The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling • Hacker News Board

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#31

Post by selectodude » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 3:32 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #26

vlovich123 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's an accurate assessment. 1. Reduced dependency on oil = less money in oil = less money for a lot of countries that historically act quite poorly on the world stage. 2. 100% better for global warming than combustion cars. 3. Is mining lithium & disposing on lithium batteries incorrectly worse for the environment than oil manufacturing, production & transport? I don't know 100% but the massive oil sp…

Are lithium batteries ever used at grid-scale? I though the point was that the high energy-density was convenient for mobility, but poor on most other metrics, including manufacturing complexity, stability, and safety. Grid-scale wouldn't need to care so much about energy density versus stability and maintenance, in which case lead-acid, or compressed-gas storage should shine.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve

Australia has a few now.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#32

Post by PaulDavisThe1st » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #19

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

AFAICT, used Tesla battery packs fetch a decent price on ebay etc. They're more valuable for reuse than they are for recycling. Reuse is better than recycling.

> Reuse is better than recycling. True and I agree, however batteries have a limited lifetime, and at the end of said lifetime, lithium batteries become dangerous. Does anyone risk putting a secondhand battery in their phones for example? Might be okay for old Nokia style batteries, but the integrated ones, not a chance. Another problem is that with EV battery packs, they're not really viable to be disassembled and r…

> Another problem is that with EV battery packs,

Clearly addressed in TFA.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#33

Post by ben_w » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

Chris2048 wrote: post #26

vlovich123 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that's an accurate assessment. 1. Reduced dependency on oil = less money in oil = less money for a lot of countries that historically act quite poorly on the world stage. 2. 100% better for global warming than combustion cars. 3. Is mining lithium & disposing on lithium batteries incorrectly worse for the environment than oil manufacturing, production & transport? I don't know 100% but the massive oil sp…

Are lithium batteries ever used at grid-scale? I though the point was that the high energy-density was convenient for mobility, but poor on most other metrics, including manufacturing complexity, stability, and safety. Grid-scale wouldn't need to care so much about energy density versus stability and maintenance, in which case lead-acid, or compressed-gas storage should shine.

Does this count as grid-scale?

For your other points, I believe you are correct, but the reason lithium gets used anyway is because it’s now really cheap compared to the alternatives.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#34

Post by wussboy » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 3:41 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #20

1053r wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The parent comment is a pack of memes straight out of a propaganda machine. https://blog.ucsusa.org/dave-reichmuth/new-data-show-electri... Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource. It's an element. It will cost energy to recycle it, but that energy is increasingly sourced by clean energy sources. Let me cite the oil company, BP. https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stat... Coal is in terminal…

> Lithium is a mine once, use forever resource The article goes into why this is incredibly difficult. The vast majority of lithium batteries are in landfills, compressed between all our other garbage because maybe 2% of people on the planet properly dispose of e-waste. As far as clean energy, have you watched Planet of the Humans (2020)? I want to say, I despise Michael Moore emotional bullshit, but despite his infl…

“Why is it that when we see nothing but progress behind, we see nothing but disaster ahead?”

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#35

Post by ben_w » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 3:44 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #24

jrockway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your plan for moving around when our limited supply of fossil fuels are depleted?

Not the OP but civilisation didn't start with the invention of the motor car. If you look at our general wellbeing it hasn't shifted one iota over the period that cars become pervasive.

That’s a bold claim, especially in context of running out of transport fuels starting from where we are now. What date range are you using for the period over which cars became pervasive?

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#36

Post by Tade0 » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 3:48 PM UTC

avianlyric wrote: post #11

artvark11 wrote: post #4

The lie that electric vehicles are better for the environment than internal combustion needs to stop. Lithium batteries will pollute the world. We will exploit impoverished counties and extract their lithium reserves while destroying their environments. We will not clean up when we finish. Lithium batteries will pollute our water supplies here at home when they aren't properly disposed. This is a giant environmental…

> We need widespread renewable electricity generation first anyway. Otherwise our electric cars will be running on coal. Even this is preferable to internal combustion engines. ICEs really aren’t very efficient, and electric car is easily 3x more energy efficient than an ICE. Which means that’s even if you include transmission losses and heat losses at a coal power station, you’re still ahead. Because of coal power s…

Minor nitpick: li-ion batteries contain no rare-earths.

The catalysts used in oil refining do on the other hand - specifically Lanthanum.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#37

Post by vel0city » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 3:57 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #24

jrockway wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's your plan for moving around when our limited supply of fossil fuels are depleted?

Not the OP but civilisation didn't start with the invention of the motor car. If you look at our general wellbeing it hasn't shifted one iota over the period that cars become pervasive.

Cars became pervasive around the early 1900's. Are you seriously suggesting the average person's general wellbeing hasn't changed since 1908? I guess we could debate if cars were a critical technology to spur such change, but I don't know I can debate someone who disagrees that the average person was just as well off in 1920 compared to 2020. In what measures would you consider the person in the developed world in 1920 to be just as well off as the average person in the developed world in 2020? I limit this to just developed world because that would be where automobiles would have had the greater impact or lack of impact despite pervasiveness.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#38

Post by whimsicalism » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 4:03 PM UTC

goodcanadian wrote: post #5

gameswithgo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure, but 5? 10? years from now those re-used batteries will probably not be usable at all, right?

It depends. What kills the batteries is fast charging or discharging and to an extent, leaving them sitting around fully charged or discharged. If the batteries are retired to do grid storage (or home storage), I would expect the charge and discharge rates to be fairly sedate, and charge levels to be managed so as not to have the battery level too low or too high for very long. I can easily imagine the batteries last…

Industrial carbon capture coal electricity production is substantially more expensive than renewables or natgas at this point, no reason to turn to it.

e: hm, somehow my comment switched chains?

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#39

Post by bryanlarsen » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 4:09 PM UTC

d33lio wrote: post #25

Tesla seems to have used the same dirty trick used by oil companies to convince the public that plastics were largely "recyclable" by conflating economically productive (for Tesla) re-use of decommissioned batteries from Teslas and "recycling" of actual cells. I support the work of Elon Musk, obviously many here do not and call him a fraud, however I do take issue with how he uses this line to call the battery tech T…

I'm having trouble following your argument. Are you saying it's bad that Tesla batteries are being reused instead of recycled? Or are you claiming that Tesla is taking credit for the reuse and that's bad?

Musk has stated publicly that they will recycle Tesla batteries once they become available in enough volume to make it viable. He'd be stupid not to -- they will be a cheaper source of nickel and cobalt than digging it out of the ground.

But reuse is better than recycling, so recycling should remain in the future as long as possible.

Re: The Race to Crack Lithium Ion Recycling

#40

Post by HeadsUpHigh » Mon, Nov 30, 2020, 4:17 PM UTC

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #19

bryanlarsen wrote: post #2

AFAICT, used Tesla battery packs fetch a decent price on ebay etc. They're more valuable for reuse than they are for recycling. Reuse is better than recycling.

> Reuse is better than recycling. True and I agree, however batteries have a limited lifetime, and at the end of said lifetime, lithium batteries become dangerous. Does anyone risk putting a secondhand battery in their phones for example? Might be okay for old Nokia style batteries, but the integrated ones, not a chance. Another problem is that with EV battery packs, they're not really viable to be disassembled and r…

No one is putting cylindrical cells on phones. These go to stationary storage. Also some people test and save each cell separately and put them in new packs.