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The question in the article title remains unanswered. The long article develops the question, only. As I see it, the batteries will end in landfills, best case

The question in the article title remains unanswered. The long article develops the question, only. As I see it, the batteries will end in landfills, best case. If you can pay for it, they will end in landfills abroad. Nobody who is relevant is serious about this problem because those batteries are still working. Consumers are sold the idea that the situation will improve in the future. Hopefully, I have to add. So much for climate change.

jillesvangurp 5y ago
There are plenty of companies working on this. Hundreds of millions of VC money invested already. And the situation is already pretty good considering there are no piles of lithium batteries being dumped left right and center. Just not a thing because they are way too valuable for that. You say landfill, I say lithium mine with extremely rich deposits of lithium. Much richer than most natural deposits of the stuff. People are investing in companies that are extracting it from brines that have no more than a few hundred parts per million. It's that valuable. A battery that has kilos of the stuff is worth the kilo price (about 25-29$) minus the price of extraction. A typical Tesla would have around 60-70 kilos of the stuff; close to 2000$ if you can extract it. The lithium in a completely spent EV battery is worth more than many second hand ICE cars that are still driving around. And that's just accounting for the lithium. There is also copper, nickel, cobalt (at least for now) and a few other nice things in there that are each pretty lucrative to attempt to recycle. Good old lead acid batteries are recycled as well for the same reason. They are still worth a few dollars because of the raw materials. ICE cars are routinely stripped for anything remotely valuable that can be reused or recycled before the rest of it is melted down so the metal can be recycled. Anyway, consumers don't need to be sold on anything. They've been fine burning obscene amounts of petrol coming from places they couldn't care less about, mined under nature destroying circumstances they never cared about either. All while not caring about the lethal effects of the pollution they are causing in the environment where they and their loved ones actually live and while not feeling the slightest amount of guilt buying SUV type ICE vehicles guzzling many times the amount of fuel they would actually need to do their shopping and school runs. There is more than a bit of double standards being applied here. Hypocrisy would be a better word for it.
cogman10 5y ago
At a minimum, batteries contain large amount of steel, nickel, and cobalt which can all be extracted through simple smelting (Boil the metals). Why would you throw that away? Those are valuable and expensive resources. The question is entirely around if you can go further and recycle more of the inners and if you can do this without smelting down the whole battery. I'm completely convinced these batteries won't end up in landfills. I'm less convinced that we won't get there without burning a bunch of silicon and lithium.
andrawesbahou 5y ago
It's unlikely they will end up in a landfill. A completely spent battery has cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, copper and steel which can fetch around $1500 on average. The trick is in how cheaply you can extract those. (The main cost drivers are battery logistics cost, and battery disassembly costs). Fun fact: Spent batteries are categorized as "Hazardous Waste", and need to be transported in explosion-proof containers, with special licenses, and the police needs to be informed of the exact routes that are travelled. Bias Disclaimer: I'm working at a company (founder) where we build robots to automatically disassemble the batteries and avoid logistics costs.
- ecpottinger 5y ago
  That is even if the battery is really spent. A 100 kWh battery that is now on 80% will still store 80 kWh of power, lots of power for a solar system, emergency power backup or other non-vehicle uses.
fulafel 5y ago
> So much for climate change. Making more cars was never going to solve climate change, EVs still have lifetime co2 footprints of the same magnitude as gas cars plus their use is not capped by available supply of oil.

jillesvangurp 5y ago

There are plenty of companies working on this. Hundreds of millions of VC money invested already. And the situation is already pretty good considering there are no piles of lithium batteries being dumped left right and center. Just not a thing because they are way too valuable for that. You say landfill, I say lithium mine with extremely rich deposits of lithium. Much richer than most natural deposits of the stuff. People are investing in companies that are extracting it from brines that have no more than a few hundred parts per million. It's that valuable. A battery that has kilos of the stuff is worth the kilo price (about 25-29$) minus the price of extraction. A typical Tesla would have around 60-70 kilos of the stuff; close to 2000$ if you can extract it. The lithium in a completely spent EV battery is worth more than many second hand ICE cars that are still driving around. And that's just accounting for the lithium. There is also copper, nickel, cobalt (at least for now) and a few other nice things in there that are each pretty lucrative to attempt to recycle. Good old lead acid batteries are recycled as well for the same reason. They are still worth a few dollars because of the raw materials. ICE cars are routinely stripped for anything remotely valuable that can be reused or recycled before the rest of it is melted down so the metal can be recycled. Anyway, consumers don't need to be sold on anything. They've been fine burning obscene amounts of petrol coming from places they couldn't care less about, mined under nature destroying circumstances they never cared about either. All while not caring about the lethal effects of the pollution they are causing in the environment where they and their loved ones actually live and while not feeling the slightest amount of guilt buying SUV type ICE vehicles guzzling many times the amount of fuel they would actually need to do their shopping and school runs. There is more than a bit of double standards being applied here. Hypocrisy would be a better word for it.

cogman10 5y ago

At a minimum, batteries contain large amount of steel, nickel, and cobalt which can all be extracted through simple smelting (Boil the metals). Why would you throw that away? Those are valuable and expensive resources. The question is entirely around if you can go further and recycle more of the inners and if you can do this without smelting down the whole battery. I'm completely convinced these batteries won't end up in landfills. I'm less convinced that we won't get there without burning a bunch of silicon and lithium.

andrawesbahou 5y ago

It's unlikely they will end up in a landfill. A completely spent battery has cobalt, nickel, manganese, lithium, copper and steel which can fetch around $1500 on average. The trick is in how cheaply you can extract those. (The main cost drivers are battery logistics cost, and battery disassembly costs). Fun fact: Spent batteries are categorized as "Hazardous Waste", and need to be transported in explosion-proof containers, with special licenses, and the police needs to be informed of the exact routes that are travelled. Bias Disclaimer: I'm working at a company (founder) where we build robots to automatically disassemble the batteries and avoid logistics costs.

ecpottinger 5y ago
That is even if the battery is really spent. A 100 kWh battery that is now on 80% will still store 80 kWh of power, lots of power for a solar system, emergency power backup or other non-vehicle uses.

fulafel 5y ago

> So much for climate change. Making more cars was never going to solve climate change, EVs still have lifetime co2 footprints of the same magnitude as gas cars plus their use is not capped by available supply of oil.