As AvdM said, Tesla is way ahead of you. WAY ahead of you.
I am sure they are.
Thank you anyway for remiding me of this.
I take for granted that you have several years of experience in recycling lithium and conducting power plants environmental studies, so I take you on your word for it, and won't even ask if you have any actual data answering my questions.
Had you missed it, whilst Tesla is UNdoubtedly way ahed of me, I am a little (at least 14 days) ahead of you:
And most (~90%) of the charging is done at night, in home garages, when there is much surplus (and often wasted) capacity.
The only very good thing you do in the large scale is that since most people will charge batteries during the night this will greatly reduce the need of "compensation" to take care of current huge difference between day and night demand.
And as
clearly said:
By the time these kind of vehicles will become "mainstream", surely there will be adequate provisions for the recycling of them, just like there are for the current technology.
But we still have to take this into account when doing a "balance" of how much ecological an electric car is.
Nothing against the electrical cars thingy, nor specifically against Tesla
, only reminding that there is this factor that is part of the balance and for which there are not (AFAIK) clear figures.
The (BTW nice) Blog article
Ad van der Meerq posted a link to contains unfortunately very little of actual DATA:
http://www.teslamoto...cycling-programBTW, compare thee info in it with these:
http://www.kinsbursky.com/evbr.htmlhttp://www.hybridcar...ries-26047.htmlhttp://www.toxco.com/http://www.toxco.com/facilities.htmlApparently (and according to the info on toxco's site) in the WHOLE WORLD there is one single facility:
Toxco - Canada - Located in Trail, British Columbia, Toxco-Canada is the only facility in the world that offers both primary and secondary (rechargeable) Lithium battery recycling as well as the recycling of production scrap from the manufacturing of Lithium and Li-Ion batteries. Toxco-Canada utilizes a hydrometallurgical technology to recycle spent batteries and produce lithium and cobalt raw materials.
And apparently, recycling Lithium based batteries is not-so-easy:
http://www.green-ene...9/20090035.htmlI am pretty sure that problems will be solved by the time they will arise, but right now there is a lot of speculations and very little facts.
Please also note how this document:
http://www.hybridcar...ries-26047.htmlBattery Economics
There is currently little economic need to recycle lithium ion batteries. Most batteries contain small amounts of lithium carbonate as a percentage of weight and the material is relatively inexpensive compared to most other metals, such as nickel and cobalt. As lithium battery packs become larger—and the number of hybrids and electric cars that use lithium batters expands—recycling will become more important and more profitable. Mainstream vehicles will have to begin using lithium ion batteries and run those batteries for at least several years before recycling becomes an issue.
Bolivia has the world’s largest supply of lithium—about 5.4 million tons in the Uyuni Desert alone. Chile has about 3 million tons and the United States owns about 750,000 tons. Despite media reports to the contrary, current demand for lithium is not likely to cause shortages.
places value (and amount) of lithium in a very low place in the scale, whilst this other one:
http://www.green-ene...9/20090035.htmlseems like placing it in as a "rare" and "very valuable" metal.
Have also a look to this one:
http://www1.eere.ene...p_05_gaines.pdfaccording to it, there are still a number of questions unanswered or not fully answered.
The whole point was about this (AFAIK) lack of clear answers and data (and nothing else), when you have not all factors in an equation, it is possible that by accident you
divide by zero :
Wonko