Ok it needs to be said. The smart play is to have governments to subsidize this process and build up the raw inventory for lithium. That way, ie (US) could have tons and tons of raw lithium without having to mine it.
Why not both? Downcycle the old EV batteries for grid storage, then when they reach the end of useful life, recycle them. We need to resurrect the first 2 R’s (Reduce, Reuse) to be able to survive on this planet.
They are listed in order of importance… reduce first, if you can’t, then reuse. If you can’t reuse, then recycle.
Problem is, we saw “recycle” and thougt “infinite resources” and ditched the other two… turns out that most things cant really be recycled, so now it’s just landfill all the way
I wish I could remember where I read it, but the focus on just Recycle was encouraged as the main narrative by corporations which didn’t want to give up the myth of endless growth.
Also grid storage doesn’t have the sort of deep, rapid discharge/charge cycles that EVs go through. Once an EV battery is no good in the car, it still has about 80% of it’s useable capacity left. Meaning, there will always be a need for “new” EV batteries, but grid storage would saturate and leave surplus batteries. Not to mention, as the grid storage batteries fall out of their useful life for that purpose, they can be recycled into new EV batteries and begin the cycle anew.
Ok it needs to be said. The smart play is to have governments to subsidize this process and build up the raw inventory for lithium. That way, ie (US) could have tons and tons of raw lithium without having to mine it.
Wouldn’t it be smarter to use old EV batteries for grid storage?
Why not both? Downcycle the old EV batteries for grid storage, then when they reach the end of useful life, recycle them. We need to resurrect the first 2 R’s (Reduce, Reuse) to be able to survive on this planet.
They are listed in order of importance… reduce first, if you can’t, then reuse. If you can’t reuse, then recycle.
Problem is, we saw “recycle” and thougt “infinite resources” and ditched the other two… turns out that most things cant really be recycled, so now it’s just landfill all the way
I wish I could remember where I read it, but the focus on just Recycle was encouraged as the main narrative by corporations which didn’t want to give up the myth of endless growth.
The batteries don’t last forever, eventually, they need to be dealt with somehow.
Also grid storage doesn’t have the sort of deep, rapid discharge/charge cycles that EVs go through. Once an EV battery is no good in the car, it still has about 80% of it’s useable capacity left. Meaning, there will always be a need for “new” EV batteries, but grid storage would saturate and leave surplus batteries. Not to mention, as the grid storage batteries fall out of their useful life for that purpose, they can be recycled into new EV batteries and begin the cycle anew.
Not if they are not holding energy any more.
We recover 99% of lead from car batteries. The same lead is used over and over.
Lead is much easier to purify than lithium.
Because we really have not tried.