Along with the massive recent manufacturing investments in electric vehicle (EV) technology and talks of a greener, decarbonized future, there are some not-so-green problems.
In its latest New Energy Finance report, Bloomberg News predicts there will be some 730 million EVs on the road by 2040. The year before, Bloomberg predicted half of all U.S. vehicle sales would be battery electric by 2030.
In Canada, too, there’s talk of a big economic boost with the transition to EVs — including 250,000 jobs and $48 billion a year added to the nation’s economy through the creation of a domestic supply chain.
Governments have already invested tens of billions into two EV battery manufacturing plants in southwestern Ontario. However, they come with the environmental dilemma of what to do with the millions of EV batteries when they reach the end of their life.
“The rules are non-existent,” said Mark Winfield, a professor at York University in Toronto and co-chair of the school’s Sustainable Energy Initiative. "There is nothing as we talk to agencies on both sides of the border, the federal, provincial, state levels.
“In the case of Ontario, the answer was actually that we have no intention of doing anything about this.”
Actually it seems to be one of the more talked about aspects, right after the local environmental costs of mining in some poorer countries, dispite being one of the easiest to solve.
You drop EV batteries into a dielectric bath industrial crusher and get thousands of dollars of absurdly high grade lithium-cobalt ore out of it. While there are hard questions that industry has not put much public press into answering, especially when it comes to environmental concerns, in this case the reason is that it’s actually pretty trivial to deal with.
Given that lead acid batteries have a ninety seven percent capture rate dispite only being worth a few dozen dollars at most, we can expect higher rates with the far more valuable EV batteries. Lithium is infinitely recyclable after all, and for all the failings of the free market when it comes to keeping personal electronic’s batteries out of landfills I doubt you need much overarching regulation to get people to take the five to seven thousand dollar payout from recycling in this case.
The reason we don’t see high recycling rates currently in the space is that despite worries that the batteries would degrade to the point of uselessness after a few short years, the vast majority of EVs are still on the road and looking to have a longer average lifespan than gasoline vehicles. On top of that there are a lot of applications which want the reuse them and there is a reason that reduce, reuse, recycle are in that order.
And of course, any talk of the environmental impacts of EVs has to be caveated by the fact that 60 to 70 percent of an EVs emissions cost comes from the power grid itself, which is rapidly changing as renewables push out more expensive coal and natural gas. Of the remainder, most of it is in mining the raw material for the battery itself, which as mentioned only has to be paid once before it is recycled for quite potentially forever.
Unlike a gas car which on average produces more than twice their weight in co2 every single year it’s on the road, an EVs emissions break even after only two to four years, after which that car and its future descendants will continue to just go mile after mile without contributing to gobal environmental collapse.
While things like more of Vancouver’s trolleybus network would obviously be best, given the population densities involved as well as the housing shortage we’re not going to be able to replace all cars in North America on the timelines the laws of physics demand we meet, and it’s important to keep that in mind when discussing it.
Well said!
Whenever I read something like that, I can’t help thinking of my son, who has paid zero attention to any advance since first hearing about the EV-1 or some shill with an agenda.
Personally, I’d love to have a business taking batteries no longer fit for purpose in cars and building off-grid wind and solar systems. That’ll never happen, though, because at 67 I’m too old to ever see used batteries in enough volume to justify trying it.
My personal opinion is that the need for large scale recycling is still decades away. If a vehicle’s battery pack isn’t completely physically damaged, it is more likely to end it’s life in use for stationary power or split into smaller packs for short range, occasional use vehicles, like boats, ATVs, small farm and yard equipment, and, of course, golf carts and “city cars”.
They don’t use Lithium Cobalt Oxide anymore.
Not exclusively, but unfortunately in North America a lot of marketing has been put into maximum range, and so lithium iron phosphate is still in the minority of market volume becuse of the thirty percent volume penalty. Things are better in China with the larger focus on budget options, and they even have a sodium vehicle now on the market, but to my knowledge lithium cobalt still makes up the majority of North American EVs, in volume sold if not in models.
what to do with the millions of EV batteries when they reach the end of their life.
4 seconds of googling will show you they’re recyclable. They go back into the food chain right after “mineral refinement”, which they already tout as a risky thing we should source alternatively if we can. It’s like oil cowboys can be So Close to a solution and not figure it out.
They are recyclable, and the government has a plan to force manufacturers to actually pay to recycle them?
Because otherwise it means nothing.
Recycling lithium batteries is cheaper than mining then refining lithium ore. That’s true of most metals, it’s less true for glass because the material is so readily available, and plastic recycling is a scam top to bottom.
You’re right about recycling metals and plastics. I swear I read somewhere though that recycled glass is “purer”, and that the first few cycles happen right at the factory. They’ll make a batch of glass, immediately destroy it, and recycle it until they get their desired threshold of purity.
Was this written by saudi arabia?
This is something you can google. It’s been talked about to death. Even in the worst energy mix countries EVs still beats gas on emissions during the cars lifetime
Who need the Saudi’s when Canada is the fifth largest oil producer in the world and shares the majority of its infrastructure with first place just down south.
On emissions, yes.
On recyclability, no.
We can cheaply recycle gasoline now?
We can recycle oil (and have since the 70’s). We also recycle vehicles with full frames (unibodies are more difficult) and engines.
EVs are not recyclable (yet, anyway) and are written off with far less damage (essentially unrepairable at low-speed impact accidents).
Key word was cheaply, current costs if synthetic fuels are two to four times the current market rate at best, not available to the public, and heavily limited in their inability to scale within the necessary timeframe.
Any vehicle’s metal components can be scraped and recycled, and if your talking about component reuse EVs have far, far fewer consumable parts as compared to ICEs. While you can rebuild an engine with all new consumables, we’ve also been rewiring motors for just as long, and indeed the motor has far fewer wear items that require a rebuild in the first place. Indeed given the thriving conversation space and its demand for EV parts, they are often more recycled than all but classic models of ICE. EV batteries have proven trivial to recycle, and the frame and such are practically identical to ICE versions.
The majority of plastics are single use and a landfilled, and are just as prevalent in ICE’s as EVs.
The higher rate of write offs for minor incidents is consistent across many new vehicles, and is more a case of insurers lacking a large dataset from which to draw stats from than any inherent technological factor.
Doesn’t recycling oil require that you still have the oil in oil form?
Oil is oil. It’s either dirty or clean. Recycling it removes the dirt, and while that in no way makes it functional as a lubricant for newer engines it can be used for other manufacturing processes or be used in different products, ie: asphalt.
Do you think that lithium batteries aren’t recyclable? If so, I have some news for you…
EV = electric vehicles. I am referencing the whole vehicle, not just the battery.
Then why would you assume the whole vehicle can’t be recycled? They’re made out of metal and plastic like ICEVs
Because right now recycling of plastics in end-of-life vehicles (ELVs) is low because of mixed composites and few markets …
About 1.6 million vehicles are retired annually in Canada, and each of these ELVs contain about 175 kg of various plastic resins. Recycling rates for the plastics in ELVs tend to be low since there are very few end markets for these materials. Plastics from ELVs are often contaminated with other plastics and metal components, and there are not currently technologies capable of recycling all of the different plastic and multi-resin parts found in vehicles. Source
EV plastic and body recycling will be even less because of the need for composite construction in unibody design to keep the weight down, to compensate for the battery weight. Right now EVs are 1000+ lbs heavier than traditional ICE vehicles.
EVs are not a climate solution. You still get most of the negatives of ICE cars. However, the development of the technology is still needed. We need better battery tech. We need to figure out how to recharge batteries and how to manage their wastes.
When it comes to transport, the greenest solutions are centralized, as they substantially reduce demand of materials.the problem with centralized transportation, is that until you get it to the point where you have 24/7 coverage with small wait windows, people will still prefer a car. Why wait for a bus, when I can turn the key and go? Bonus, I don’t have to deal with people or transfer.
I’d argue that the techs been here for at least a decade. In modern production EVs the only negatives are that while on a road trip you have to stop every two and a half hours for a whole twenty minutes and arguably price, through the latter is mostly just a North American thing. Better a minor inconvenience now than a perfect solution after the last coral dies.
As for mining, Australia’s lithium mines arn’t much different than any other major mines, much less the drilling and fracking needed to supply the constant consumption of gasoline and diesel vehicles.
As much as trollybuses and overhead electric trains are definitely the best solution for urban and suburban transportation, where they can and do bear cars even from a speed, comfort, and convenience standpoint, we can’t reasonably expect to relocate everyone in Canada to urban areas, and even if we did you would still need hundreds of thousands to millions of vehicles for transport, delivery, emergency, etc.
Even the small “carless” villages of Switzerland still need custom small electric vehicles, and Canada requires far longer ranges than small villages that were never connected to the road network.
As long as any of that holds true, your going to need smaller than bus vehicles, and battery electric remand the best option, and thusly I would argue that they are indeed a climate solution. Not the solution, but a solution. We could never replace what has been the foundation of the industrial world with a single alternative. There is simply too much that would need to be covered for a one size fits all solution.
I’m not suggesting a one size fits all. Individual + centralized is the way to go vs. JUST one or the other
It’s funny how governments rush to help private corporations when it comes to veggies, but absolutely DON’T want to spend a penny when it’s about public transit infrastructure.
Quebec, for example, just gave over $7 BILLION of our tax dollars to a foreign company for building an EV lithium ion battery manufacture on a piece of land they said was protected wetlands a couple years prior.
Meanwhile, Quebec city is asking for less than half of that to build a much needed electric tramway.
We don’t even know if future EVs will still use these kinds of batterie as we have solid sodium or aluminum ion batteries with better performance and range coming soon.
If anyone’s worried about the environment, start by banning large pickup trucks for private individuals or big ass SUVs or old diesels.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Along with the massive recent manufacturing investments in electric vehicle (EV) technology and talks of a greener, decarbonized future, there are some not-so-green problems.
In Canada, too, there’s talk of a big economic boost with the transition to EVs — including 250,000 jobs and $48 billion a year added to the nation’s economy through the creation of a domestic supply chain.
"You would think given the nature of these products and also the scale of the potential looming problem, as you know, when the EV sales move into the tens of millions and every one of those ultimately is going to result in an end-of-life battery.
If the country carries through on its plan to build a home-grown supply chain for the critical minerals needed to make EV batteries, it could mean the development of a vast tract of unspoiled nature in Ontario’s north.
For years, Scott has studied the social, environmental and legal implications of bringing development to the Hudson’s Bay Lowlands and its effect on the rights and interests of remote Indigenous communities there.
While it’s impossible to tell who’s right, Scott said governments need buy-in from every First Nation in the Treaty 9 area or any development would be open to litigation — some rarely mentioned at news conferences or funding announcements about the upcoming switch to Canadian-made EV batteries.
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