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jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Wed Nov 09, 22 7:50 am Post subject:

Hairyloon wrote:

The problem I see with electric vehicles is the batteries.
Am I being unreasonable to extrapolate my experience with laptop batteries on to vehicle batteries?
I could presume that they are quite a lot better, but that still means that after not many years they will be fit for scrap...

With a decent box of spanners and some welding kit, you can but an infernal combustion vehicle for £100 and it can last you for years...
I can see no way that that can be the case for battery powered vehicles.

it's chalk and cheese. An EV battery has heating/cooling systems designed to keep it in optimum condition. There are few EV batteries not going strong after ten years.
They will never be scrap and they are full of useful elements like the lithium.
Recycling is happening already but ironically suffering as they have not a lot to recycle because the batteries keep going.

Hairyloon

Joined: 20 Nov 2008
Posts: 15425
Location: Today I are mostly being in Yorkshire.

Posted: Thu Nov 10, 22 8:43 am Post subject:

jema wrote:

Hairyloon wrote:

it's chalk and cheese. An EV battery has heating/cooling systems designed to keep it in optimum condition.

That's not chalk and cheese, that's cheese kept in the fridge and cheese left somewhere warm and humid.
Or dry chalk and soggy chalk if you prefer.

Quote:

There are few EV batteries not going strong after ten years.

I'll concede that I am not normal, but I don't consider 10 years to be many years. What do you mean by "Going strong"?
Better than 90%? 70%?
What about the next five years?
Do we know they don't have a bad failure rate after 12 years?
I expect we don't have the data yet...

Quote:

They will never be scrap and they are full of useful elements like the lithium.
Recycling is happening already but ironically suffering as they have not a lot to recycle because the batteries keep going.

Um, "Scrap" is part of the process of recovering the useful elements...

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 22 6:20 am Post subject:

At the end of the day these batteries for all their complexity are just chemistry and there's absolutely no reason to suppose than batteries that have now got a track record of lasting 12 years are suddenly going to start dying.
There's always FUD promoted around renewables that they won't payback that they won't last.
In the case of EVs where there has been issues they have been associated with ICE companies rather than Tesla. Companies with no particular interest in there not being issues!

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 22 9:51 am Post subject:

to recycle the rare earth elements from batteries* should be easier than mining and refining ores.

for a start there are several factors of ten regarding concentrations in the "raw" material that matter to the cost-effectiveness of how to make what is needed for the next battery*

collecting batteries* from a garage is a lot easier than mining in TWFCITW and similar places

* and magnets(i.e. motors and generators) and electronic stuff like phones/pooters etc or specifically the rare earth elements needed to make efficient ones, these are also very rich motherlode material to make the next ones

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sat Nov 12, 22 6:32 am Post subject:
I love the way with the anti EV mob that simultaneously a million tonnes needs digging to get the elements for a battery, but then somehow it will end in landfill.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Sat Nov 12, 22 9:57 am Post subject:
At present some of it probably is. More and more is being recycled I am glad to say. It is economics; if it is worth recycling then it will be. The higher the extraction cost for new material the more likely recycling is to be economic. I understand they are also looking at Cornish mines and spoil heaps.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Sat Nov 12, 22 9:19 pm Post subject:

lithium is not the pinch point, plenty of it, much is economic to extract, it has a broad environmental impact from fairly harmless to rather messy depending on where and method of extraction

the stuff needed in tiny amounts are the tricky ones, cobalt is the most obvious but the less known ones are the biggest issues

rare wins $

twfcitw is a prime example of the effects of high value commodities in poor places
gold and slaves, ivory and rubber, lanthanides.
similar players, same principles and often the same means.

the tightest pinch points are rarely mentioned, perhaps those involved find it useful that they are found in darkness and few notice how they traded, or how fragile the high-tech supply chain is regarding the materials science of the "spices" needed to make clever stuff work

the "saffron" of touch screens is a good example, known reserves would fit in a stock waggon and last a few years at 2019 rates of use.
at some point soon the largest known reserves will be those vitrified into phone and pooter screens

cobalt is the one driving the most recent power struggles in twfcitw but the others are also class A strategic resources which are being sought after with extreme vigour in many places with "good" geology and preferably "free trading terms"

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Sun Nov 13, 22 6:39 am Post subject:

Someone was trying to get me to watch a youtube video claiming it would take 10,000 years to extract the lithium needed for cars

Cobalt isn't strictly needed for lithium batteries.
But as you say the devil is in the detail.
I tend to take the view though that if there we real impossibilities in the supply chains then oil companies would be pointing it out.
I think at this point that there are so many basically viable battery chemistries that things will muddle through.
However there are always potential nasties like deep sea mining for lithium,
Where there is demand there is always going to be exploitation and environmental damage if companies can get away with it.

gz

Joined: 23 Jan 2009
Posts: 8916
Location: Ayrshire, Scotland

Posted: Sun Nov 13, 22 8:43 am Post subject:
Lithium can apparently be extracted from seawater..but with the expense that won't be done.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Sun Nov 13, 22 9:51 am Post subject:
So can most things. We did trace elements as college and the list of things in seawater was seemingly endless. I think it was in that section of the course that the lecturer also gave trace elements in tobacco smoke, which caused the smokers in the class to pause for at least 30 secs before lighting up at the break.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46207
Location: yes

Posted: Sun Nov 13, 22 10:31 am Post subject:
some of the post transition metals are rather useful, rare and under recycled as well

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Mon Nov 14, 22 7:19 am Post subject:

gz wrote:

Lithium can apparently be extracted from seawater..but with the expense that won't be done.

That's a matter of political will. Once extracted lithium can be recycled.
Intelligence would suggest saving the environment is a generational project.
Capitalism says we will only save the environment if we can make an immediate profit.

Mistress Rose

Joined: 21 Jul 2011
Posts: 15966

Posted: Mon Nov 14, 22 8:39 am Post subject:
You also have to look at things like energy and water use. Using modern technology, it is probably a lot more efficient to recycle a lot of things that would have used too much energy produced by fossil fuels in the past. I was educated in the days of 'wet' chemistry, and now you hardly see a test tube in a lab; mainly lots of machines.

tahir

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 45668
Location: Essex

Posted: Mon Nov 14, 22 4:03 pm Post subject:

jema wrote:

Intelligence would suggest saving the environment is a generational project.
Capitalism says we will only save the environment if we can make an immediate profit.

That's the problem at the moment.

EVs are frankly brilliant, and realtively easy to recycle as there's a high density of high value stuff in them.

With regards to being able to do any DIY maintenance on them, I can't think of a single modern car that is designed to let the owner do anything beyond the most trivial maintenance tasks.

jema
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 28233
Location: escaped from Swindon

Posted: Tue Nov 15, 22 7:04 am Post subject:

tahir wrote:

EVs are frankly brilliant,

The biggest issue I have with EVs is that they are getting better so fast that anything bought now, if you could afford it, is going to look very dated in just a couple of years.

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