By P Gosselin on 17. April 2021
It’s all beginning to dawn on the greens: the looming environmental disaster of e-vehicle batteries.
When it comes to lithium-ion e-vehicles and the environmentalist greens and profiteers:
- They know it’s a disaster.
- We know it’s a disaster.
- They know that we know that they know it’s a disaster.
- But they still pretend it isn’t.*
The huge environmental problems of e-cars are emerging
Now it’s beginning to dawn on the greens: They’ve got a colossal environmental problem in the works – a problem they were warned about long ago and one they’ve refused to believe was real because it clashed with their vision of a green utopia.
Greens playing them down, hoping for solutions
At the moment they are playing it down, insisting solutions to avert the lithium ion battery’s environmental problem will be found in time. But they are clearly getting uneasy about it as the astronomical dimensions of the problem of producing 200 million lithium ion car batteries – and the later disposing of them – are becoming undeniable.
Expert: “Urgent environmental issue”
Not long ago Nobel Prize winning Japanese chemist and lithium battery researcher Akira Yoshino warned that solutions for recycling these batteries were sorely needed and that it was becoming “an urgent environmental issue.”
Huge mess for the next generations
E-vehicle batteries, once having served their intended use in e-vehicles – after about 8 years – can be reused for other lower demand purposes – a so-called second life – such as a home battery. But recycling them is inevitable – and ot’s complicated, energy-intensive and expensive. Nobody knows how many are currently actually recycled, or simply just getting thrown into the landfill.
We’re creating a huge, costly a mess for the next generations.
Ending up in the trash “prematurely”
Worse, Claudia Scholz at the Handelsblatt here reports that e-vehicle batteries are already increasingly ending up in the trash – and doing so “prematurely”. “The e-car problem: thousands of tons of batteries end up in the trash prematurely.”
Already thousands of tons of batteries
The Handelsblatt reports how Matthias Schmidt, managing director of the recycling company Erlos, “is astonished”.
“Actually, his industry had expected to be inundated with batteries from recently produced electric cars only in eight or ten years,” writes the Handelsblatt. “In fact, however, thousands of tons of batteries are already ending up at waste disposal companies.”
“We would never have imagined the quantities that would accumulate after such a short time,” says Schmidt. His company alone and competitor Duesenfeld, both of which specialize in recycling car batteries, are recycling more than 4,000 tons of batteries from almost all e-models this year – including those that have only recently come onto the market.”
The dangerous half-knowledge of green central planners
But that’s the way it is with these self-anointed masterminds, who at their universities were immunized against comprehending the dangers of their half-knowledge. What follows are how disastrous leftist ideas run their course:
- They’re convinced it’s a brilliant idea
- Ignore signs and warnings there is a disaster
- Play down the disaster as it emerges
- Acknowledge the disaster, but insist solutions are coming
- Move the goalposts when solution don’t arrive
- Deny the disaster no matter what. But if you can’t:
- Then admit there is a disaster
- And then insist it was never your idea to begin with
- Hope it will be forgotten
- Blame it all on others if it isn’t
==================================
*A variation of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s original quote: “We know that they are lying, they know that they are lying, they even know that we know they are lying, we also know that they know we know they are lying too, they of course know that we certainly know they know we know they are lying too as well, but they are still lying.
Not to mention that the useful life span of an auto battery set is slightly less than the duration of the purchase loan, and replacement is nearly the same cost as purchasing a new vehicle.
I’m still driving my 1990 BMW 325i 5-speed. Still strong, and a kick in the pants to drive. Cheap to maintain. Passes CA smog. So that’s about 3-4 e-cars in the lifespan of my one driving machine? Now who’s green? Not my Tesla driving neighbors.
Still got my ’85 BMW 523e and still have people stop and compliment me on its looks. It’s still fun to drive and is just as ‘frisky’ as it needs to be. It barely registers on the environment tests.
Not a BMW, but my ’97 Chevy , with 220,000 miles on it looks like crap, but still gets 42 mpg and only 3 ppm HC on it’s last CA smog check.
Oldies but goodies … cheers!
What 1997 Chevy gets 42mpg? Do you have pedal assist?
I’m thinking transposed digits maybe…
i never heard of any vehicle except a Volkswagon truck that got 42 mpg from the 90’s!
For those who want to know, https://www.fuelly.com/car/volkswagen/rabbit Rabbit diesels were awesome for mileage. Ugly and small, great mileage.
My 1.6 litre 1996 Mazda MX-5 – just below 45 mpg on a long trip.
The car’s still going strong.
Miles per gill?
I bought two of those for my two boys. Loved em. Sadly … they both got totaled. My boys were fine … the cars weren’t. I had 3-kids … and each one totaled the car I bought for them. They take after their mother. Oh well, she’s better looking than me … just can’t drive.
LOL … kids. Good times, though, right?
Never bought my kids a car. Pretty good drivers, too. Wonder why?
Funny thing … my kids took better care of the cars they bought for themselves. No good deed goes unpunished.
In a nutshell, that’s why you let kids buy their own cars. When they have to accumulate their own hard-earned money and empty out their bank account to buy one, they’ll drive it like it cost them something.
I can beat that: three kids and four totaled cars (no injuries). To be fair, the cars were not worth a lot. One in fact was totaled twice (it was repairable both times).
And I’ve still got my Audi A2 TDi (don’t think you got it in the US), 66mpg (UK mpg which is about 55mpg US style), now 19 years old and 262,000 miles – no problems with the annual emissions test, about a third of the expected level.
As Kenji above says, who’s the green one ?
Still impressive today. Not as good as a lightweight hybrid but still impressive.
Amazing, isn’t it? Whoever would have thought that after being lied to about the huge distance that a single charge can take you that ev drivers would discard the battery packs ‘prematurely’ when they discovered they weren’t getting anywhere near the stated amount and wanted new batteries?
And had the money to buy the replacement batteries? The cars are for the wealthy only, middle income or lower can not afford that expense. $5,000.00 or more every 6 to 8 years for Tesla? Total upkeep for a “regular” car is under that for 6 or more years.
Most e-cars are sold with a battery warranty. All those premature replacements are battery packs whose capacity has decreased so much that it triggers the warranty claim. This is caused by the abuse of the battery pack in normal use to achieve the required day-1 range and acceleration, and during rapid charging.
Well, considering the average length of new-vehicle ownership in the US ( According to an IHS Markit study) is 79.3 months (or about 6 and a half years), what makes you think they’ll replace the battery at that point when they’d normally be going for a new car around then anyway.
This entire thread is very interesting, but please remember — most of it is based on trying to “save” CO2 emissions. And that, as most of us know, is unnecessary, and is nonsense. CO2 is *NOT* a problem.
I know that they are lying, too….
I know that you know I love the I know that you know axiom!
These are the same type of batteries they want to use to back up wind and solar, it will be the environmental disaster squared. Production and mining will be as big of a environmental disaster as getting rid of the mess.
No, absolutely not. Those batteries will use unobtanium not lithium and cobalt. They will be completely environmentally friendly. They will last practically forever and cost almost nothing. This will happen because … just look at computers … they are a zillioin times better than they were even ten years ago … it’s something to do with Moore’s law that governs the development of all technology.
Completely wrong. You recharge them under a full moon. Like healing crystals.
And while wearing your completely bogus copper wristband, with magnets!
Dilithium crystals.
You must dance widdershins around them, shaking your juju rattle and chanting “O wottagu Siam!”
Actually the lithium in batteries is more akin to poly lithium, with many, many lithium ions circling back and forth. Poly lithium is, of course, not nearly as efficient as di lithium crystals because the dilithium is much more tightly packed in a crystal!
Rubbish – you just park your eCar in a pyramid overnight and they recharge themselves.
Be sure to put it on the tippy top! That is where the gallactic waves focus the bestest.
According to an American Scientist published expert it will be hydrogen from hydrolysis as back-up for all the excess wind and solar energy. A letter pointing out the hydrogen energy problem was so answered in the current issue by the advocate apparently not knowing much about hydrogen. Atomic weight–1.0079. A liter at O C weighs 0.08987grams. Although not toxic but explosive, high concentrations can be an asphyxiant.
Why not steam cars, pick up your wood along the way? A liter is heavier, might have more energy without any pressure.
I know you were being sarcastic at the beginning. But if you want the actual math and chemistry of how off ‘hydrogen Greens’ are, read essay Hydrogen Hype in ebook Blowing Smoke. I ran all the numbers.
You’d best re-write your ebook….
..
1) https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210223-the-battery-invented-120-years-too-soon#:~:text=Edison%20had%20outfitted%20his%20car%20with%20a%20new,to%20refine%20the%20battery%20for%20use%20in%20automobiles.
..
And then….
..
..
Burns good in existing ICEs
Start with where you get the 3H2. That is what I did and you didn’t.
Did you read the BBC link?…. The place where it says… ” Also, when it was being charged, it would release hydrogen”
A 50% mixture of methanol and water burns good? The fuel delivery system and tank would likely need to be modified to accommodate the fuel’s corrosive nature and the water would supply no heat of combustion so mileage would suffer. I guess it might work though.
Similar chemistry can produce dimethyl ether, which can substitute for diesel. Still requiring fuel system modifications.
The methanol is separated from the water by distillation. The fuel systems are modified the same way as for ethanol.
Sounds like a big waste of good 100 proof Whiskey.
ROTFLMAO…. you do know that you can’t drink methanol right?
Of course you can! Lotsa outies ’round here do!
It makes you “blind drunk”, but you CAN drink it. They outies filter it through a loaf of white bread, which usually gets eaten afterwards…
Pity ’bout the eventual loss of sight, but hey, it makes blind drunk!
Not necessarily. Water vapors have higher pressure at same temperature as other products of burning. So this is increasing engine efficiency under some circumstances. It is basically turning combustion engine partially to steam engine.
I think this system was used in some aircraft engines to increase power for short period of time.
Yes it was. The water increased compression and manifold pressure while lowering temperature there by preventing “detonation” or IOW preventing the mixture in the cylinder from igniting prior to the piston reaching top dead center.
It was used before the war for take off power and during the war for emergency combat power in several engines, the most produced of which was the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine used in the P-47, F4U, F6F. P-61 fighters and the B-26 and A-26 bombers.
Water injection has also been used in turbine engines to increase thrust.
Water! Is there nothing it can’t do?!?
Also in C-124, R4360s.
“A 50% mixture of methanol and water burns good?”
Make that ethanol and call it 100 proof. It burns OK but why waste it. Back home we put it to better use. We call it moonshine.
“Burns good in existing ICEs”
I don’t think it would work in my car, it has an “existing ICE”.
Gasifiers are the technology choice for transportation and farm equipment when there is a shortage of oil not steam.
Even when there is large amounts of ‘free’ fuel for gasifiers, oil based fuels are prefered.
Refueling with diesel and gasoline takes less time.
I did a project on auto steam engines in college, many moons ago. They’re actually quite feasible and can burn just about any fuel. GM developed an external-combustion engine in the 1970’s, but could never quite get funding for it. The problem at the time was that it took a minute to build up steam pressure. Now, it would be easy to use an electric drive train and run it with batteries for that first minute.
wow, our paths may have crossed.
In the late 1990’s when I was chief strategist and GM of New Businesses at MOT ( hint never agree to two full time jobs at once) Dean Kamen tried to get me to invest millions of MOT dollars in ‘Fred’, his codename for what became the Segway. I declined for the same reason Henry Ford had to retire the model T—no roof and it rains.
Then he tried to get Mot to invest in his external combustion engine (technically a Sterling engine invented in 1816). He claimed a major advance. Our declination was based on the fact that a New Zealand engineering college had published that same idea 20 years before Dean’s patent application as a student project paper.
He does not like me.I don’t care.
” The Souix say a man’s greatness is measured by his enemies.” h/t Dell Gue. With an “E”!
When I read the words “external combustion engine”, I imagine an engine and a ring of good dry wood around it. Now just light a match ..
Steam wagons (lorry/truck) were manufactured in volume in the UK from the late 19th century into the 1930s. Their share of transport was diminishing, but I think they had achieved some niche applications – such as dockside where they worked on level ground alongside the steam cranes. I believe it was largely legislation which hastened their demise with the inherently heavier steam trucks struggling with new rules/taxes on axle weight limits and braking efficiency. Steam-electric drive systems are probably more viable now with automated control, and battery (or even ICE generator) for manoeuvring/startup, but more likely suited to marine use where cooling water is on hand, and transits typically take days or weeks. Steam-electric trains are also probably viable in some locations where some of the original infrastructure remains.
Didn’t Bill Lear attempt to perfect a steam turbine driven car back in the ’60’s that would run on anything that burned? I seem to remember the write ups in the paper about how it would work. Don’t remember why it didn’t, perhaps a refueling problem.
Andy Granitelli (sp?) ran turbine driven cars at Indianapolis for a few years, including the only car that Mario Andretti won the Indy 500 in.
The 1920s Dobel steam car was driven by Howard Hughes, he had three of them from memory, almost instant start up from cold, fossil fuel consumption less than one of the most economical small ICEV of today.
The Dobel was the size of a UK Rolls Royce, it had sliding glass windows and a hardtop x 4 doors and could exceed 100 MPH.
An Australian converted a 1970s Ford Falcon sedan x 2 of them to steam power, his name was Pritchard. Ford Motor Co purchased the cars and the patent rights and shipped the cars to the USA.
In Maryborough, Queensland, Australia Olds Engineering built small steam engine locomotives, steam boats and even some cars converted to steam power – Olds family in Australia from Oldsmobile USA and R E Olds or REO trucks USA. Olds Maryborough reconditioned a Dobel steam car for an Australian collector during the 1990s. A Director told me that when he was a young apprentice at Olds they converted a car to steam power that could be driven to Melbourne return (2,200 Kms or more) on one 5 gallon drum of Kerosine to heat the water for steam.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=GQEAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA74&dq=steam+car&hl=en&sa=X&ei=IrJvVfjbI4qKyAStq4G4BA&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=steam%20car&f=false
wasn’t featured until 12 years after it was made. Not sure why the delay.
Also not sure what happened with this plan to use versions of this same engine in Queensland trains in 2016? https://www.3rconsultants.com.au/technologies/prichard-steam-engine/
Second response. More technical. For those who want to know. In a conventional ICE (say Otto cycle) most of the waste combustion heat goes out in the exhaust. Somthe engine cooling problem is relatively ‘small’, as you car radiator shows.
For a Sterling engine, there is no combustion exhaust. So even if all the external heat just radiates away, you still have to cool the internal working fluid for the compression stroke. That means a radiator much more massive than for an ICE. Just doesn’t work economically. For Dean Kamen’s little Sterling for Segway, the radiator and cooling pump were 3x bigger and heavier than the Segway stand platform plus wheels. Um, nope. He argued still great for Bangladesh water tube wells burning ag waste. I said, there is no profit in Bangladeshi water wells, since they now pump those by hand using free volunteer labor.
The whole experience is reminiscent of climate change.
My father-in-law had an old Sterling water pump the railroads used to refill the water tanks in the old steam days. The water being pumped circulated around and cooled the cylinder — no need for a radiator.
The reason the railroads used it was because it was low pressure; regulations allowed it to run unattended (not true of expansion steam engines). So while a locomotive was refilling its boiler from the water tank, the someone would fill the pump’s firebox up with wood or coal, get the pump going to refill the water tank and the train could depart, leaving the sterling pump to run until all the fuel was consumed.
It’s long been recognized the Sterling-cycle engine is much less efficient than expansion steam engines, which in turn are less efficient than internal combustion engines. But there are still niche applications for them. I too laughed when I heard the Segway was supposed to have a “more efficient Sterling-cycle engine”.
Image of such a pump can be found here.
I was good friends with an old steam engineer years ago. He operated steam tractors on his farm to pump irrigation water. He had previously owned more than one Stanley Steamer car. He said they got very good mileage and of course used anything that burned.
He said the steamer began to get popular and ICE auto manufacturers managed to lobby to require a steam engineers license to operate the steam car. That he said is what happened to the steam car.
My father-in-law owned two Stanley Steamers and a White Steamer (made by White Sewing Machine Company around 1902). The Stanleys used a boiler and no condenser. The White had a steam generator and a condenser, so the water was recovered and could be re-used.
However, lubricating oil was injected into the cylinder along with the steam and it would be collected in the condenser along with the water. The frothy oil scum that pooled on the top of the condensed water was nasty, and you could not allow the water level to drop to the point the oil scum was pumped back into the steam generator or you had a really major and dirty job to clean it out.
Steam cars did not fade out because engineer licenses were required; they had simply reached a technological plateau at a time when improvements in internal combustion engines came rapidly. They soon became more efficient and reliable.
If everything was prepared the night before, a White steamer could be fired up and underway in about 20 minutes; faster than the Stanley.
Tooling around at 30 mph in a hilly Pasadena neighboorhood in a 1902 White steamer with buggy seats, no sides, no seatbelts and a leather strap tightened around a steel drum on wooden spoke wheels for a brake is a terrifying experience.
All we have to do is transition to Green, non-GMO, free-range, organic, sustainable, locally-sourced mining that is performed by a gender-balanced diverse workforce that is compensated with a living wage regardless of their work output.
Utopia is quite easy to achieve if you put Humpty Dumpty in charge of the language rather than engineers in charge of the physics!
Not to worry, there will be tax credits for all in e-waste handlers, waste exporters, waste dumpers, ultra high temp waste incinerators (like the one Al Gore invested in before it blew up) and for the rich who sufficiently express their concern about their waste.
When you expose Lithium to air (or any other oxygen-rich environment, like water) it spontaneously bursts into flame. Much like the Depleted Uranium that the Yankees get rid of by turning it into bullets and casings, so the radioactive ashes spreads over other people’s lands. They call it “spreading democracy”.
You know little physic do you. Depleted Uranium is depleted, there is no radioactive ash. Casing or either steel or brass, only the projectile is depleted Uranium. I will admit democracy in it pure form is bad that why in the US we don’t use it. We had once a Representative Republic, but due to the left were are now the largest Banana Republic. Oh by the way of all the forms of government as bad as they all are a Representative Republic is the best on going. Communist and the left killed 200,000,000 in the twenty century and with the thinking of todays useful idiots this century it looks like a billion will be achievable.
I literally read only the first sentence, burst out laughing, went to the next comment!
Go educate yourself, boy!
https://www.greenpets.co.za/index.php/en/12-paranoid-goy/145-depleted-uranium
Wow, that’s the most self-unaware posting I’ve seen in a while. I suppose congratulations on the depths of your ignorance is in order. Go educate yourself, indeed.
Surely the concentration of cobalt and lithium in the batteries is much greater than it was in the ore from which they were originally extracted.
Can anyone explain to me why it is apparently so hard to recycle those batteries? For instance, when I take lead-acid batteries down to the scrap yard, they treat me like a long lost brother and shower me with money (poetic license invoked). 😉 Clearly there must be a problem recycling lithium batteries … yes/no?
Yes. A big one. Will explain in a separate post.
Well, a quick Web search turned up this article that gives a good summary of the various issues/problems/risks associated with recycling the Li-ion battery packs from EVs:
https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy-storage/time-serious-recycling-lithium/97/i28
The article at this site, in a paragraph under the sub-heading “CHALLENGES IN RECYCLING LI-ION BATTERIES”, specifically makes mention of the ease of recycling lead-acid automotive batteries compared to Li-ion batteries.
CommieBob
Here is a link to a 2019 MIT report comparing the life cycle of battery eelctric cars (ie Tesla) to an internal combustion car (ie Toyota Camry) – from mining the materials to recycling the vehicle at end-of-life. Bottom line: a BEV won’t be cost effective wrt a ICE for another 10 or so years. Part of that is both the initial cost of the Li battery and no economical way to recycle it. [It also assumed that you’d drive the BEV for 12+ years and never have to replace the Li battery]
https://energy.mit.edu/insightsintofuturemobility
And IIRC, I heard an interview with a Tesla executive as they were starting their battery factory in Nevada that they were “hoping to have an economical way to recycle all those batteries sometime in the next decade…” [ie there are no zero-emission vehicles, only dispaced emission vehicles]
Gordon,
Thx for the link!
Here in central Arizona we are having another beautiful Spring day that is completely consistent with “climate change”.
“there are no zero-emission vehicles, only displaced emission vehicles” Shamelessly stealing this line!
2hotel9
My bad!
I love that statement but I don’t recall where I came across it.
Who first said it?? I will reference the author in the future.
Far as I know you did. I meant I am shamelessly going to steal it. It summarizes the whole situation so clearly.
I saw a YouTube video of a battery recycling company started by a former Tesla employee. He had an impressive yard full of bags of batteries and a fairly large plant. They showed a couple of workers with hand tools disassembling appliances to get the batteries and some people in white coats with about 20 barrels of different substances they said were recycled. What they didn’t show was large scale equipment processing batteries or large amounts of recycled product.
Dear Climate Summit,
Don’t worry. I know exactly how to recycle these! No more dumping them into local landfills! It involves AI and blockchain. It’s all very complicated.
I only need approximately $10 trillion in green funding.
Please sends checks payable to – Tom, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Thanks,
Tom.
Dear Developing Countries,
I would like to buy a large plot of land somewhere. Some few hundred square miles with access to ocean and no regulatory authorities anywhere. Willing to pay up to $5 trillion. Can pay in green dollars.
Let me know,
Thanks,
Tom.
As a fellow gulag of Toronto resident I would like to assist in this endeavor. 60/40? 😉
C’mon, man! Sometimes you just have to trash the environment in order to save the planet.
Priorities.
I bet a lot of those ‘newer model’ batteries are teslas. When stuff breaks down due to their poor quality control they make you sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement and give you a new car.
The customer is happy to get a new car, and no one needs to know how bad tesla quality is. Win-Win! [except for the sorry fools buying their stock; and the environment, of course]
The thing that makes Tesla profitable is the environmental credits they sell to other manufacturers. So, they need to get as many cars as they can out the door and, if there are a few quality problems, so what. In that light, it’s very important to make sure customers don’t complain.
100%. Plus you can count an additional ‘delivery’ (what investors assume is a sale) in your financial results. “Deliveries up 100%!!”*
*30% of deliveries were not sold.Tesla has become one of the biggest companies in the world SOLELY on the back of government handouts. They have yet to make a product (aside from stock issuances) that they are able to sell at a profit.
And don’t forget that Tesla buyers are on-message virtue-signallers who will put up with any shit to support their beloved Tesla.
OK. On the wind turbine post, I received 11 (eleven) down posts for trying to tell you that environmentally friendly energy sources are being developed. Andrea Rossi, who apparently you hate and distrust, is now estimating release of an ECat SKL power source in 2022. Laugh on.
Discussed on his blog is a 5 kW version, which would provide 60 mph driving current for a moderate EV. Acceleration and hill climbing, at that level, would require super-capacitors and regenerative braking but allow a much smaller battery. 3rd generation ECats are not being discussed yet.
You show yourself as Engineer01. If you are an engineer do you accept that CO2 is in fact causing the atmosphere to warm? If so why?
If not why go through this whole EV battery issue?
I’ve held FIA and SCCA National licenses. I love my turbo-charged RWD Volvo. Electric Vehicles will eventually be much cheaper and safer than ICEs, and I hope to own one shortly–when the battery is not 30% of the cost of the car.
Be aware of the danger of exothermic reaction in Lithium ion batteries resulting in an inferno, difficult to extinguish, can reignite days after the original fire.
The causes include high temperature exposure, a hard bump to the floor pan below the batteries, any other collision shock.
The only way to deal with the inferno is lots of cold water to cool the batteries down and then extinguish, but with care that the fire does not re-ignite.
No way would I like to be inside an EV after a collision that trapped me inside.
Car fires add a new dimension to electric car ownership.
No worries, just have a tractor trailer with a container full of water and a crane strong enough to pick up your EV and drop it into the container follow you around and you’ll be all set!
What could be more environmentally friendly?!
If the lithium battery is burning, that will not put out the fire!
Our local fire chief was joking about having PennDot have their 950M frontloaders and a tractor with a 30 yard box on 24 standby for these fires. Perhaps we should be looking at the idea more seriously.
Lithium merrily rips oxygen out of the H₂O molecule. As it does with almost any source of molecular oxygen.
Water will not put out a lithium fire.
From Lithium Chemical datasheet, “https://cameochemicals.noaa.gov/”
No, he’s an “enginer”, whatever that is.
Yesterdy I couln’t spel enginear, an’ now I are one.
As posted to _Jim separately. Both Rossi and Mills are complete and easily proven fraudulent scams. You need to do your research. Or, you can read about those plus three other ‘new energy’ frauds in the Details chapter of my ebook The Arts of Truth. I did that research for you years ago. Better you read the chapter and then research ots many clues yourself. Don’t bring that nonsense here, cause I will call you out every time.
bring it on!
Will do. A little sampling here and now for you.
Rossi’s claimed ECat catalyst residue, provided to credulous Swedes, contained the ordinary copper isotope ratios, not extraordinary isotope ratios he claimed necessary. He said it was just contaminated in handling. Wrong.
Mills one published paper claimed to have proven hydrinos via XRT. Now, XRT did win a Nobel Prize in physics. Mills problem is that it cannot assay atomic stuff of hydrogen or helium. It begins with lithium. So Mill’s published claim of using XRT to detect hydrogen hydrinos is BS from the gitgo.
My suggestion if you want to continue is, read my book chapter, do your own subsequent research, then come back if you wish with something new and not just internet fluff.
Right now you resemble Monte Python’s Black Knight.
The Black Knight at least has a head.
Made me laugh. Good addition to Rud’s illuminating remark.
Rud, looks like you put him in his place. He said “bring it on” and you did, leaving the troll speechless. Well done.
Because of good research, the promotors Fleischman and Pons have been fired from Utah Univerity.
Next you come with the thermoelectric generator or some thing comparable…
KG,
Pons and Fleischman discovered a real physics effect, LENR. Their mistake was calling it cold fusion, which it is NOT. And the reason it was not consistently reproducible was because LENR depends on the Widom-Larsen theory involving the weak force, and creating heavy electrons, which happened randomly in ‘pointy defects’ in their charged palladium wires.
I wrote up the whole history, the underlying physics, the US Navy explanation experiments, and the then current commercialization efforts as the last example in the Recognition chapter of ebook The Arts of Truth. Is a nogo, since the experimental energy gain is only about 2. The alternative Brillouin Energy design to get to 4 failed. Per ITER, anything less than 7 is not commercializable.
The latest discussions seem to hinge on whether a nuclear particle is a particle or a pulsing wave field. Using the earlier concept of coherent matter waves, and the potential to reach zero point entropy by proper choice of frequencies, a plasma able to dissemble a proton sound almost plausible.
I hope the hydrogen condensates of P&F are now ‘old hat.’
Well, by Einsteins special relativity they are both. So, by Widom Larsen weak theory of radioactive beta decay inverse, if you add energy to an electron it must also become ‘heavier’ since E=MC^2. Add enough, and in a stabilized matrix the heavy E will be captured by a proton to become a ‘cold’ large cross section neutron, itself therefore readily absorbed by the adjacent atomic nuclei. You really do not know Widom-Larsen math
I am an old engineer. One environmentally friendly energy source of energy is fission. Another is coal. Also natural gas.
All new large power plants are required to have an EIS with a FONSI.
So technically all power is clean. It took a lot of engineering hour to achieve this.
Note that people who talk about ‘clean’ power do not reference a ISO 15000 LCA.
ICEs are 32% about efficient, EVs (power wise, over 90)
Engineer01, please read my dissection of the Chevy Volt official EPA MPGe in a chapter of The Arts of Truth. You might find it educational. Is a separately listed example in the table of contents. And you can not refute it, since I used EPA illustrations and calculations in the book itself.
Rud, please fix the incorrectly spelled email address autopopulated by your browser.
Wilco.Have already tried several times.
The EPA doesn’t come across as the sharpest volt in the battery….
The promise of plasma energy from decomposing hydrogen atoms eclipses the current discussion of a “million mile battery” since most of the energy for propulsion comes from an “over unity” source, where energy out >> energy in. The battery is just along for the ride.
If this works, one will need to come up with new metrics for efficiency. Sort of like comparing the energy to grow the tree plus the energy to chop it to the energy applied to the rails by an old steam engine. No one would buy a wood-burning stove if they had to pay for >all< that energy.
This article discusses four possible explanations for this almost free energy:
http://www.researchgate.net/publication/330601653_E-Cat_SK_and_long_range_particle_interactions
You may be an enginer but you are definitely not a businesser. If you were, you would realize that the person buying a wood-burning stove does pay for all the energy involved in both making the wood stove and in growing and gathering the fuel. If they didn’t somebody else would be losing money along the way.
He may be an “enginer” (whatever the heck that is) but he’s certainly no engineer! His grasp of engineering seems to be no better than his grasp of spelling and math (IE sorely lacking)
And calculation when electricity supply comes from 70-80% fossil fuel fired generators?
By the way, it is far more fuel efficient to burn liquid fossil fuel in an internal combustion engine than to produce electricity in a power station for EV.
“ICEs are 32% about efficient, EVs (power wise, over 90)”
What kind of engineer are you to make such an ignorant statement? I guessing computer engineer.
What advocates like to do is compare a ’70 F150 to their cell phone?
Your cell phone will not tow a horse trailer. Your cell phone will not work where people go to ride horses.
So it you live in a city where the electricity is produced by a nuke plant that is load following, then maybe the efficiency of how electricity does not matter.
When charging and discharging batteries heat is produced. Heat is produce in motors as well. Since this heat does not produce work, that accounts for the 10% loss in efficiency.
The heat generated is proportional to the current which is proportional to power.
“Thus, if drag is proportional to the square of speed, then the power needed to overcome that drag is proportional to the cube of speed (P ∝ v3)”
Double the speed, efficiency goes down and batteries and motors get hot.
Not good.
Kit P, no need to be insulting to computer engineers. Enginer doesn’t know anymore about engineering that s/he knows about spelling Engineer!
Tell us, did you get your engineering degree at the same “school” Accusatory Occasional-Cortex got her economics degree?
I was thinking the Melvin Dumar Institute of Technology in Utah.
At least, as far as I’m aware, AOC can spell economist, which is a far sight better than enginer managed to do with the word engineer 🙂
Well, at least some one on her staff can, according a couple of her former fellow employees she could not correctly fill out a food order slip. I guess it could be attributed to spellcheck, too, if somebody set it up on her cellphone.
Excellent points
You disregard the entire “energy chain”. Electric motors are indeed much more efficient than internal combustion, but where did you get your electrix from, how did you store it, how did you transport it, THEN you use it to turn a motor at 90% efficiency.
In affect, you have the carbohydrate economy minus the charging losses for your batteries, minus the gawdawfull state of battery technology, then multiply those extra losses by the horrendous pricing on batteries, then divide by the atrocious life expectancy of the average battery to get the real efficiency number for electrix. You’d do better burning used toilet paper!
Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of electric vehicles, but the technology is just not there…
Consider the efficiency o generating, transmitting, storing and recovering the EV energy.
Enginer01, you would have made a great Jacobin in France back in 1789. They added up the Roman Catholic church’s assets that they were confiscating, and the number they came up with was more miraculous than anything Jesus was ever reputed to do.
Same with the jewelry confiscated from the murdered Aristocratic caste,which they just blithely assumed would still be as valuable WITHOUT ANY MORE DEMAND and with rules in place that say if you wear this around your neck, we’ll chop your head off.
Speaking of French Revolution comparisons, can’t you just hear the gears whirling in Naomi Oreskes’ brain as she contemplates the D-NYE-ers as Madame LaFarge contemplated French aristocrats, shouting Guillotine! Guillotine!
90 % I assume you are talking only the losses due to the motor, you left out what happens to the electricity after it left the plant where it was produced and the losses of energy in said production which best case could winging the losses at 20% in a lot of cases a lot higher!
Every wonder why power plants need cooling towers? Then there is transmission loses, each time electricity uses a transformer to convert it up or down each act that 2% loss with a transformer, that why big one have heatsinks on them. Then you have transmission loss depending on distance that could be well over 10%. So now you have you power at the charging station which means you may be al ready a about a 40% loss or more of energy all ready in the creation and delivery of said power.
Now you have the losses of converting said power into chemical energy and the conversion back again which may be again around 20% of less depending the state of the batteries and the speed which they are charge, every wonder why your cell phone heats up when you charge or you use it, most of it from the battery and the conversion.
So now you have a fully charge car and the motor is 90% efficient, yet the car energy use my be only about 40% efficient about 10% to 20% better than and ICE car. Well the bad news is that said battery pack takes more energy to produce and recycle that a ICE car and the increase of efficient will in the end in all probability be eaten up by said battery pack, ever wonder why said battery pack are so expensive?
Read the article it points out you don’t get something with other problems and the world is a very complex place and life choice have a huge ripple effect. Virtual signaling can have a huge environmental affect without you know it. Oh by the way solar and wind power solves none of these problems in most cases they make it worse.
False.
There are losses all along the line from the generating facility right up to charging and draining the battery.
Following Australia signing the fist climate change based hoax Agreement at Kyoto one of the emissions reduction initiatives of the Australian Federal Government was to offer incentives for conversion of ICEV to use LPG or LNG as fuel, many conversions were for dual fuel retaining the petrol or gasoline fuel option.
This was phased out somewhere between 2007 and 2013 by the Labor Government that also favoured emissions trading/carbon tax, renewable energy and EV future. Yet Australia has enormous reserves of natural gas, coal and shale seam gas and liquid petroleum gas.
I arranged for a company vehicle fleet to become dual fuel equipped and the fuel cost savings were significant, we asked company vehicle drivers to use LPG as often as possible, 1980-2000 years.
I had a Diesel engine 4WD converted to Diesel-Gas, engine with LPG injection 20% to Diesel 80% which provided fuel burn of about 98% instead of 80-85% without LPG injection, so more power and torque and a significant reduction in particulates.
Later
I’m all with you. There are also hundreds of thousands of tons of toxic but reusable spent nuclear fuel out there, which could be used for energy generation. The technologies (fast neutron reactors e.g. molten salt reactors) are in active development. We’d have energy at current increasing demand for hundreds of years without having to do any mining operations… Even the greens should have the common sense to see the benefits of reducing the amounts nuclear waste with extremely long half-lives…
You give to much credit to greens.
‘toxic but reusable spent nuclear fuel’
Toxic is only a concern when it enters the food chain.
Worked on the feasibility studies for the the US geological repository in the Great Basin (Yucca Mt). The time scale for reaching irrigation wells is 100 of thousands of years. I suggested changing the scale to glacial maximums.
Spent nuclear fuel is a non-problem invented by anti nukes who also are against any solution.
Discarded batteries is another example of a non-problem invented by anti EV.
While I think EV are a bad idea generally, I am not against them. The power industry would love to take some market share for transportation energy.
It may be a better idea in France or China but I don’t live there. I am open to the idea but my investigation have not found them to not live up to claims.
Another project I worked on was down blending weapons material to make commercial fuel. So I agree that there is no technical reason to use spent fuel. The French claim it is economical.
Always maunder about a not existing climate crisis and ignore the real existing battery environnement crisis. Typical green “think”, wait…Green and think, is that possible ?? 😀
Krishna,
Those are two words that should not be used in the same sentence without quotation marks!
Feelings, on the other hand, goes arm in arm with Green; especially their dreams and fantasies!
Nope … not possible, oxymoron.
Green as in blight. green as in naive. green as in envious. green as in backs. Occasionally, green as in life, but that is an infamously selective.. elective choice.
“…green as in backs…”
I see more and more derisory references to greenbacks lately. That term refers specifically to money issued by a government, as opposed to the Bretton Woods devilry, where your government BORROWS money from the banksters, which you then spend your life paying taxes to pay the interest on BORROWED money that your government has the sovereign right to issue at the cost of printing.
And please, everyone, do not contaminate this thread now with economics lessons, if you can’t even get your head around ‘greenbacks’.
I’d like to see some more detail behind this: What kind of battery chemistry? Average age? Manufactured where?
There are plenty of Toyota Prius (Prii?) on the road with their original batteries at >250K miles.
This may just be an indication that a lot of EV batteries use substandard manufacturing to save cost.
[cough] tesla [cough]
I own a Ford hybrid Escape AWD, MY2007, based on the then gen 2 Prius. It uses NiMH, not LiIon. And knock on wood, 390v hybrid battery is still fine except for elevated leakage current in the start compartment if left sitting for 7 days (Ford provided a ‘start’ button for such occasions to use the traction compartment to boost start compartment back above 350v for engine start). Is still fine sitting for 5 days. 7 day boost time about 1 second.
Rud: your post at Judith Curry’s site on EVs, Hybrids, and range-extended EVs caused me to reconsider my prior rejection of hybrids. In 2017 I purchased a used 2013 Toyota Avalon hybrid. Prior to this year I had left it sitting for as long as 7 weeks while traveling with no issue. I don’t think I have a boost button. This past year it has frequently sat 1 or 2 weeks between outings; again no issue.
Between fuel prices staying lower than I expected when I bought it and an almost total lack of driving this past year, I haven’t saved as much on fuel as I thought I would, but I certainly don’t regret the purchase and I do like 600 miles between fillups (2 weeks in a typical year; 2-3 months this past year).
According to Toyota, the 1.5 KWh NiMH battery is warranted for 10 years/100K miles with a list replacement cost of $4,892, minus a $1,350 core credit and there are reconditioned battery options at substantially lower prices. But there’s no sign that’s anywhere on the horizon for my car. A Gen2 Prius replacement battery which would fit your Escape lists at $3,939.
Are you referring to the Toyota Pious? I bought a Corolla because the the dealer could not provide be information why a hybrid was better.
Green washing is marketing aimed at telling people what the want to hear and who will not check for facts.
Hybrids are primarily ICE cars. Both Toyota and Honda make ICE that easily go 300k miles
Kit, having owned the Ford Escape hybrid equivalent of the Prius since 2007, let me enlighten you and all others.
My Escape I4 AWD is equivalent (HP, towing power, acceleration) to the 2007 MY standard 206 HP V6. But it gets there very differently. The 3 liter V6 is an Otto cycle engine. My little 2.3 liter I4 HP is a Atkinson cycle engine. Gets about 15% more MPG, but about 15% less torque per cc. Doesn’t matter, since the ~76 HP equivalent electric machine makes up the torque deficit instantaneously.
So in city driving we pick up engine off. In city driving, we pick up electric brake regeneration. And at highway, we pick up smaller engine less fuel. Net result, the 2007 V6 got an advertised 18 city 22 hwy. Our equivalent capacity hybrid still gets 32 city and 28 hwy at 70 mph.
Now the best part. The V6 required premium. Our hybrid uses regular. Where we are, the gas price difference is over $1/gallon. So between the fewer gallons at a lower cost, we have recovered the hybrid premium over twice already without any subsidies. But in 2007 we also got a $3k green tax credit equal to the hybrid price premium. So essentially paid nothing for the future benefits.
“let me enlighten you and all others.”
Talk about epic failure. Not enlightened at all. Bet the salesperson son you coming before you got to the door.
Here is a car buying tip. Carry a file folder when you go to the dealer. Helps to do your homework.
My wife 2007 Corolla got better mileage when I was driving it. My son did not like his mother’s car when he was in high school. When we went to work in China, he got to use the car. When he was buying his own gas, he started loving the Corolla. Still driving it and will not give it back.
My ’89 Ford Ranger (Mazda engine, 5spd manual) got 30 mpg city.
What you tried to enlighten me on is the theory of a hybrid. What I am telling you is the practice of driving for good mileage which also has other benefits.
I got 30 mpg city because I did not drive aggressively. If you do not race between stop lights adaptive braking is no benefit.
The way to enlighten me is to provide a study that compares real world driving. Road and Track had one such story. The ’90 was suppose to be the decade of the green car but turned to be the decade of the SUV. They did a road trip with professional drivers whose goal was to get good mileage.
The hybrid the worst realive to sticker mileage. The VW TDI diesel did the best. No surprise! The Jeep SUV to carry their gear got expected. Because it was R & T, they also test a Vet for fun which did ok.
Bottom line is storing energy in batteries is a bad idea. Hauling heavy batteries around is a bad idea.
Show me the LCA for recycling batteries and we will both know the environmental impact.
Kit P:
While it it certainly true with all kinds of vehicles that driving style has a significant impact on economy, your dismissal of hybrids is unwarranted; they actually do work. Whether the world really needs to save that fuel is debatable, but given that premise hybrids are a better solution than EVs:
1) Far fewer compromises and some advantages: longer range, longer standard oil change and brake pad replacement intervals. I give up about 2 cu. ft. of trunk space relative to the V6 version of my car; inconvenient certainly, but not a deal breaker at this stage of my life.
2) I figure I get the same transportation value on 40% less fuel than the V6 version. That means in terms of vehicle emissions of all kinds, substituting 10 hybrids for IC equivalents is the same as taking 4 IC vehicles off the road completely, while maintaining the same transportation value. Most EVs can’t completely replace an ICV so people will either have them in addition to a standard ICV or in the case of a two-car family will keep one ICV.
3) EVs in most cases simply change where the emissions take place — at the power plant instead of the tailpipe. Unless you live in a state which is largely hydroelectric or nuclear, CO2 and other combustion products are still being emitted on your behalf to power the EV. The “zero emission” claim for EVs is illusory; the 40% reduced fuel consumption and combustion emissions I cited for hybrids is real.
You might be right. However, without a reference your answer is ‘believer BS’.
I find it amazing that some who question climate change are so gullible with greenwashing claims.
As an engineer, I find the lack evidence interesting. While absence of evidence is not evidence, baseless claims is BS bragging.
The US nuclear industry touts actual performance while solar ‘brags about ‘expected’ expected.
I expect a solar PV system to produce zero. 90% of the time I would be right.
Back in the bad old early 1970s, a local Ford dealership ran a contest for who could get the best mileage for a mid-size (remember early 70s when mid-size were bigger than most cars nowadays).
They would our a gallon of gas into a test car drained of gas. The contestant plus an observer would see how far the driver could make the car go.
Most folks got around 17-22 mpg. Not a surprise.
One person, an employee at the car dealership got over well 30mpg.
The guy was nicknamed featherfoot by the observer who watched him drive.
I think the prize was a full tank of gas. About $6 at $0.29 per gallon then.
How one drives a car does make a difference.
Then again.
I bought a Wankel engine Mazda truck shortly after that. Got 16mpg no matter how I drove.
Of course, I could transport pianos, pull cars out of ditches, dash between work and night school, mileage never changed more than 1 mpg.
“70s when mid-size were bigger than most cars nowadays”
Have you looked around lately?
When I graduated from Purdue, I replaced my POS Chevy station wagon with a ’74 IH TravelAll (1/2 ton UV). Drove into the ground and got an ’84 3/4 ton GMC Suburban which I drove into the ground.
Back then, never had a problem finding them in the parking lot because they were bit.
Today SUV and p/u trucks have replaced many cars as passenger vehicles.
Have no trouble finding my diesel pusher motorhome in a Walmart parking lot.
My 2019 Dodge Challenger Hellcat with a supercharged 6.2l Hemi at 717 horsepower gets 17 mpg city and almost 20 highway. And I bet it’s a lot more fun to drive than your Escape. Putting it in sport mode does drop the mileage down to about 13 mpg.
Hybrid batteries are treated gingerly as compared with EVs. A hybrid’s battery is never fully charged nor fully discharged. The charging rate is limited too.
Many EV owners know to not fully charge and fully discharge and limit the number of high power charges on fast chargers. They also know to not store their EV with a fully charged battery. Those owners are likely to see relatively long battery life.
However, Tesla knew that many owners would treat their batteries quite harshly, therefore Tesla has a weak warranty – 8 years but Tesla won’t do anything even if the battery is less than 8 years old but still has 71% or more of its initial capacity. That’s terrible, a Tesla with an original range of 240 miles can drop to 170 miles of range and Tesla won’t do anything. That doesn’t happen to the majority of owners but it does happen. I suspect that some owners can’t live with such a drastic decline in performance and are paying out of pocket to replace their batteries.
Don’t forget the winter. You get about 60% of the summer range in the winter in Canada (and other northern countries that are providing huge EV subsidies like Norway) …. So 60%*70%=42% of stated range in the winter.
Plus Teslas under reviewers’ testing with standard conditions have consistently provided about ~10% less range than EPA numbers; compared to 5% MORE for other Evs.
Now we’re down to about 38% stated range. I’m guessing many in northern climates will think about replacing the batteries at about 5 years (when they’re down to about 50% range).
ALSO don’t forget how “optimistic” those “estimated” range numbers are to begin with. I recall somebody who shared the info they got about the supposed “range” of the Nissan Leaf. The “conditions” under which the “range” was calculated were (from memory):
Now imagine all the ways your typical driving will depart from this ridiculous set of “conditions” in a manner that will decrease that already inadequate supposed “range” even further.
Batteries are sensitive to charge/discharge physics. Hybrid vehicles are really not comparable to electric vehicles, in no sense of the word. As for substandard manufacturing, well, isn’t that why we sent all the jobs to China? There are various reasons for the low quality, but the main reason? Design is done these days, by designers, instead of engineers. Eff the quality, it must be pretty, otherwise the woke customer will feel embarrassed, next to the other, prettier one. Lead-acids could last for decades, if you made them a little sturdier, for example.
Like all “battery packs,” and more so, they do tend to get a bit heavy, though.
I’m chuckling as I picture a car hauling a trailer full of lead-acid batteries behind it…
As I said, the designers would never allow the engineers a free hand…but often for good reason.
On the other hand, a slightly uglier car that works much better? I’m in!
Just like wind turbine blades not being recycled.
It takes 4 times as much copper to make an electric vehicle than a ICE vehicle. The simple logistics in getting that much copper ore out of the ground and processing it by the time western governments want to force the end of ICE vehicles means it’s an impossible task.
Not only that but the price of copper will go through the roof.
Darn! I’ve been saving all my old 18 volt tool batteries; hoping they might be worth something someday!
Anyone interested in deWalt custom fishing weights? Reasonable prices!
My 17year old DeWalt NiCads finally died this year – try that with Li-ion! When it comes to rechargeable, go heavy metal or go home!
JS,
I’m slowly switching over to the 24 volt system. Thankfully there is a converter kit available that allows you to use the 24 volt battery on your old 18 volt tools! Long gone are the days when Makita 9.6 volt batteries were the best available!
Still hoping for the anti-gravity belt so I don’t have to worry about stepping off ladders 3’ from the ground!
Three feet? Its that 1 1/2 heart attack on the scaff boards that gets ya!
I switched to Porter Cable battery tools when my DeWalts crapped out because DeWalt kept dicking around with multiple “new” battery systems at the time/ tyhe only PC I tolerate around my work!
I’ve got too much invested in the deWalt platform to switch this late in life! At least twenty five or thirty tools ranging from a laser level to a useless grinder. The laser level is great since it is not self leveling; tying new, level construction to old, historic houses can require some stepped grade changes! I still don’t understand not fixing sagged foundations, but some homeowners just won’t spend much money on it!
I do a LOT of remodeling, know exactly what you mean, lots of people spend more money to do stuff wrong than listen when you explain how it needs to be done, then pay more to redo it.
I only had 6-7 DeWalt tools when I switched, gave them to a friend who still uses them. Big fan of Kapro levels, though the non self leveler lazer I use I picked up at a flea market in the ’90s. Don’t remember the name, it rubbed off years ago, just keep putting batteries in it.
Got you beat on long battery life! An electronic safe I bought my parents wouldn’t open for them a couple of weeks ago. I managed to get it open and replaced the four standard alkaline D cells. Expiry date on batteries 2006. I probably installed the safe some ten years before that, so something like 25 years on one set of batteries. Most batteries would self-discharge (or leak) way before that, and I was astonished that a set of batteries included in a cheap home safe have lasted so long. It was a brand not familiar in the UK. I think Evergreen – which appears to be from the USA.
My 40+ yo sail boat has stopped going down in value because of the salvage value of the lead keel.
Since retiring I have made some pocket change collecting lead batteries and AL cans. I do not need the money but it gives me something to do when I go walks since I do not play golf.
However it has been years since I have found a discarded car battery. I checked to see what the value might be.
“Lead-acid batteries are essentially blocks of valuable metals; lithium–ion batteries simply do not contain much valuable metal to make them economically useful. “
Funny, we collect old car batteries for the lead, have several friends who cast bullets and weights for fishing.
I still do bullets for my black powder guns.
One guy does black powder rounds, the other does pistol bullets of various calibers, mostly for target practice, though I got several hundred .38/200s for reloading my Webley and Enfield revolvers. End of the ’90s it was getting hard to find factory .38 S&W and .38 Colt Short. ’05 Remington and Sellior&Bellott put them back on the market. Still got a pile of 200 grain round nose left.
Kit,
I remember helping my older brother make weights for his Scuba belt from bullets gathered at his college’s indoor gun range! We used an old Coleman camp stove since Mom wouldn’t let us melt the lead indoors or with her good Revereware!
I wish I could get back all the lead weights I’ve left on the bottom of the Pacific fishing for ling and rockcod!
One can always use sacrificial weights when wreck fishing…
Just don’t drill holes through the battery to attach the line.
Nice image of the Salar de Hombre Muerto, in Salta Province, Argentina, in the zone known as the “lithium triangle”. I was Chief Geologist of a company with a gold prospect just south of the image, and you cannot imagine a more desolate place. Once in the nearby town of San Antonio de Los Cobres we watched our water freeze on the table as we ate dinner in the best resturant in town. Don’t go there.
There are reasons that, unlike PbA, LiIon isn’t readily recyclable.
With PbA you just drain the sulfuric acid electrolye (which still has other value, cut off and discard the plastic case, extract both electrodes from the separators, and resmelt them. 96% of PbA are recycled into new PbA. No need to mine much new lead.
LiIon is much more complex.
First, There are two basic forms: pouch and cell. GM is pouch, Tesla is cell. And these come in different battery configurations, unlike ‘mostly squarish’ PbA. So there is not a single automatible recycling disassembly process.
Second, the anode (which builds up lithium containing SEI, why Li eventually fails, is some form of synthetic or natural graphite. Not worth recycling, and so the SEI lithium is lost.
Third, the electrolye is some aprotic organic solvent with some lithium salt added. The Li salt concentration (usually 1.2 molar LiPF6) is too low to make it worth recycling. Lost. BTW, the graphite anode plus aprotic solvent are why LiIon burn magnificently. Its not the Li per se.
So, what what could be recycled is the stuff in the cathode, like lithium and cobalt. Except everybody uses a different formulation, so there is no ability yet to standardize a recycling chemistry. Even if there was, you will get back only about half the Li that went into the thing. So just is not yet worth the effort (investment) and cost.
So the two companies mentioned in this post; exactly what do they recycle? Every time I have looked for this level of detail from so-called lithium batttery recyclers, it’s always missing.
Tax credits and subsidies, most likely…
They currently recycle PbA, not LiIon. Is on their sites.
Duesenfeld claim that they are recycling Lithium in salt form. Though their graph shows that only 2% is recovered.
It never gets old saying “I told you so.”. And I will say this yet again, if they want me to drive an electric vehicle it will have a gasoline or natural gas fired engine driving the electric generator. Never gets old saying that, either.
See my subcomment above on the details of our 2007 Ford Escape hybrid.
So mega tons of those used up batteries are going into the landfills right next to the megatons of worn out wind turbine blades already there.
At some point these muppets are going to ‘discover’ that fossil fuels weren’t quite as bad as they were led to believe. They’ll appoint a scapegoat, then campaign about some other damn thing until that proves to be a ridiculous scam as well.
My brother’s theory is that once, or if, they nationalize oil/gas and transportation, they will proclaim that the latest “science” indicates that fossil fuels are not so bad, as long it’s done “properly.”
Yeah, what did Karl Marx say about controlling the means of production?
Helps to control the mechanisms of information too
Because…Mars
Or the sun. We could launch the batteries into the sun.
Just be sure to do it at night. Otherwise the heat from the Sun might set the batteries on fire before they get there.
LOL, putting aside the (intentional) silliness of the idea that sending something to the Sun “at night” makes a difference, if the batteries burn up before reaching the Sun or after, the “goal” of getting rid of them would still be accomplished.
I was surprised to read this, as I assumed that the useful lifespan of these batteries is in the order of years. But then it occurred to me that these batteries could be damaged in collisions or by road hazards, or even improper or inadequate maintenance. Not enough damage to cause catastrophic failure (i.e. fire, explosion), but enough that they would have to be replaced. Each battery replaced means another battery sent away to be “recycled.”
It’s surprising the temperature extremes they must operate in N. America and Europe. These kill batteries dead.
I suppose it also depends on how recent they mean by “recent”. A battery from an 2020 model car would be more surprising than one from a 2018 car for example, but 2018 could easily be considered “recent” by some definitions.
Also, in regards to damage, even if the battery itself isn’t damaged, if the car was damaged enough to be sent for scrap, the battery would likely end up being sent off to one of those recycling companies (there really isn’t much of a market dealing in second hand EV batteries at the moment, due in part to a lack of standardization in battery type, size, shape, easy of removal, etc so what else is one to do with the battery from a scrapped EV?).
Of topic. Google linked what already had in EarthEngine to online google Earth. Meanwhile we have good news. In the first example in the site “Columbia Glacier” we have two possible things: 1 – Good News – The glaciers are increasing at least a km in one year (check the same images from Google’s own database for 2021; 2 – A Hell of a satellitephotoshopgate!!
Columbia Glacier in maps.google.com (broader view)
https://www.google.com/maps/@61.13894,-147.0800653,59869m/data=!3m1!1e3
Columbia Glacier in maps.google.com (narrow view)
https://www.google.com/maps/@61.1458902,-147.0781986,34954m/data=!3m1!1e3
Now check the same view here for 2020
https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/
Just Outstanding!!!!
I think that this merits a post…
Lithium poisoning is subtle and nasty, can cause long term neurological problems.
Explains a lot with early adopters?
Making the “lead in gasoline” mistake all over again?
Because why wouldn’t we
Lithium poisonous? Can’t be, the Worthies want to put Lithium in our drinking water, because it works so well to calm down them crazies. Like they did with Fluoride, to save our teeths. Next you gonna tell me Fluoride also rots the mind….wait….what was that about Hitler putting Fluoride into the inmates’ drinking water?
You are certainly living up to your name. there’s no truth to the Nazi Fluoride conspiracy theory, contrary to what you apparently believe. (similarly there doesn’t appear to be any truth to the Stalin/Communist variant of that conspiracy theory, least you wish to shift the goal posts to that one).
As long as we don’t argue about the toxicity of the elements involved, I don’t care what you believe I believe. Also, go to getagriponyours.elf and buy a sense of humour…
Just an observation, but, EVs will mean an end to the secondhand car market. Who wants to buy a secondhand,(maybe 5year+) battery? This maybe a reason why car manufactures are keen to promote EVs, knowing their faults and how poorly they stack up against ICEs.
That is what Obama’s Cash for Clunkers tried to do. Failed utterly. Rednecks and assorted other gear heads will be building ICE vehicles forever. Look what Cuban motorheads have done with ’50s era cars!
That only works as long as there’s old ICE cars and parts to be had. Combine a push for only new EVs being manufactured with an Obama style push to destroy “clunkers” (IE ICE cars) and such old cars and parts become harder and harder to come by until, eventually ICE are nothing but a memory (if for no other reason than the parts become so scarce that the premium to buy them becomes too high for most people to afford).
Remember, the Cubans manage to keep the older ICE cars running by scavenging and recycling parts from other ICE cars of all makes and models. For example, in Cuba a 1954 Jeep might be fitted with Soviet-era Volga steering and a 1994 Jetta engine. But that only works as long as those other cars (and thus their parts) exist to be scavenged from. And they only do it because new cars are too expensive (Cuba has modern cars from Kia, Hyundai, & Peugeot on it’s roads, but the price is out of reach for most Cubans, but for Cubans who already have an old car, it’s far cheaper to repair it than to buy a newer model)
But back to the hypothetical future for Americans: while you could scavenge some engine non-specific parts from an new EV to repair your old ICE cars, that won’t help you with the ICE engine specific parts, unless you fancy replacing the ICE in your old car with an EV engine, but then you might as well pull the trigger and buy an EV to start with and save yourself the hassle (assuming the American economy doesn’t go full Cuba, and new cars remain relatively as expensive as they are now in relation to the average salary).
I know plenty of places where old cars are not being crushed, just here in western PA. People are beginning to actively resist this crap, Obama really set a lot of people off with that stupidity.
old cars aren’t being crushed (beyond what would normally be crushed in any given year) because there currently isn’t any Obama style “cash for clunkers” program and hasn’t been for many years now – the program only existed for a short time in 2009 and ended because it quickly ran out of it’s allocated funds, not because of any outrage over the stupidity). Many a still useful car was wastefully crushed back when that program was around, and many a still useful cars would be crushed should Pres. Biden/Kamala ever decided to bring it back.
I know several people involved in the scrap industry here in PA and eastern Ohio, they are concentrating on vehicles which are totally un-usable for crushing, and moving savable vehicles and equipment to their own holding yards to be stripped down before crushing. Draining fluids before moving is keeping the EPA/PennDEP off their necks.
Yes, and nobody is saying they’d act any differently absent the “clash for clunkers” program. Indeed, they’re acting with their best business interests in mind. Good for them, that exactly how they should be going about it.
The problem is, “cash for clunkers” type programs don’t give them the same options as they currently have. The program specifically required the crushing of the cars traded in under the program, regardless of how usable or savable the car was. It was a waste of perfectly good cars and perfectly good car parts.
Another unintended consequence courtesy of the Greens. And we thought storing depleted nuclear fuel rods was hard. This will literally be millions of times more difficult from a space perspective although not as toxic ….. but not toxic free.
When the first Aluminium factories started spweing hexahydrofluoroxide or somesuch as byproduct, they had one little problem. In South Africa, we call that stuff “diamond acid”, it eats through everything excepts diamonds. Steel, plastic. glass… terrible stuff. Toxic as hell, where you dump it, life ends. What to do, what to do?
Cherry pick some extremely biased polling, arrange a marriage with funding-driven sciencery, and it transpires that fluoride is absolutley wonderful stuff, and we need to add some to every single source of public drinking water available on this planet; an ecological disaster repackaged as a medical advancement. Even bottled ‘mineral waters’ are sometimes ‘fortified’ with Fluorides. To conform with standards, you know, like wearing masks and not hugging granma?
I took an aged recliner chair to the dump (transfer station) yesterday. I grew up when there were trash heaps on the edge of towns, with bear scavenging at night and rats most of the time. We spot-lighted the bears at times and others used the rats as targets.
Now we have transfer stations where scavenging is not allowed. Too bad, although good lumber is often found, I’ve only gotten half sheets of plywood once.
Anyway, the chair had a steel base and all the wiring still attached. All this stuff is being buried. A future resource in the making.
However, I saw no EVs or the batteries, nor where there any wind blades.
An energetic person could do a post on all the good stuff that goes into landfills, and where the batteries and blades are going.
A few years ago the pig-tail lights came with a warning to open windows and vacate the building if one was broken. Also, an extra fee (tax) was paid so these dangerous things could be recycled. I wonder who thought it a good idea to drive 30+ miles to turn in a light bulb that failed. I still have some of those bulbs. I suspect many folks do, but the turn-in program seems to have faded.
Fear of the compact fluorescents was probably a bit exaggerated! Don’t eat them; but then the state of Commifornia has determined that every substance known to Mankind is harmful and carcinogenic!
Federal law should require that all large, bloated bureaucracies be labeled as toxic and hazardous to the health of the voters; except the ones that are already dead or have voted multiple times!
While the fear of (breaking) them was probably a bit exaggerated, the fact remains they do contain toxic elements that should be disposed of properly. However, I suspect most people don’t know where to dispose of them properly nor why they should do so and just toss them into the regular trash.
From what I’ve read, the energy required to recycle Li ion batteries exceeds the energy required to produce them from raw materials. If you double the energy cost of the batteries, then they no longer make sense economically.
People who virtue signal by driving electric cars are ignoring the byproducts of the battery life cycle.
Internal combustion autos are economically recycled, and have as a consequence of their use, the production of clean CO2.
Li ion electric vehicles will produce more CO2 in their life cycles than IC cars, and also create mountains of toxic chemicals from their recycling.
Could use more detail on the “disaster” aspect. High costs to recycle? Toxic emissions during process? Or ?
Reading this brought this 1970s UK hit to mind.
https://youtu.be/6Zf1loc6S7U
“We had to destroy village in order to save it”
well, this seems to be just another reason why lithium as car battery is only a transition technique.. I believe better options are on the horizon, for example sodium based batteries
As the production pipeline switches over to EVs, their batteries will sooner or later show up as part of a waste stream. Because of their toxic nature, they must be processed so as to first harvest anything of value and second that what is left is not an undue hazard to the environment. The wizards of smart own this. Conventional autos are just melted down and the metal recycled after other recyclable components like the battery and catalytic converters are removed.
Add to that the environmental disaster of Neodymium mining in China for wind turbine magnets.
The world needs a gas-guzzler code, which would impose a fee on low-mileage vehicles.
The more below 40-mpg, the higher would be the fee.
Any vehicles with greater than 40-mpg, such as the 54-mpg Toyota Prius, would be exempt.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-costs-of-wind-solar-and-battery-systems
“Break their will” RE folks would have everyone drive unaffordable EVs, that would not reduce much CO2 compared with efficient gasoline vehicles.
On a lifetime, A-to-Z basis, with travel at 105,600 miles over 10 years, the CO2 emissions, based on the present New England grid CO2/kWh, would be:
NISSAN Leaf S Plus, EV, compact SUV, no AWD, would emit 25.967 Mt, 246 g/mile
TOYOTA Prius L Eco, 62 mpg, compact car, no AWD, would emit 26,490 Mt, 251 g/mile
SUBARU Outback, 30 mpg, medium SUV, with AWD, would emit 43.015 Mt, 407 g/mile
VT Light Duty Vehicle mix, 22.7 mpg, many with AWD or 4WD, would emit 56,315 Mt, 533 g/mile
It would take at least 20 years to build out 13,500 MW wind turbines off the coast of New England, plus large-scale solar systems to reduce the NE grid CO2/kWh by about 30%
With that much wind and solar, the NE grid would become very unstable, i.e., inoperable. The NE grid would need:
1) Curtailments of wind output, kWh, on windy days
2) Curtailments of midday solar output bulges on sunny days
2) Major connections to the Canadian grid
3) Grid-scale batteries, with a capacity of 3 to 4 TWh; turnkey capital cost about $1.5 to $2 TRILLION, at $500/kWh, delivered as AC
No, the world needs no gas-guzzler code, because “emissions” of CO2 are no environmental threat whatsoever. Nor does the world need EVs, which are a non-solution in search of a problem.
What the world needs is an end to the funding of junk science.
— I’m looking forward to see how these steps apply to Covid-19 mARN and ADN-vector vaccines. We now seem to have reached the third step.
— Following Alex Berenson on Twitter is useful to anticipate what might be coming next.
Ah, this is like the diesel disaster. Encouraged by the Greens and “scientists”, governments decided to promote diesel engines, ignoring the pollution they produced (less CO2, lots of other much nastier stuff). As the emissions standards tightened, the manufacturers used cheats to beat the tests. Dieselgate. Needless to say, the politicians, greens and scientists all denied it was a problem until it became too much and then ran away, crying ” a big boy did it”.
4000 tons is in no way surprising.
A single Tesla holds 1000 to 1200 lbs. 4000 tons is 40K Teslas – far more than they sell in Germany but there are also all the Powerbanks, laptop batteries, cell phone batteries, e-scooter batteries, drone batteries etc.
Every solution brings its own set of problems.
How hard can it be, it cannot be insolvable, its not nuclear fusion? It is mainly the sequence that is worrying, Solve first then introduce.
The main problem eco loons, scientists, and engineers are having is that “fossil fuels”(a bad misnomer!) are TOO effective. They are MUCH more energy dense making any other portable application nearly useless.
People forget that gasoline has, as a major ingredient, octane- an 8 carbon molecule that includes typically 10 hydrogens too-along for the ride and the excitement. Octane is a good example of the MUCH higher energy density of carbon-based fuel than pure hydrogen.
32 electrons are available on the carbon atoms. 10 on the hydrogens. Some of the energy is already tied up in the molecule, but in the end we get, ideally, 8 molecules of CO2 and 10 of H2O. It is extremely expensive to try and pack an equivalent amount of energy in a tank the small suitcase when using hydrogen.
Hydorgen’s best use is in petroleum refining and reforming, and producing building blocks for plastics production. Various refining processes are the “cheapest”, and in most cases the best way to produce the huge number of precursors needed in plastics, fabric, medicines, fuels, lubricants, fertilizer and more.
My 1999 Toyota runs well. Keeping it going and not buying a new car is the greenest thing I can do.
I hate to throw fecal matter into the punch bowl but it appears that these things can be recycled, reclaiming a large percentage of the raw materials, at least that is what the recycling companies claim.
https://csm.umicore.com/en/battery-recycling/our-recycling-process#tabs
https://www.solvay.com/en/press-release/veolia-partnership-renew-life-cycle-electric-car-batteries
https://www.toyota-europe.com/world-of-toyota/feel/environment/better-earth/recycle
https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/recycling_batteries
In the US, infrastructure is starting to catch up to the electric car world with charging stations popping up. I never thought I would see a bank of Tesla chargers at a filling station in Childress, Texas in 2021. People were actually driving cross country in their electric vehicles. Not a lot of stations but a start. You can read comments when you click a particular station in the link. It sounds like going cross country in this way is still an adventure but I’m amazed it is even possible. For now, I’m still sticking with my 2006 Tahoe.
https://www.plugshare.com/