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Wondering if anyone knows if current state of manufacturing, maintaining, and disposing batteries actually is actually more ecological than using gasoline? I'm

Wondering if anyone knows if current state of manufacturing, maintaining, and disposing batteries actually is actually more ecological than using gasoline? I'm sure the potential of batteries to be more ecological and efficient is there, but the general assumption seems to be that they are already there and I'm not too sold on that idea yet.

NickM 12y ago
My understanding is that ecological impacts were more of a problem with older battery chemistries (lead-acid, nickel-cadmium), whereas lithium-ion packs are relatively benign. For instance, the batteries used by Tesla are mostly composed of nickel, cobalt, aluminum, and lithium, and none of these things are especially toxic. Mining these different metals may have some negative impact, but it's pretty easy to recycle li-ion packs, so in the long term it's a much more sustainable solution compared to gasoline, where you have to keep drilling for more and more of it forever.
linkregister 12y ago
Battery recycling is a thing and it works well. Tesla[1] The main battery recycling firm[2] [1] http://my.teslamotors.com/en_HK/node/3855 http://my.teslamotors.com/en_HK/node/3855 [2] http://www.kinsbursky.com/ http://www.kinsbursky.com/
lotsofmangos 12y ago
In release terms, you are not turning your store of energy into a mix of vapours, gases and particulates on every cycle and adding them to street level atmosphere, so that is an immediate bonus that batteries would seem to win on, especially in the built environments in which we live. Getting and processing lithium and silicon are big messy industrial processes, but so is getting and processing oil and you need a lot more oil and it is much less abundant than lithium or silicon. However oil already contains the stored energy you want, so until very recently it has been far less faff economically to distill oil, than trying to power cars by putting sunlight into metal using sand.
- closetnerd 12y ago
  > In release terms, you are not turning your store of energy into a mix of vapours, gases and particulates on every cycle This is sort of a point of contention at this point in time however. As you stated: > putting sunlight into metal using sand. This would be the longer term benefit of battery powered cars. Some countries have already made progress. And unless you're driving a Tesla and only charging it as there Supercharging stations, its not completely sunlight powering your wheels. It currently comes with the ecological impact of harvesting coal, burning it and etc.
  - droidist2 12y ago
    Ignoring the differences between coal and oil (sure oil would be better if we had an unlimited amount) a single power plant will be more efficient and cleaner than hundreds of thousands of internal combustion engines.
  - emj 12y ago
    In Sweden all personal transport by car takes 45 TWh per year, if everyone converted to electric cars/hybrids it would be 13 TWh. That's what the propaganda says anyway. Since most personal transports by car are so short it's in the sweet spot for electric cars.
    - closetnerd 12y ago
      Interesting what those number might mean. I expect energy consumption to be in favor of batteries, but didn't expect that much.
      - selectodude 12y ago
        Internal combustion engines are only about 20 percent efficient, and that ignores the energy spent pulling the dinosaur puree out of the ground. In comparison, electric engines are about 85-90 percent efficient.

NickM 12y ago

My understanding is that ecological impacts were more of a problem with older battery chemistries (lead-acid, nickel-cadmium), whereas lithium-ion packs are relatively benign. For instance, the batteries used by Tesla are mostly composed of nickel, cobalt, aluminum, and lithium, and none of these things are especially toxic. Mining these different metals may have some negative impact, but it's pretty easy to recycle li-ion packs, so in the long term it's a much more sustainable solution compared to gasoline, where you have to keep drilling for more and more of it forever.

linkregister 12y ago

Battery recycling is a thing and it works well. Tesla[1] The main battery recycling firm[2] [1] http://my.teslamotors.com/en_HK/node/3855 http://my.teslamotors.com/en_HK/node/3855 [2] http://www.kinsbursky.com/ http://www.kinsbursky.com/

lotsofmangos 12y ago

In release terms, you are not turning your store of energy into a mix of vapours, gases and particulates on every cycle and adding them to street level atmosphere, so that is an immediate bonus that batteries would seem to win on, especially in the built environments in which we live. Getting and processing lithium and silicon are big messy industrial processes, but so is getting and processing oil and you need a lot more oil and it is much less abundant than lithium or silicon. However oil already contains the stored energy you want, so until very recently it has been far less faff economically to distill oil, than trying to power cars by putting sunlight into metal using sand.

closetnerd 12y ago
> In release terms, you are not turning your store of energy into a mix of vapours, gases and particulates on every cycle This is sort of a point of contention at this point in time however. As you stated: > putting sunlight into metal using sand. This would be the longer term benefit of battery powered cars. Some countries have already made progress. And unless you're driving a Tesla and only charging it as there Supercharging stations, its not completely sunlight powering your wheels. It currently comes with the ecological impact of harvesting coal, burning it and etc.
- droidist2 12y ago
  Ignoring the differences between coal and oil (sure oil would be better if we had an unlimited amount) a single power plant will be more efficient and cleaner than hundreds of thousands of internal combustion engines.
- emj 12y ago
  In Sweden all personal transport by car takes 45 TWh per year, if everyone converted to electric cars/hybrids it would be 13 TWh. That's what the propaganda says anyway. Since most personal transports by car are so short it's in the sweet spot for electric cars.
  - closetnerd 12y ago
    Interesting what those number might mean. I expect energy consumption to be in favor of batteries, but didn't expect that much.
    - selectodude 12y ago
      Internal combustion engines are only about 20 percent efficient, and that ignores the energy spent pulling the dinosaur puree out of the ground. In comparison, electric engines are about 85-90 percent efficient.