use.... That kind of backfired, and any tech looking to replace ICE is going to be implemented on such a large scale we should run the numbers to make sure it won't just become a problem of equal proportions.
@@Justin73791 Northvolt in Sweden. Check it out.
Hydrogen Fuel Cells are a better option and are more power dense. They also don't pollute and the waste is pure water and heat, that's all.
hydrogen is created by coal or oil
@@flodjod And after you have created it, you still need to transport it all over the place, just like gas and diesel. A hydrogen powered car is an electric car anyway, so why not skip the wasteful and inefficient hydrogen production and transportation parts, and simply charge the battery in an EV in the first instance? Electricity needs no transportation, and can be produced renewably.....
@@Brian-om2hh - but the fuel cell vehicle does not store as much energy as full electric vehicles. The recycling process for lithium batteries could run strictly on solar energy, but then again you need to store that energy somewhere for the shredders and separators. Back to batteries again or fossil fuel power supplies.
@@flodjod There are many ways to produce Hydrogen without coal or oil. Hydrogen can also be transported in Solid form or stored and bound into solid materials and released with heat or lasers. H2 can be bound and transported efficiently right now through Ammonia delivery systems and pipelines to it's destination. H2 is more power dense than batteries and you can travel farther for the same unit of weight. People need to research more and learn more about it. Right now JCB is building huge heavy equipment that runs on H2 but in ICE forms. It would be better to go to electric fuel cells but everything has it's place. Hydrogen is being produced in Hawaii in smaller processors with electrolysis and Solar. No petroleum involved. Everything has it's use. Just like Hybrid vehicles to extend usable ranges beyond what straight battery vehicles can do . Fuel cells can function better in extremes both hot and cold . I do like battery EV concepts but they aren't the best method for every situation.
@@flodjod You mean like electricity for the EVs? If the EVs can be charged without coal or oil, so can hydrogen cars...
bc of the problems of scarcity, environmental impacts, and working conditions, I'd really like to see people and cities avoid using lithium batteries for stationary energy storage. at a minimum, leave it for mobile devices like phones and cars which need the energy density.
So cut down on the range of electric cars. Isn't that what is keeping more people from buying electric cars, the range and charge time.
@@soberpickle8195 He said put the best batteries we got in electric cars... Then use lower grade batteries for stationary use cases. Why did you conclude he wants to lower the range of ev's?
This was my biggest concern so far. So if the „cake“ of the battery can indeed be unbaked to allow for loss-free recycling then there’s really no longer a reason not to go electric.
The average CO2 emission for the battery of 33000km equivalent is a joke compared to the CO2 saved when using electricity to power the vehicle. Even the , admittedly rather CO2-heavy German way of generating electric energy, means that a full size SUV like a BMW X5 with the smallest diesel emits some 2.5 times as much CO2 as an equivalent-sized BMW iX. With the warranty for the battery lasting some 160000km this looks like a lot lower total CO2 emission for the electric car.
And yes, if the same iX is fueled in Norway with 100% hydropower - even better. And if you are fine with going for a golf sized car instead of a full size SUV - you will save 1/3 of the weight and roughly 1/4 (!!!) of the energy - whilst needing that „small“ battery the video mentions.
I still think it would have been useful to offer ethanol more widely, also for the existing fleet, but at least in Germany that has stopped. Unfortunately.
You're missing the CO2 that comes from recycling battery minerals, but yes, the equation shows that EV is definitely the future to replace ICE cars. The breakeven point for EV is just so short that it just makes sense.
Until you realize most electricity is produced with fossil fuels and your "clean car" is just a facade for you to feel good while actually you're likely polluting more than someone buying a used internal combustion car
As a Metallurgical Engineer, I believe EV batteries will cause a big environmental crisis and speed up global warming, as they are very CO2 intensive to produce and recycle. But I hope I am wrong.
'As a Metallurgical Engineer' why isn't your company looking at & investing in UK Robert Murray-Smith working prior art, then advocating it to all customers... now Brexit's done & can start re-investing in the old commonwealth infrastructure/regrowth... just waiting for someone else with the budget to -not- do it for you!...
FWG And The Paper Battery, Oct 19, 2017 Robert Murray-Smith
I think the same. The future is not electric, but a mixture of EV and combustion engines (aka Hybrids). We have the use the best of both worlds. The infrastructure isn’t there to go full EV even in the next 10 years… the CO2 that is emitted from EV, production, using (we still have to produce the eletctricity - even ‘green energy’ still has CO2 producing the solar and wind turbines and they don’t live forever), and recycling has it’s CO2. How much CO2 is in a good quality built naturally aspirated engine that can run 700k km easy in it’s lifetime without repairs or CO2 emissions needed to repair the ‘turbo’ or other parts to the car… just my opinion
It is definitely NOT speeding up global warming. Producing an electric vehicle is equivalent to driving a gas car for a year. After that, it is very close to carbon neutral, and you can drive it for decades.
@@fetak12xxx CO2 production from electric vehicles break even with gas cars at one or two years of driving. It emits much less CO2 over its lifetime. The future is EV.
We can reach a point where no more materials need to be mined.
Well not while the market is growing
Places could make the alternative better so that less people need a personal car.
the cost of recycling the battery may be too high for a profit now, but I believe that it can be helped with government subsidy and the technology should get cheaper over time.
I only hope that there will be big development in the battery recycling technology in the near future, after all we will be needing it very soon.
It would need standardization to make them recyclable or reusable. Currently other than Tesla or Prius we don't have a large number of the same cells / pack to recycle / reuse cost effectively.
Pay attention to GARB stock, this company is dedicated to battery reciclying. Biden recently has emphasized the importance of battery Recycling for the boost EV
Recycling lithium today makes no sense since most batteries still have a ton of life in them. In 10 years there will be recycling plants set up when many batteries would be nearing their end of life. This is a huge industry.
I think that if the world doesn’t change the way we move around (ie. getting more trains, bikes and pedestrians on the street), we are faded to worsen even more the climatic problem.
Good to see, sad part is many people mock the recycling effort. Kind of like people one hundred and twenty years ago mocked the gasoline powered cars. "Never replace the horse and buggy".
Thumps up for the 'stache
I think hydrogen powered things are the future, we can use all green power sources like solar, wind and nuclear to generate the electricty and use that to create the hydrogen, this you can store as we currently do with fossile energy and you can also use excisting piping for natural gas. Maybe people can even create their own hydrogen at home and store it themselfs.
It prevents the issue we are now seeing right here with the disposing of batteries and as far as I know you don't have that kind of throw-out-time with hydrogen tanks after 5-8 years.
What do you guys think about this theory?
You need to store that energy. Our today's batteries are catastrophic thing in recycling. 100% of them just going on garbage fields.
except hydrogen only converts 30% of the input energy into extractable energy. Compared to EVs' 80-90% efficiency, hydrogen is costly and too energy inefficient.
@@pieluver1234 Inefficienty isn't a issue if we produce more energy than we use. For example with solar at the moment, just make hydrogen with the extra energy and use it in the nights/winter.
Inefficienty doesn't matter as we only use energy we don't currently use
@@tychowerner We are nowhere close to having an energy surplus. Every renewable kWh we generate will be consumed, with any deficit being generated by fossil fuel
If infrastructure is built to built for the future with great transportation systems their will be less cars on the roads overall, but we all know greed never builds anything
Don’t compare how long you can drive to emit co2 with gasoline when you can only do that once lithium can be used many times
The stache man is back!
If only we could design a car with an engine made from one material like aluminium or iron that didn't require these lithium batteries.
Then to make it better if that vehicle could produce a natural inert gas that could be recycled by photosynthesis...
Or use trains that can be connected directly to energy output.
We already have Na ion batteries. You should check them out ..
@@Tobi3425 the use of batteries is just stupid. Nature already created hydrocarbons. The simplest and best energy store we have to date.
Ones I was taking to argon lab etc and answer was Cobalt and Mikel need to be resicle but litiun so cheap . Put it in asphalt etc
Building fewer cars will not work as they are demanded. Making too few of them will cause a mismatch between manufacturing and demand which will drive prices skyrocketing. There will be 3 ways: a) perfection of the recycling way, b) adding a 2nd competing battery technology that will use more redundant primary materials. If that will be the Sodium or another it's too early to tell but there should be another one. c) Also the 2nd life concept as mentioned in the video works well: We have a 14.4 KWh 2nd life battery powering our home in cooperation with a solar roof. It's too early to praise it but so far it just works.
lemme save you 8min of your life: CAN THEY BE RECYCLERED?
The answer is: YES.
amazing how fast things are changing in the battery recycling area. virtually all of the materials can now be recycled, and a lot of work has been done to recycle more of the plastics not just in batteries but in general.
it does show that for years batteries were ignored as a source of materials until they became a threat to the oil and gas companies, at which point negative stories about recycling then became common.
industry has got it's act together is scaling up to recycle virtually all of the materials.
as for the video. child labour and cobalt? really? that has been an issue for years, ling before car batteries, and battery makers are removing cobalt as a policy going forward.
perhaps child labour and coal mines should be looked at. it's far more prevalent globally.
It's still not as efficient as fossil fuels. The oil industry is one of the big pushers for climate change so when people say the oil industry is working against c02 reduction they should show some examples.
I see story after story going on about the environmental effects of old lithium batteries: look, we don't bury old 12V lead-acid vehicle batteries in the ground: the old battery's lead is re-cycled for new batteries. Up to now all we had was small cell phone and cordless tool lithium batteries to deal with. In these relatively small volumes (compared to EVs) there was not a whole lot of incentive to re-cycle. Now that we will need much larger quantities lithium, more work needs to be done to re-cycle these batteries to give lithium mining a chance to catch up to EV demand (I read that California is currently using old worn out EV batteries as backup for solar and wind farms, so they are not all going into the landfills there). If private industries can not do it then governments should step in.
Next, we do not have to rely on China, Chile, and Bolivia for lithium, we already have some here in the U.S. (as does Canada). There is a geothermal energy plant by the Salton sea in southern California (note the Salton sea is currently fairly toxic from evaporation over the years and farm runoff) that uses hot underground brine water to generate electricity. That hot underground water happens to be loaded with minerals (obviously: lots of hard water in the southwest) and one of those minerals is lithium, and quite a bit of it! One estimate is that there is enough lithium there to meet all of the United States needs, and forty percent of the world! Joe Biden has already invoked the Wartime Production Act to get companies to investigate environmentally friendly ways to extract lithium in the United States.
There is a similar situation for cobalt and nickel from coal mine waste. In this case it could be double win with the removal of these toxic waste sites (see the article: 'In coal country, a new chance to clean up a toxic legacy').
I think we need to have a better look at the spent and waste of all the chemicals needed to re-separated the Nickle, Cobalt, and Lithium. Where will these chems go? Into our waste water treatment, then our oceans? Oh, I miss the days of analog.
“EV’s are going to save the world!” --> “what do we do with all the left over butteries and the toxins which are a byproduct of making batteries”
Just get a bicycle.
I am more than willing to take leftover batteries, they are rather useful.
Not everyone of us lives in a big city, or on flat terrain. A good number of people worldwide still lives in rural areas or outside big cities, where bikes are not adequate to the fast pace of modern life, or outright impratical.
Skip to about 5:55 where they finally start to get to the point.
Yes but depends on battery TYPE.
Tesla uses Lithium Iron Phosphate which can be used by plants. Fertilizer. Easy to separate. Safer.
Fewer cars and more recycling 👍
I'll criticizes this video for not stressing the life expectancy of the battery. It depends on if the car has active thermal battery management.
Look at the Nissan Leaf, these have been around for just over 10 years and they do not have active thermal battery management, this is cost cutting which shortens the life expectancy of the battery. However even in the Leaf most batteries that are making it 10 years old have approximately 85% capacity. Considering the Leaf's that were over manufactured 10 years ago only had a 22kwh battery then 85% is not good.
So then they have their second life which will start now and no one knows how long these battery will last in their second life. After all if it took 10 years to loose 15% of their capacity then how many decades will it take for them to loose another 50%? And when these batteries were in their Leaf's they could be parked anywhere at any temperature, this will be different in their second life. Their temperature will be more carefully managed. So it'll be a few decades.
And then there are all the other cars, these have active temperature battery management. Tesla and Renault were manufacturing loads of cars around 10 years ago. These batteries will be in much better condition than the batteries from the Leaf's.
So when you look at building recycling centres, it's a bit silly to do that now because you won't have too many batteries to recycle, except from cars that have damaged their batteries in crashes.
All good points. And I don't see these facilities scaling up yet. The industry knows this.
I have pondered the question of all of those potential dead batteries for a few years now. Thanks for this information. It seems as if we are expending lots of energy to save energy. Back to the drawing board methinks!
If that energy is carbon free, like solar, wind, et cetera, it is less of a problem.
"expending lots of energy to save energy" the biggest, fullest brains on the planet I tell you
@@vodkaboy Or is that the "biggest brains" with an entirely different agenda.
Same with dead CFL lightbulbs that are filled with Mercury
One way or another these processes require lots of energy. The only way we will reach net zero by mid century is by going all in on nuclear power. The newer SMR designs are safe and hopefully cheap enough to compete with fossil fuels.
That is excatlly what we need. We need techological solutions as well as conciousness and most importantly regulations from goverment to make everybody involved in this process.
Amazing idea, and like always from your chanel amazing videos.
So these batteries are a solution bringing more problems! Pollution in mining, carbon print, and not easy to recycle....
Maybe we should rethink the way we live in this planet and how "comfortable" we make it.
Consume less, pollute less, litter less?
Excellent video!!
More problems but hopefully smaller problems
@ yesss (fingers crossed)
Different problems but probably (much) smaller problems compared to burning petroleum products.
Sir where there is a will there is a way!!
The ans is New batteries technology.
Finenergy, Gigadyne, and most Importantly Log9 are the pioneers in this subject. And very soon u gonna listen Finenergy and Log9!! Growing like Tesla did. Remember my words.
@ Depends for whom. Ofcourse childlabour in Kongo and/or irreversable pollution and water shortages in Serbia (currently occupied by Chinese polluters and Rio Tinto) is not something you'd in North/Waste Europe would care too much about.
"The key to us driving around without using fossil fuel" Electric cars still use fossil fuel. They use it when they charge. Most power plants burn fossil fuel.
EV + renevables is the key. Not one of them, but both
The best way to be green is investing in public transportation and high speed trains giving people less of a incentive to buy and use 2 tons of aluminum
Not in the UK they don't.
thats the problem of the power generation, not EVs. Solar/wind+storage (in those same batteries), and nuclear can take care of this problem.
Stop using generalities. There are CO2/kWh figures available for any country in the world, so you can actually calculate carbon impact of charging your EV. If country has developed renewable energy sources, it's clearly better to drive an EV
Don't forget the extensive cost in money, energy and thus emission, in maintaining those large infrastructure of wind turbines and solar arrays. Which in the end further reduce their final efficiency.
I don't get how people can see a future in something finite. If its finite and you while recycling you don't get all of it back, how can it be the future. Also, this happens with a lot of materials, but i don't know how is it with these metals, but usually there is a number of times it can be recycled. Again, how is this the future if its limited and you would never be able to do a perfect cycle.
I understand if people say its a transitional technology to a cleaner future, but its not the future, so don't treat it as such
Lead acid battery is 100% recycled.
it power density is lower tho. And its recharge rate is slow
This is why I bought Greystone Logistics Stock ($1.21). They turn Waste PLASTIC into 100% RECYCLED Plastic PALLETS.
I like the 33000 km on a diesel car comparison. Just one thing : how many km of diesel car in terms of emissions to make the diesel car? I think it's the difference that matters, it's not like making diesel cars uses no energy, right?
If you listened, its 33K miles just to create the battery. The didnt include the emissions to create the other parts of electric car. Since diesel cars dont need a huge battery and assuming emissions for creating a diesel car and the other parts of the electric car are then same, then EVs still create 33K more emissions. See if you think about it logically its not that complicated.
@@mojo331 agreed. Still, the ammount of emissions for creating the rest of the car is relevant for both models - we should compare the difference between those, not just talking about the battery on the electric car - probably the electric car actually will be higher than the diesel over all, but partial data is false advertising, we should be comparing full numbers not the ones that most emphasize the point of the author.
We need forward thinker in Washington (LOL). They have been subsidizing the conversion to EV's through tax credits. The elephant in the room is going to be spent batteries, millions of them. One thing ICE engines have is they are easily recyclable. I would rather help the lithium battery recycler than the purchaser in this day and age.
00:33
"This technology is key to us driving around without burning fossil fuels." You maybe not, but your electricity provider most certainly do burn some fossil fuel.
they don't care. GDP is the only thing they care about. don't choke on the particles.
Not so much in the UK anymore they don't. Only 4% of the UK's energy now comes from burning coal.
@@Brian-om2hh Over the last 40 years the fuels consumed to meet demand have also changed significantly. In 1970
primary fuel consumption was dominated by solid fuel (i.e. coal) and petroleum - 47% and 44%
respectively. In 2013 coal accounted for 19% (most of which goes into power generation) and
petroleum for 32%. The share of natural gas has grown from 5% to 36% and nuclear and renewable
energy from 5% to 13%.
In terms of final energy consumption, demand has also fallen: 2013 consumption was 11% below the
2000 level and 3% below that of 1990. Natural gas has replaced solid and petroleum fuels in the
heating sector and has accounted for 30 to 35% of final energy consumption since 1990. Petroleum
continues to dominate at over 40% due to its role in transportation whilst the share of electricity has
grown to around 20%.
Summary, they replaced coal with oil and natural gas. The renewables are increasing but cannot reliably power the UK or Europe currently. With the increase in EV adoption there will be a much larger strain on the grid and power usage. This information was taken from publications and studies done on the power infrastructure in the UK. Oxford Institute.
@@desertdan100 exactly , right now batteries are worse for the environment. But maybe one day the technology will be better ,i hope
On the other hand a power plants (green or less green) are more efficient in powering up your electric car and other stuff connecting to the power grid than an ICE powered personal car that most of the time transports 1 person, a seat and a couch.
Not only is the technology not there... the likes of MUSK should have thought of this first, not the $$.
Cycling infrastructure first
Then EVS
Its a hard message to get across to town designers
As the money tends to go to roads and developments are of car led design
I recommend everyone check out Cool Worlds video on how inadequate even the most optimistic projections of lithium availability are, for EV goals alone (not even including power grid transitions, etc).
Less than 1% of lithium iron batteries are recycled currently. EV's are not the solution either when charging them on power from coal fired power stations. = greenwashing
In northern Europe we don't get electricity from burning coal. Perhaps you should vote for politicians in your country that want to change that. :)
By 2050 the mining industry will have located more lithium.
Or we we will be mining sea water.
Or we will be mining space.
Or we will use some other chemistry.
Or - as in this video - we will recycle materials, after reuse.
profit....industry care more on profit that on the planet we live in
@@mhg78cx Yes. A possible strategy to deal with that problem is to support industry initiatives like electrification that - for profit reasons, sure - randomly happen to have the potential to make the earth a little better.
Space? Nuts.
@@eugenelamour1086 Space? Balls.
@@easton_alecsandré_ephiccza considering the energy required to travel to and from space is so high, that the material mined there has to be really,really,really,really,really,really,really,really,really,really energy efficient for all of this to be worth. Give that a thought. Space mining only makes sense for precious/rare elements, not the affordable ones.
0:33 where do you think electricity comes from?
I feel aluminium water batteries are more eco-friendly & more easily reusable . What you are trying is to convince the people to continue on lethium batteries just to keep the lethium batteries industry going .😎
those are non rechargeable. they are cells, not accumulators (batteries)
So what happens to the batteries in America and Europe? Are they recycled at all? Give us names of companies doing the recycling if there are any.
EVs currently are increasing CO2 emissions, they will only reduce them when all electrical energy comes from nuclear and renewables (including while building the cars and components).
Battery recycling would be much easier if car manufacturers (are forced to) agree on an international standard for their technical specifications, so that they can be easily produced swapped disposed recycled maintained etc.
They're not increasing CO2 emissions 🤣 where is your data from? An EV battery has a useful life in the EV of around 400,000 miles (Source: Tesla), which will offset around 10 ICE car's emissions over it's lifetime if charged with renewable energy (which most people try to do!). After that, it will still have 50-70% of it's capacity to be used for grid storage or home storage systems, helping stabilise the grid and allowing the user independence from gouge-pricing during peak times. It will allow another 15 years + of use.
@@Loopyengineeringco If you trust tesla on what's their car battery life, you might as well trust what coal and oil companies are saying.
@@Loopyengineeringco Building new factories, building new cars, recycling old ones: all this consumes energy. How much of this energy is carbon free? Running electrical vehicles only reduces CO2 emissions significantly if the electricity production does not send CO2 to the atmosphere.
If CO2 emissions are the priority you don't start by replacing current private transportation means. Instead, you stop producing electricity from burning coal oil and gas, and move to nuclear and renewables. Then beef up the power lines, electrify trains and highways (yes trucks can run on the highways with electric motors and power lines). Only after this is in place you can promote replacing combustion engine cars as they "die" by electrical ones. These steps start from the foundation of the problem and work through to the less important parts with minimal waste.
Currently the EV promotion is just propaganda to ramp up an unsustainable consumption economy at the expense of the global climate.
@@mrandersson2009 well sure, there are always bigger fish, if we continue along that argument then it all ends with "China is the biggest polluter by far, so nothing we can do makes any difference anyway".
If we're talking cars though, if a person is looking to get a new car and their choice is ice Vs electric, the electric choice is better environmentally, assuming they drive the car more than 20-30k miles over its lifetime. The co2 footprint will be made by factories somewhere, it's almost the same. Tesla factories seem to be powered by a large solar contribution on their roofs, and that's more of a corporate social responsibility thing than anything. Even if EVs charge with the dirtiest electricity, they aren't bringing their pollution into the cities that they're driving in and where the highest concentrations of lungs are. And the coal kWh, petrol and diesel production emissions are largely similar before they hit the tank/battery, so still a win for EV.
Isn't coal a fossil fuel?
Which electricity plants use to make power 🔋? Which charge lithium ion batteries?
Coal powered electric cars, like Tesla for example...
Wrong, wrong, its all lies.....
solar and wind energy and other sustainable energies will charge the batteries in the long run .
so many more solar and wind farms and other sustainable sources are coming inline into the grid every day all around the world
Yes just big lies to sell everyone something new , 87 % of lithium comes from south America is shipped to china using fossil fuels then they make batteries and ship them back using fossil fuels ! Worse for the environment. Battery tech needs to get better then lithium ion because it is worse for the environment
@@sprintershepherd4359 Yes first we force everybody into EV cars and than we will build solar energy and wind... just to find out that it wont work.
Why isnt 100% of the residental energy use green? Because it is not possible! Shouldnt we try this first and when we achieved that we can think about EV cars???
the efficiency of thermal power plants is so good that making electricity by burning gasoline is more profitable and environmentally friendly than using it in an engine
@@freedomisnotnegotiable the efficiency of thermal power plants is so good that making electricity by burning gasoline is more profitable and environmentally friendly than using it in an engine
Recycling EV car’s battery is far more easy than recycling smart phones’ battery. A used EV car’s battery cannot hide and had to be recycled.
Please make a video on Al-Air and dual carbon batteries as well
Recycle. Yes. More recycle.
Reuse is better!
Reduce. Reuse. Recycle
get rid of humans - problem gone
I just wanna breathe clean air on the road. because I'm a human.any dumb person can understand if we breathe toxic we gonna die quickly.
Diesel gate lol
dying young is good for the planet.
Lithium solid state , sure would be nice if the salts could be made into the solid state core of the metals and a specialized center salt core capacitor used instead of acids all recyclables back into new batteries.
Solid state batteries in the future would be great! But for now we also have Na ion batteries. For me it is really disappointing to see debates about batteries without considering all already available battery types. Most people who are against electric cars would fit to a Na ion battery powered car perfectly.
@Tobi3425 hopefully any car I buy I get a safer cheaper somewhat better option for batteries when the ten to fifteen years comes I need to change.
cobalt is being mined for oil refining as well. except with batteries, at least there is a chance it will be recycled some time in the future. but yeah, as a species, we need to do better when it comes to taking out our trash.
The energy to produce the Lithium battery, does it come from China's coal fired power plants?.
1st European economy is running on coal. btw, someone checked on the NL to see if they're still there ? I think they sunk www.electricitymap.org/map
Yes, adding to the CO2 levels of the atmosphere. Of course, we could offset that CO2 increase by planting trees, but that is not happening.
after that how is the energy generated to charge the batteries to drive the cars?
Northvolt in Sweden.
The single largest user of cobalt is the petroleum industry to produce low-sulfur fuels. This cobalt is blasted out of your car's tailpipe and forever gone.
Do you mean the cobalt in the catalytic converter which is a part of the exhaust system on ICE powered cars?
Or we invest in public transit like trams and trains (or trolly busses) with overhead wires in the cities and suburbs (most of the population rn)
Don't forget trolleybusses, though you could fit them with batteries for parts where there is no overhead wires.
The UK might be looking into getting overhead wires above the motorways for electric trucks/lorries with a trolley system to power them and/or to charge the batteries at the same time.
Yes
@@DarkDutch007 They work great too, but they have rubber tires which wear out with frequent use and need to be switched out and disposed of. Busses also generally have a lower capacity, but they make it up with a much lower upfront capital cost because no rails are required. Also just my personal experience, I like trams more because they're more stable and less shakey, but of course that's unimportant compared to reaching the goal of transporting a lot of people efficiently and cheaply
Batties are a big problem and will continue to be probably, since the difference between what you could do right and what is actually being done is huge. We can just look at other things such as plastic, where even plastic gathered for recycling is not being recycled. What bothers me a lot also is all the idiots buying electrical cars and thinking they are actually doing anything good for the climate and environment.
The problem is people have an answer to everything......just not the same answer
Air travel is a huge polluter I imagine. Be a while until we see commercial jets running on batteries I think.
Honestly I just think petrol cars should just get a really good filter that eliminates all carbon footprint.
Sadly you are not going to make it as a chemist
I see the future in the sodium Ion battery. Way less waste and the materials are readily available world wide. So there's the problem already. No big company that can get filthy rich
Do these battery ever run out of power ?? like the stage where they no longer can be recycled into something useful?
Volvo released data recently stating that producing an EV releases 75% more carbon emissions than a combustion engine vehicle
I'd like to follow the simple already in tremendous use average car battery in the recycling process as some of this video was more like an advertisement with no real content........
Due to the high cost of cobalt and nickel, most of the batteries being made are LFP - lithium iron phosphate, which is safer and less expensive. Also for EVs, LFP batteries last a very long time, a million miles or more.
Some of what he said is out of date or misinformation. The EV batteries are the most expensive part of the EV and are almost never trashed. The battery pack is worth thousands of dollars and is reused as he said.
There are not only LFPs, there are already even electric cars without Li at all. Na ion batteries do work especially for cheaper cars
Interesting that he uses plastic blocks to illustrate recycling. I sometimes wonder how much plastic actually gets recycled.
depends on the country. For US it is about 8% a google search told me. Eastern Europe does surprisingly good.
These are the problems for most things when brought up to larger scales. Followed by rules and law closing "loop holes" with end of life materials that contain rare, exotic, and/or hazardous materials...this being said, are there currently any notable rules, codes, and/or laws that we, everyday people aren't aware of, but should be?
If so, I believe it is never too early to be making these items more "socially aware"!
If you look at Monro Engineering they say its easy to recycle Deep freeze the battery then grind to powder and use flotation to separate
the most environmental thing you can do is to keep driving your old diesel car as long as possible...in my case a mercedes 300d but that one may never die lol....If you want to spice it up a bit fuel up with synthetic diesel ...aka HVO100.