Slashdot Mirror
Environmental Cost of Hybrids' Battery Recycling?
LostMyBeaver writes "I have been considering the purchase of an electric or hybrid vehicle for some time. The biggest problem I have currently is that both technologies make use of rechargable batteries. The same tree-huggers telling me gasoline is bad are telling me that batteries are bad too. I'm only partially knowledgable in this area, but it appears the battery technologies are generally based at least on lithium ion, nickel metal hydride, lead acid and nickel-cadmium. I was hoping someone on Slashdot would be knowledgable enough to explain the environmental cost of recycling these batteries. If I understand correctly, after these chemicals are 'spent' so the cells no longer maintain a charge, they are not useful for producing new batteries. I can only imagine that the most common method of recycling the cells is to store the toxic chemicals of the batteries in barrels and refilling the cells with new chemicals. This sounds like an environmental disaster to me. Is there someone here that can help me sleep better at night by explaining what really happens?"
Stolen from Hybridcars.com:
How often do hybrid batteries need replacing? Is replacement expensive and disposal an environmental problem?
The hybrid battery packs are designed to last for the lifetime of the vehicle, somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 miles, probably a whole lot longer. The warranty covers the batteries for between eight and ten years, depending on the carmaker.
Battery toxicity is a concern, although today's hybrids use NiMH batteries, not the environmentally problematic rechargeable nickel cadmium. "Nickel metal hydride batteries are benign. They can be fully recycled," says Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal. Toyota and Honda say that they will recycle dead batteries and that disposal will pose no toxic hazards. Toyota puts a phone number on each battery, and they pay a $200 "bounty" for each battery to help ensure that it will be properly recycled.
There's no definitive word on replacement costs because they are almost never replaced. According to Toyota, since the Prius first went on sale in 2000, they have not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Maybe dumping them in a remote country or island will solve part of the problem.
Or even better, just walk, or just use cycles... unless you want to know the difference between driving cars and riding cycles.
slashdot rocks
http://www.rbrc.org/consumer/
http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/batteries.php
Toyota claims that
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
It should still help point out that NiMH are somewhat more environmentally friendly:
Environmental impact
NiMH batteries are commonly considered to have lower environmental impact than NiCd batteries, due to absence of toxic cadmium. The overall environmental impact of mining the various alternate metals that form the negative electrode may be more or less than cadmium, depending on the metal.
Most industrial nickel is recycled, due to the relatively easy retrieval of the metal from scrap, and due to its high value.
Of course, we crush them up, put them in a line, and your mom snorts it...
Soylent Lime {Li for lithium, me for where it ends up}
Never mind that shit, what's new with Chrome?
The DOOZY I heard the other day from a mechanic, who I believe is afraid his job is disappearing, is that batteries in the Prius are RADIOACTIVE!
We can use all the leftover batteries to finish building the electric fence between the US and Mexico. Just imagine, a fence that keeps going and going (insert Pink Bunny with drum here).
ed duval the very last person
Yes, we need more carbon dioxide to protect us from global freezing.
My solution is simple and 100% environmentaly sound! I eat a big bowl of beans every morning. When I'm ready to go to work, I hop into my radio flyer, pull down my pants, flick my lighter, and let off the largest fart you've ever seen.
It also helps that I live in an area where I can travel downhill both ways.
No, I will not work for your startup
Great. So now we'll have to worry about people tearing open the backs of our cars to remove our _perfectly good, multi-thousand-dollar_ battery packs to sell them for $200 to feed their addictions (heroin, alcohol, food, gasoline, etc.).
Caveat - I used to work for Tek Cominco, and have smelted alloys, been a power engineer, and so on.
First, you have to think of the entire life cycle of both production, shipping, usage, and disposal.
Production: depending on the battery used (and there are multiple types being looked at), it may be produced from minerals from say Ontario or BC - in which case it was processed using a combination of methods, some of which use hydroelectric power (green). Acids are used in all metal production pretty much, so you pushing a giant truck down the road involves more acid than the batteries for a plug-in-hybrid which quite frankly has less mass. Smelting frequently uses coal, of course, so it depends on the source and composition of the coal - high-sulfur high-pollution like in China or low-sulfur low-pollution like in Canada. It is NEVER no pollution.
Shipping - again, the parts and batteries will be shipped on a boat using dirty bunker fuel (even in clean ports like LA they only use clean fuel when near the port, a small infinitesimal fraction of fuel usage).
Operation - if you rarely use a car and it just sits there, then your negative pollution cost of operation for batteries is higher - but your pollution of roadways from diesel/gas would be higher still - if you use it a lot it depends on the power source - if hydro, wind, solar and especially if time-shifted so it charges when power demand is low it has lower impact. If you live in a place where electricity comes from coal it's dirtier.
Recycling - if it is - and it will, these are expensive batteries - recycled, the cost of mining and production of the batteries is vastly reduced (anywhere from half to one-twentieth the pollution of getting it again). This is why we recycle scrap from cars and cans, it's cheaper than mining the minerals again.
In general, all things being equal, with typical usage, you will ALWAYS create less pollution with a plug-in-hybrid than with a non-hybrid.
ALWAYS.
Don't confuse battery warranty life with operational battery life, by the way.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Not only do these batteries last a long time, due to careful maintenance by the car's computer and optimization of charge/discharge patterns, they are fully recyclable and less poisonous when compared to lead batteries.
Most people believe the lifecycle of a battery dies when the car is totaled. Not true. Batteries are being salvaged and sold on ebay to continue their services past the totaling of the car. There has also been progress of mixing n matching individual modules within battery packs, to further extend the usefulness of each part of the battery. Hybrid car batteries are made up of many modules. When the battery fails, its only one or two modules that fail, and can be replaced with other modules that have the same charge/discharge characteristics.
These dead modules can then be sent to Toyota to be recycled, the nickel extracted and re-used in new batteries.
Some people say listing a bunch of opinions, stated as facts, without any specifics or citing any authorities on the subject are weasels.
Who cares? OOOH LOOK, the same product as last year but with more storage? Crazy who would have thought. Oh what you say, they make the iPod more Iphoneish. That's not news, that's par for the course.
Copyright 2010. All rights reserved. This comment may not be copied in any way including, but not limited to caching.
Fuel Cell is the only way to go... ... Honda Insight coming in spring and promised fuel-cell for it shortly after ON THE CHEAP.
No batteries. Makes Hydrogen and Oxygen in tanks for itself from water and electricity plugin then just like a gas gauge can let it set or drive til the tanks are dry before plugging in again.
Now a small nuclear reactor for each township and life becomes cheap again OTHERWISE its the ELECTRIC COMPANIES' TURN to overcharge us instead of the OIL COMPANIES.
Umm *pause for twitching*, where do you park?
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
At the last Maker Faire in San Mateo I asked one of the guys at the hybrid car conversion booth and got some really flippant snide remarks. Not very helpful at all belaying any of my concerns.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Some might indeed... But I'd rather be a weasel than a hippie any day... At least I'd get a bath once in a while.. :)
You do realize that the source study (http://cnwmr.com/nss-folder/automotiveenergy/)has been thoroughly debunked in the same Slashdot discussion that you linked to? If you troll, at least put some effort into it.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Was watching this show on the History channel about this very issue, and they contended that there are no toxic substances or heavy metals in Lithium Ion batteries and they can be safely disposed of with very little hassle. Of course they do have a tendency to set your laptop aflame, apparently, so have fun riding on one 50x larger. On the subject of confused tree huggers and head-in-sand conservatives, why hasn't anybody stood up and called bullshit on the fact that you can't dispose of compact flourescent bulbs thanks to the mercury content?
I hate the term environmentally friendly. I hate it not because I think it's ok to kill off entire species but because the term is tossed around as the biggest guilt trip ever devised. Use water... you're not environmentally friendly. Exhale CO2 and you aren't environmentally friendly. Raise a cow... your polluting our skys with methane. Eat the cow to end the methane agony... you just killed a species! OMG NOZ!
The environmentalists will never be happy unless you dig yourself a shallow grave*, curl up, and die.
*Better make sure to move any protected species first.
Your right.
I will go back to believing that Corporations have my best interest in mind(more so then myself) and just accept everything they tell me as gospel.
All sarcasm aside, even if carbon dioxide accumulation were NOT harmful, our dependence on foreign petroleum IS. The only reason 100% recycling doesn't work is because some people are too fucking lazy to do their part. Thus, Toyota putting a $200 bounty on their batteries is a great idea. Give the lazy bastards a REASON to help.
Many states and municipalities did precisely the same thing with beverage bottles/cans. Try finding a Coke bottle in the streets of Los Angeles. You can't, because that 5 cent refund makes it worthwhile to pick the damn thing up. Maybe not to you, but certainly to someone.
Which ones do you recommend, and what MPG do they get?
And can they run on vegetable oil?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
And I sold my nickel shares to Xenu!
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
You forgot 8" floppy disks... Can't... Have... Enough....
Thankfully, those batteries are heavy, and located in hard to reach places. The batteries in the latest Prius weigh 45 Kgs and are located in the trunk of the car, partially underneath the back seat.
I don't see anyone spending a good 30 minutes tearing open the Prius with powertools, only to run around with a 100+lb weight. At that point, they might as well steal the entire car.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
If you are truly worried about your impact on the environment, use public transportation.
is the same product of last yeat but with LESS storage.
Congratulations. You quoted a Slashdot story filled with cautions about how questionable or reliable the study was, and how they never disclosed how they arrived at the "magic numbers" used for computing the basis for the "fact" you quoted.
If you're going to troll, you should at least google for some stories that don't expose the bias you're trying to hide.
John
I'm for a portfolio of changes. Meaning, not one silver bullet (nuclear, wind, solar, geo, tidal, fat people on Stair Masters, etc...), but for the use of all - smartly of course. Just because a technology doesn't make sense now doesn't mean it won't in the future.
"I don't understand battery recycling, are Liberals killing the world with hybrid batteries?"
No.
Seems to me that if you're replacing the batteries you're probably going to have the vehicle with them. They're pretty damn weighty, and due to hazards may require a professional for removal/installation. If theft becomes an issue, then they could make it a requirement that the vehicle be brought in with the batteries, in which case they'd have to steal the whole car (and if they can manage that, they'd do so regardless of batteries).
really...I wish I had the points
You can avoid the whole moral dilemma by buying yourself a good bicycle and/or using public transit. It works for me.
On a sidenote, is the OP saying that we shouldn't recycle batteries, or that batteries are wrong? I'm a little fuzzy here...
It's the muffler bearings that need periodic replacement, and the *blinker" fluid that needs to be replenished from time to time.
Both products can be found here;
http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=10
http://kalecoauto.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=6
Ian Ameline
Just get a Diesel and avoid the whole battery mess... Modern Diesels are quiet, don't stink, and have no problems starting in cold weather. VW will beat the Prius in mileage handily: http://wot.motortrend.com/6293714/green/look-out-prius-volkswagen-golf-bluemotion-diesel-concept-capable-of-60-plus-mpg/index.html Current US Diesels get great mileage, and have no batteries to recycle (other than your standard lead acid car battery). Diesels are wildly popular in Europe where gas prices have long been absurd.
45kg is (just under) 100lbs.
Thankfully, those batteries are heavy, and located in hard to reach places.
I know these batteries apparently "hardly ever need replacing", but I'd frankly like it to be easy to get to my car's battery...
"The only reason 100% recycling doesn't work is because some people are too fucking lazy to do their part" And the fact that where I live besides metal and glass virtually nothing is accepted for recycling. virtually no plastics, some types of paper and cardboard, but not others. Also the things that are the worst to throw in the garbage are the hardest to recycle. batteries, lights ,oil and electronics all go to a separate place and have recycling charges. How many people just say screw it.
But where do you go to get some lithium in the first place? Most people don't seem to realize that several of these nasty materials occur naturally in parts of the world, like asbestos rich rock formations, radioactive radon filled volcanic rocks and even naturally radioactive uranium minerals. If anything enrichened radioactive materials have a lower half-life than their milder naturally occurring raw minerals. It's not like all this material was brought into existence through a conjuring trick.
"I can only imagine that the most common method of recycling the cells is to store the toxic chemicals of the batteries in barrels..."
You have such a limited imagination...
Sig this!
Some pollution, such as carbon, causes global climate change. Some, like the chemicals in the batteries, has other consequences, but does not cause climate change (AFAIK). IMHO, climate change is the higher priority right now.
Also, fossil-fuels come with other costs: Wars, oppressive regimes, death and destruction, etc. I'll take the batteries.
Kill yourself.
It's not just the environmental impact of recycling, which as i read in an earlier post isn't that bad. The cost of making the batteries in the first place is hugely destructive to the environment. I was going to quote this to you verbatim but its just easier to link you here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKTOyiKLARk
I know its jeremy clarkson and he hates hybrids, but he makes valid points about the mining, the refining and the shipping of these materials.
Others have already given a good idea of how NiMH batteries are recycled (and how they are relatively benign if not), here is how Tesla is planning on recycling Lithium batteries used in their electric cars when it comes time to replace them:
Mythbusters Part 3: Recycling our Non-Toxic Battery Packs
While NiMH batteries are what's used in just about all hybrid vehicles on the road today, the industry is slowly moving towards as the advantages of Lithium based batteries (higher power to weight ratio, higher power density) outweighs their drawbacks (high cost), and higher energy density is required to make plug-in and pure electric vehicles usable.
It might have been on Slashdot, but I heard that Pacific Gas and Electric is taking batteries that are no longer usable in hybrid cars and applying them as backups in office buildings. The batteries might have had physical damage or some other condition that prevents their use in cars but allows their use in fixed locations.
Also, not all the batteries are NiMH. I think the Chevy Volt will have a Lithium Ion battery, the kind that has caused problems in laptops. I've heard they are working on reliability and safety issues with the batteries.
100% True.
Hard to reach as in it needs more effort than to pry open the hood, disconnect the terminals and lift out the battery. Sometimes, it's good when things are hard. I'd like a $200 item in my car to be fairly difficult to get to if I don't provide keys and a proper garage.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Your typical car battery is designed to be a short-lived, end-user-replaceable unit.
A hybrid's batteries are different beasties altogether; replacing them is more like replacing your car's engine.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
The materials that are used to create a battery need to mined from the earth. Take a look at the processes involved in the mining and manufacturing of a battery.
Then multiple those results by 6 billion.
I'm not super familiar with these processes myself, but in a country that is trying to close down all forms of mining (coal, iron, etc) I find it ironic that society is very much behind recharagable batteries, Solar cells, wind farms, etc which all require some form of batteries to keep the juice flowing. Which in turn requires massive amounts of mining.
Go figure
I would like to see some humped up idiot try and lift a battery without tools (like a small pulley setup or a forklift) and end up with a massive hernia. Film it, I promise I'll LMAO.
With nimh you have to fully charge, discharge them the first couple of times you use them. If you don't use them for a while, they have to be put through the cycle again.
It's simpler just to get a battery charger which has conditioning programmes for the various battery types.
Deleted
Some people are currently stealing the mufflers for the platinum in them. Google Don't put it past them to steal the batter packs some time in the future as well.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
My guess is that there are no "bounties" in your area as well.
While it may sound counter-productive, the end result is that if an arbitrary value is is assigned to recyclables, SOMEONE will figure out how to make money from it. And if THAT results in the recycling being done, it is worthwhile.
I always thought it odd that auto-manufacturers never did this themselves. Sell a car, offer $500 bucks for the return of it, regardless of current owner. Auto manufacturers are in a far better position to recycle at a profit then municipalities. Eventually, I realized that it was the sales of oil (i.e., plastics, that our cars are now largely made of) was also a goal of auto-manufacturers, and thus recycling is largely counter-productive to THEIR goals.
I say screw it.
Shit goes in the dumpster.
It gets hauled off to the dump.
It sits with the other trash in a big shallow hole in the ground.
It cooks like a good stew while we harvest gasses from it to generate electricity.
The ground is protected from any horrible chemicals by a thick rubber diaper.
After a while we go through it and pick up any useful stuff (metal) to reuse it.
The system works.
When you put chemicals in a barrel it's suddenly the world's problem, but if someone were to come up with a way to store all the automotive exhaust in barrels he would be praised...
Even if the batteries polluted a lot, battery tech can be invented that is clean, and once the scale gets large enough that's a problem that can be solved.
Oil in the ground, like coal, is full of gunk because the ground is dirty. So continuing to use oil and coal means lots of new pollutants to clean up (either at the refineries or pumped into the air, or both).
So really, who cares if the batteries are recyclable? The faster we can get off oil the better, even if we do pollute in the process of doing so.
As a Prius owner, let me assuage your concerns. There are two batteries in the Prius: the main hybrid battery that provides the power to move the car and a standard 12-volt battery that is used for starting the vehicle, running the radio, and all of the other things you would expect from a normal car battery.
The former has no user-serviceable parts and can kill you if you're careless. The harder to access in this case the better. The latter is easily accessible from the trunk and can be used with standard jumper cables to start someone else's car or similar functions.
If the main hybrid battery needs replacement, you sure as hell don't want to do it yourself. That thing is 330 volts, 6.5 amps, and a hell of lot bigger/heavier than a standard car battery.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Sucks to be those thieves, mufflers are made out of stainless steel or rarely aluminum.
The people behind the beer helmet have released a new helmet with small turbines.
They predict they will be able to power the US for the next 1000 years from the steam released from liberal ears if Obama goes down in November.
Gee. Looks like the mods are really banking on the Obamessiah in November. I mean c'mon, normally their sense of humor is somewhat lacking but in this particular case they're more sensitive than silver fulminate. Maybe they're not looking forward to wearing a goofy looking helmet for the next four years.
I've got a first-gen Prius, bought in 2000. While I've had to replace the 12V standard car batter, the main hybrid battery's fine. As there are no Priuses substantially older than mine, I'd say that I'm a good example, as are the friends who have the exact same model let alone the later models.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
A link to just ONE municipality that is successfully mining their landfill?
I couldn't find any.
>our dependence on foreign petroleum IS
Amem to that. I live in the UK, and we depend on gas from Russia. We are working with Georgia on an alternative supply, however. Oh, whats happening in Georgia at the moment...
Relying on foreign fuel supplies is bad news. That, if nothing else, should push the drive towards lower energy consumption and alternative energy sources. It's going to get nasty out there where fuel sources get scarce. Thankfully I wont be around. I hope.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
Spoken like someone who's never smelled a weasel. They are horribly rank.
I dunno, let's ask Xenu!
Some people are only alive because it's against the law for me to hunt them down and kill them.
Your right.
What about my right? Is there something there? I don't see anything. Maybe it's on your right, which is really my left? Nope, nothing there either.
30 minutes? You have obviously never seen professional thieves at work. On topping a hill on 620 in Dallas once, I saw a van pull over in front of a car parked on the edge of the highway, as it backed up to the car the rear double doors opened and a cherry picker was extended on rails out of the back of it while several people leaped out of it carrying air tools and cutting torches etc and proceeded to strip the car. The van pulled away before I got to the bottom of the hill and the car was sitting on the pavement minus wheels, doors, hood, engine etc. This was maybe 30 seconds of time spent. No doubt they can work out a routine for hybrids. Of course for the small timer, catalytic converters seem to be one of the items of choice atm.
Faberge eggs?
Never underestimate (or overestimate) a meth addict.
i think you mean catalytic converters, mufflers are pretty much worthless. catylitic converters however are chock full of precious metals.
i have a roll of electrical tape.
http://www.communityrecycling.com/
Except that "who-knows-what" is Nickel Metal Hydride, and well known and understood. The batteries can also be recycled and used again as...
*drum roll* ...a new battery. Let me see, a battery maintained in the car in solid form or constant emissions of CO2 into the environment. Hmmm, which is preferable?
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
Wouldn't they rather steal your perfectly good multi-thousand dollar car and sell it for $2000 to feed their addictions?
Sucks to be those thieves, mufflers are made out of stainless steel or rarely aluminum.
Mufflers also contains platinum, a precious metal. Now, does the amount of platinum in mufflers make it worth while to to try to recover the platinum?
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I'm willing to wager that if you know your way around inside the Prius, there are components that are small, light, and in demand that offer more "bang for the buck" to a would-be thief. Where's the computer that controls the thing? How often do they go bad? Nevermind that. If you steal any given part often enough, you automaticly create a market for replacements.
1. Find easily stolen do-dad in car.
2. Sell them to shady dealers.
3. Shady dealers move "refurbished" units to unsuspecting victims.
4. Profit!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
...You have to burn down several thousand acres of the Amazon. It's science. Then after burning down the rain forest, the next step is to empty the battery chemicals into an humpback whale habitat (as the humpbacks are now totally addicted to NiMH that's what a few years of prius' does!) With those two totally benign and environmentally friendly steps complete next you place an entire litter of kittens back into the battery chambers and fill the annulus up with new acid.
All in all the procedure has negative carbon footprint due to the removal of somewhere around 8 or 10 heavy carbon producing kittens from the environment. I would even suggest repeating this process every 10,000 miles in a daily driver.
And batteries is plural.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I, however, would gladly spend at least 30 minutes tearing open a Prius just for fun.
Not a typewriter
Whereas a 5.7 litre V8 engine can be lifted out with one hand and just clips into place?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Some people say insulting someone without having any subject in the sentence are dumbasses
Not all life is cyber. Extra Income
I've heard that pretty soon we will have cars that run on love.
Which is a darn shame, because love is so very hard to produce.
What we really need is cars that run on boredom.
That's not what I asked (but thanks for the informative link, regardless!).
The guy specifically stated "After a while we go through it and pick up any useful stuff (metal) to reuse it." and "The system works.", and I called him on that. I've yet to hear of this being implemented.
Your
You're
Thankfully, those batteries are heavy, and located in hard to reach places. The batteries in the latest Prius weigh 45 Kgs and are located in the trunk of the car, partially underneath the back seat.
I don't see anyone spending a good 30 minutes tearing open the Prius with powertools, only to run around with a 100+lb weight. At that point, they might as well steal the entire car.
lol your a funny guy :)
You're right I was thinking of catalytic converters.
Mufflers generally are not made from things other than stainless steel, steel and aluminum.
However to recycle the metal content of mufflers cost less than it does to mine the ores and make new metal.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Easier and safer to steal fuel from a big truck or SUV
Also over time I expect far far more profitable than a mere 200$
This program was made possible by a grant from the Ultra-Humanite, and viewers like you.
He was just mixing up the Prius with the Batmobile.
Atomic batteries to power. Turbines to speed! Roger, Batman.
And hippies aren't?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
>I don't see anyone spending a good 30 minutes tearing open the Prius with powertools, only to run around with a 100+lb weight. At that point, they might as well steal the entire car.
Not to mention, since apparently they don't go kaput, so who TF would buy them?
Society has a pretty good metric for determining how much environmental impact something has, and for easy distribution of that information. It's called "price". The way it works is: materials and energy hurt the environment, and cost money. The more money the car costs, the more it hurts the environment.
Help prevent the slashdot effect; stop reading the articles.
Does each car have more than one? It wasn't clear from the context, since he called it "the Prius" and "the latest Prius" (seeming to refer to the whole model line) rather than "a late-model Prius," etc.
Posting AC since obviously a mod here has an axe to grind
His comment had absolutely nothing to do with corporations. You're simply trolling.
Nonsense - recycling fails when there's no financial incentive to do it, not because of "laziness". Haven't you ever seen a homeless person with a cart full of pop-cans? Why do you think that happens? I'll tell you why: because you can actually make a profit by selling aluminum cans. You'll never see a homeless guy carting off a load of used newspapers though, because there's no money to be made in recycling paper.
None of that has anything to do with CO2 either. Recycling doesn't reduce CO2 emissions.
You're right about the dependence on foreign oil, though, but there are many ways to deal with that. The current US Oil Shale reserves are larger than all the crude in the middle east, plus there are oil sands, and ultimately coal-to-oil conversion. You can ease your dependence on foreign fuels simply by growing your domestic production, just like we're doing in Canada now by massively increasing the exploitation of the Alberta oil-sands.
In the long run (VERY long run) we're going to need to switch to alternate fuels anyway, but in the meantime there's no reason to waste money on inferior products. The Prius is a piece of junk anyway, and you can get similar mileage out of a small gasoline (or better yet, diesel) powered car. I'll stick to my nice big Dodge, thanks :)
I think you should be more worried about anti-hybrid nujobs who will completely destroy your car because they think you are "too smug".
I think it's positive that you're trying to see the whole picture instead of just the point emissions. How the materials will be recycled is a good start.
You should probably also try to find out the total manufacturing footprint, including how the materials are produced and how far they travel. For instance, if materials are mined in Canada, manufactured in China, assembled in Japan and sold in America, that constitutes a larger total footprint over the life of the vehicle than vehicles manufactured from more local materials.
If it's an electric car, how is electricity produced in your area? Hydro, coal, natural gas, renewable? What is the environmental impact of the electricity you're using? If hydro, what impact to river ecosystems? If coal, what of emissions? Don't forget to take transmission losses into account.
If a hybrid, you should look at what kind of driving you do. Hybrids have a clear advantage in stop-and-go traffic, but lose advantage at high speed over significant time. If most of your driving is on unobstructed freeway, you might consider a small conventional car instead.
What happens when the batteries are starting to go, but aren't yet at the point where you need to replace them? It seems like the engine would have to run longer, or start and stop more often, which probably affects gas mileage. So, over time, the in-town mileage of your hybrid will probably drop. How much I can't say, it depends on the design.
Good luck. The results might make interesting reading.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
The batteries being used now are not an environmental concern (Cadmium containing batteries were a problem due to the heavy metal Cadmium) and rest assured that many environmentally concerned people often don't know more than you on these specifics. Chemicals like nickel hydride can be very easily reprocessed; almost never is anything put away in drums. As has already been posted, large car companies are being regulated and are expected to provide means for collection and reprocessing. While hybrid and electric cars are just now efficient enough to be an option, they are certainly not a threat to the environment because of their batteries.
...... and idiots rule the world....
Good point, so where do you park?
Failure to follow this advice may result in non-deterministic behavior.
I've never seen someone excited about their vehicle being hard to service before.
That's something that pissed me off about my 2000 car. I used to change oil and filters and repair my own vehicles. But when I wanted to change oil in the new car, this was in 2001, the repair manual for the car said specialized tools were needed to remove the plug and filter. I could see paying $10 for the filter remover but when I checked on the price of this new one it was a lot more than that. So was the tool for the plug, and it only had the one use. Heck, every tool I used to rebuild engines, other than the oil filter tool, in older vehicles had more than one use. There was only one thing I couldn't do myself, I had to take my engine block to a machine shop to have the cylinders bored out.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Start worrying... http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/News/articleId=131741
About a year ago, I saw an article in Toronto's Globe & Mail newspaper (sorry, no link) that said that the greenhouse gasses emitted in sourcing all the parts to make a Prius were huge--around 2x as much as that of a Chevy Tahoe, which is around ~1.5x the mass! So, pound-for-pound, a Prius requires ~3x the amount of greenhouse gases to produce than a Tahoe...
The problem is that Toyota sources the Prius' parts just like it would for any other car--cost + shipping wins. Throw in the fact that bits & pieces come from all over the world (I believe 13 countries), and I question why nobody looks into this. So, while it may be more environmentally friendly to make a specific part at the plant across the state, it's still cheaper to buy it from a plant halfway across the world that probably doesn't follow stringent environmental standards & has cheap labor, then ship the whole thing to reliably meet JIT (just-in-time) manufacturing requirements. There's no environmental concern here, just maximizing profit...
And therein lies the problem with hybrid cars, CFLs, etc. None of the arm-chair environmentalists really look at what it takes to manufacture a complex product that pollutes less in usage...
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
I've found a perfect solution: make the car use tree-huggers as fuel ;-)
Table-ized A.I.
Most of the vehicles have a single battery *pack*. Within that pack are somewhere around two hundred individual NiMH cells* which are each about the size of a D-cell battery. So you could break open the pack and steal the individual batteries, but that would probably entail more effort than just hauling the pack around (the pack contains things like the battery cooling and battery control computer. And you thought batteries were simple...
* Sometimes the cells are bundled together like in RC vehicle packs, so you can't actually get at the individual cells without even more effort.
"There are a dozen opinions on a matter until you know the truth. Then there is only one." - CS Lewis (paraprhase)
the entire car!!!
I'd rather lug around a 45kg battery pack than a 1.2tonne car, much better for your back.
-- Sex is the antonym of pringles. Once you pop it's time to stop.
I'm thinking about buying a Honda Civic Hybrid. Apparently the Honda's are quite nice. And there's on feature I like. If the battery pack is dead the car will still run, unlike the Prius where when your battery dies you're SOL.
But with your thoughts in mind the first thing I plan to do when I get the car is remove all Hybrid badging.
"The same tree-huggers telling me gasoline is bad are telling me that batteries are bad too."
Yes; and anything *else* that even remotely hints of technology will automatically be bad as well, to those fruitcakes.
Trust me; the only thing the tree-huggers will be satisfied with is you squatting naked on a tree branch, listening to the wolves singing in the night.
Regards;
Actually it sucks to be the car owner. The thief has only invested a little time and can easily write it off. The car owner now has $100 in repairs (if he's lucky, that's all the thief broke). Thieves don't seem to mind bashing out a $200 window to get a handful of dimes and pennies in the ashtray.
"So now we'll have to worry about people tearing open the backs of our cars to remove our _perfectly good, multi-thousand-dollar_ battery packs to sell them for $200 to feed their addictions (heroin, alcohol, food, gasoline, etc.)."
You have to worry about catalytic converter thieves, wheel thieves, and "complete vehicle" thieves with any modern car. If you want to deter car theft, make it more difficult to steal them, and punish car thieves harshly.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Twice I have had returned to a partially open hood. Neither time was anything missing, and neither time did the miscreant try to get into the trunk to take the battery. My trunk was broken into one, but there was no attempt to find or remove the battery.
Possibly as more people put batteries in trunk drug users, et al, will become more efficient at removing them from that location. At this point it appears that trunk batteries are safer. So why don't more batteries reside in the trunk? It is an engineering problem that the average car maker does not feel like solving. I am surprised that mercedes, who goes to so much trouble to isolate the battery from the rest of the engine, does not move the battery to the back. Perhaps there is some power limit for a sealed battery.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I believe this should be modded "funny" as it is clearly a joke. If you have modded this informative in earnest, please contact me because I have a bridge to sell you. . .
I guess you don't know how easy it is to remove components when damage is not a concern.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Tires+wheels?
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Given the weight of even a LiPo battery of the capacity required to push a car any appreciable distance, your smack junkie would have collapsed and be writhing around in withdrawal 50 yards away, slumped over probably a hundredweight of lithium polymer power source. Make it lead/acid or NiMH instead and you're talking serious weight. Would be easier just to steal the entire car with a pickup truck and sell for scrap. Or just nick the tyres and leave it on bricks.
09F9 1102 9D74 E35B D841 56C5 6356 88C0
I did.
mufflers are pretty much worthless
They're worth more than that. It takes less energy and money to recycle the metal than it does to mine ore and refine it to make new metal.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I wouldn't mind my car sounds good without a muffler, I'm just too lazy to remove the hangers to take the muffler down. If the thief wants to give me a free upgrade that i wanted to do myself anyway so be it. now if he wanted to steam my valuable catalyitic converter that would be annoying. While mine is hollow the clamps holding it to the rest of the exhaust system are very nice and aint cheap.
Considering that, the most likely scenario is for the thief to steal the car, drive it to a "chop shop" that already specializes in rapid disassembly and dissemination of auto parts, pull out the batteries and anything else handy they can get their hands on like the cat, and then dump it somewhere.
So you find your shiny new hybrid a few days later abandoned on a sidestreet in the bad end of town, light four tires, a cat, stereo, AND a battery pack.
The battery pack in that case would fetch more than the entire rest of the loot, making a hybrid a MUCH juicier target for such thiefs. 110% effort for 240% the reward. Thieves are stupid, but that math they understand.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Check out the Prius Emergency Response Guide for some information on some pieces that can hurt you.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Toyota. They give you $200. Hence the title of the post.
GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation.
The original question had to do with the real benefit of these cars. We got off to the wrong start with the whole stupid idea of stealing them. Whatever!!! What about the polution it takes to generate the electricity (public power plants) to charge the cars. Assuming the person isn't using their own power generation, how much more electricity will we need to power a country of these cars and what will the pollution cost be. I remember hearing something once about the washing of diapers causing more environmental problems that disposable too.
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Because it's a lot easier to pull apart half a car for a hundred pound battery array than just stealing your audio system, which would reap a similar (if not greater) bounty within minutes.
Most diesel engines can run on biodiesel though Rudolph Diesel, the designer of the diesel engine, designed it to run off of vegetable oil. While it takes more than just vegetable oil to make diesel, lye has to be added and mixed in, what's left after the fuel is removed can be used elsewhere.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Cadmium is a lot nastier which is why you don't see it in these batteries.
unless you want to know the difference between driving cars and riding cycles.
Here's another difference.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The only time they're predictable is straight after you've shot 'em.
An electric car does not even need a transmission. Could be a reason why the US auto industry has no plans for a 100% electric vehicle for over 10 years
GM is hoping to put on the market the Chevy Volt in 2010. On the Toyota and Hinda hybrids, which runs off of the gas engine, the batteries supply an assist for acceleration. The Volt though runs off of the batteries, the gas engine recharges the batteries.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Slightly off topic but I have read that traditional lead acid batteries are 96% recyclable. It sounds like battery technology is pretty clean provided people take the trouble to recycle vs dumping in landfill.
From http://www.batteryworld.com.au/asp/index.asp?pgid=11219&cid=5901&id=428:
"Lead Acid Batteries are recoverable to 96% and the materials extracted are used in remanufacturing of batteries, plastic moulding applications and the acid is neutralised and discharged."
Don't confuse battery warranty life with operational battery life, by the way.
Some days ago I read in a magazine a reader sent in a question to the editor about warranties on PV panels, how long they are and how does the manufacturer decide. I don't recall exactly how it was put but it was determined something like this, the warranties will be not more than 80% of the expected life of them. If it's determined their life span is 30 years, generating 80% of the rated charge, the warranty will be set to 20 or 25 years. So the operational life can be considerably more than the warranty period.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I was told recently that it is more enviormentally friendly to purchase a hummer than a prius because of the nickel content used in creating the car. Even long term damage in consideration. I can't imagine that this applies when they are compared as far as long term. but in actually creating the car, does the prius actually do more damage to the enviorment than any other car?
for really realz? that platinum is highly toxic once it's been driven around for a while.
One has to wonder why this is, as other than the battery pack and the electric drive motor, a Prius doesn't contain much that you won't find in gasoline powered cars. Is it that this is the norm for Toyota, a manufacturer that sells the Prius world-wide, versus GM's Tahoe which is pretty much only sold in North America? I would like to see some more comparisons before concluding that the Prius (and other hybrids) really consume that much more energy to make than other cars on the road.
I have a spare 350SBC (5.7L) in my back yard that I just picked up for $75. We could have pulled it out of the donor truck in about 20 minutes, but I wanted the wiring harness, so it took an hour.
I pumped the hoist with one hand...
After having my Pathfinder engine replaced with a book shop time of 16 hours, I am loving my SBC!!!
A couple of informative sites on battery recycling and the real good it can do as opposed to stuffing them in the landfill... http://www.batteryrecycling.com/Battery+Recycling+Process http://earth911.org/blog/2007/07/05/how-to-recycle-and-properly-dispose-of-batteries/
Toyota has had a total vehicle recycle plan since the Prius was first brought to the US.
The HV battery is supposed to be removed and returned to Toyota via UPS.
All wiring harnesses have a "pull loop" to aid in the easy removal of wiring.
All plastic parts are appropriately marked to aid in proper recycling.
However, in real life, cars most often wind up in a scrap yard where usable parts are resold and the remainder is seldom properly recycled.
Sigh...
On Prius #3 with 91K on the clock
Bp
That is all, this isn't funny.
All your database are belong to U.S.
also a battery is a collection of cells so it is also plural
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
I knew a fellow who had come outside only to find 2 folks breaking into his car. He chased them and they hit him with a maglight. Of course, I'm a dick and would have managed that anyway; I'm trained to disarm people attacking me with knives, and the failure mode is I might get a painful cut on the arm but I guess I just have to snap your elbow in two instead. I told him to go learn to defend himself but he insists since he took track and field he can just turn and run if it gets bad... I do that too but....
Support my political activism on Patreon.
Hydroelectric power requires destroying ecosystems? All of the time? News to me.
Hydroelectric does destroy ecosystems, but they don't have to. The Three Gorges Dam in China will flood a lot of land. And to build it the Chinese are forcibly relocating millions of people. With the forests drowned, the rotting trees will produce methane, a greenhouse gas more than 20 tymes more potent than CO2. On top of that studies have shown that dams don't bring all the benefits they were sold as providing. The Epupa Damin Namibia is a good case study on this. The Tucuruí Dam in the Brazilian Amazon shows some things that can go wrong. In the US the Colorado River is an excellent case on the effects of dams. Whereas the river used to empty out into the Gulf of California or Sea of Cortez the water no longer reaches there. Instead dams were built along it to supply water to Nevada and Southern California, desert areas. Unfortunately lakes created by the dams, such as Lake Powell, allow more water to evaporate than what would without those dams. Larger surface areas allow more evaporation.
Sometime ago there was an article posted on /. about a different method of harnessing the power of rivers. Instead of constructing dams something like egg beaters on a boom would be lowered into the river, which would then spin driving a generator. I wonder what's happening with that.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Look for a car that uses diesel and get a stick shift. I'm not sure the mileage on a Volkswagon Jetta, but I've heard 42-45 city and 60ish highway.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
I used to own a car with a muffler bearing. Actually more like a bushing. BMW 2002tii. Sweet and quiet. Also a sleeper, the chrome said 1502, embarrassment to all those crumby Opels, and VW GTIs. That was when I lived next to the autobahn and it was legal to drive with both feet down.
All your database are belong to U.S.
somehow I suspect that those batteries and the cells and other goodies have plenty of well recorded serial and lot numbers that make them less palatable for thieves.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
>>I am surprised that mercedes, who goes to so much trouble to isolate the battery from the rest of the engine, does not move the battery to the back
It's a flying object upon impact, so I don't think they want battery fluid in the front passenger compartments from a rear end crash ( might be acceptable in a frontal crash )
if you see me, smile and say hello.
That's a good one, I'm sure you would say the same thing about the republicans (drill baby, drill!, and who do you work for? Oh that's right the oil companies). and to a lesser extent the democrats if only we could get someone that actually can read the constitution.
I did not see anyone mention it here, but the good old lead-acid battery is NOT as environmentally unfriendly as many would have us believe.
ALL of the materials in a modern lead-acid battery, except for some spacers or baffles especially in older batteries, can be recycled into new batteries. When done properly there is very little waste, and therefore very little pollution.
Granted (especially if they are not deep-cycle models) they do not have the energy density of NiMH or Lithium, but they are also relatively inexpensive.
Lead-acid batteries become environmentally unfriendly only when they are discarded instead of recycled, or when they leak due to physical damage.
...is how much more environmentally damaging *creating* the batteries is. According to this, and this, the damage caused is greater than that of a Hummer.
How this could happen is pretty simple, really. While internal combustion is inherently polluting, it's been one of the most developed products for the last one hundred years, and so the production processes are super streamlined. Battery and hybrid technology is new, and so it has a few kinks still to be worked out.
People need to be careful about jumping on this 'green' bandwagon without thinking, because there's a lot of stuff out there designed to take advantage of the near-maniacal devotion to curbing our carbon emissions, even though there's no way to conclusively prove that our output (which is 3% of total output, rotting vegetation contributing to the vast, vast majority) is actually doing anything at all.
Believe what you will, but please do investigate both sides of the matter first, and remember that it's not what you drive, it's HOW you drive.
so....i doubt that in particular is the reason...
also, if a battery is going to pass through the rear seat (wouldnt such force shatter it upon hitting the dividing seat/wall?) and into the interior, i think you're fucked anyway.
although, there is nowhere dangerous to go since it's essentially above the (and behind a bit) wheel...
- I'd prefer not to.
After more thought, what I remember is that when I bought the car, the muffler bearing had been welded together. A very strange repair was required.
Interesting article on businessweek.com. Ford is selling 65mpg cars in Europe, but not the US.
"Americans see hybrids as the darling," says Global Insight auto analyst Philip Gott, "and diesel as old-tech."
According to the article, the reason diesel fuel is more expensive in the US: "Taxes aimed at commercial trucks mean diesel costs anywhere from 40 cents to $1 more per gallon than gasoline."
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm?ch...
Actually recycling does reduce CO2 emissions depending what's being recycled. It takes more energy, and water, to produce something from virgin stock than recycling does. Recycled glass only uses 25% of the energy that virgin glass does. And most of that energy comes from coal fired power plants in the US. What I don't like is how many places that require recycling charge people to recycle. When I was young I used to go out and clean litter from roads and what not. I'd then separate different recyclables and turn them into a recycling center and get paid. Now property owners have to pay curbside pickup.
Should there be a Law?
Even after revising the 1985-2007 mpg estimates to make them comparable to the new 2008 mpg estimates, the 1989 Honda CRX-HF is rated at 41 city and 50 highway mpg.
http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/noframes/5263.shtml
After 20 years of technological innovation, and four years of sky-rocketing fuel costs, shouldn't a new car model get at least 41/50 mpg before that car is considered to be ecologically friendly? Yet greencar.com features the 2008 Nissan Rouge (22 city/27 highway mpg) as a "Top 2008 Fuel Economy Faves." The 2008 Nissan Rouge also has a sticker price of $19,250.
http://www.greencar.com/features/fuel-economy/
Seems to me that true economy cars been pulled from the market, and replaces with the new hybrids. Major car manufacturers want us to think that 30+ mpg is something miraculous, and requires an expensive, heavy, complicated, hard-to-maintain, hybrid.
In my opinion there is more to ecological friendliness than just mpg (although the present line-up fails at even that). Hybrids have huge batteries, and disposing of those batteries is never ecologically friendly. Then there is the ecological impact of manufacturing and shipping these huge, heavy, vehicles. Furthermore, recent road tests carried out by Auto Express show that hybrids often have worse CO2 emissions than standard autos.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3958376.ece
To have a real impact on fuel consumption, and emissions, new vehicles need to be affordable. Hybrids are about the most expensive vehicles on the market. How can hybrids have a positive effect of the environment, if practically nobody can afford the beasts? Even if you can afford the steep sticker price, what about the cost of maintenance? Hybrids have two engines, and use a complicated system to charge their huge batteries. I hate to even think about the cost of maintenance and repair.
It used to be common that most fuel efficient cars also had the lowest sticker price, and lowest maintenance costs. The cars where simply smaller, lighter, and required more manual operations. With smaller, cheaper, parts, and a less complicated design, the cars were cheaper to maintain. When I bought my 1992 Ford Festiva, the 30/37 mpg rating was the least of my criteria, I was also concerned with sticker price, and maintenance costs.
Why can't we do as well now, as we did 16 to 35 years ago?
1973 Honda Civic rated 35/40 mpg
1986 VW Golf Diesel rated 31/40 mpg *
1989 Geo Metro rated 43/51 mpg
1989 Honda CRX-HF rated 41/50 mpg
1992 Ford Festiva rated 30/37 mpg
* I got over 50mpg driving from Florida to New Jersey, while running the air conditioner.
Related:
57 mpg? That's so 20 years ago
Want to drive a cheap car that gets eye-popping mileage? In 1987 you could - and it wasn't even a hybrid.
http://money.cnn.com/2007/12/17/autos/honda_civic_hf/index.htm
Efficiency? Think Racing Cars, Not Hybridso
A renowned racing car designer has said that car manufacturers should be looking at making cars lighter to improve efficiency, rather than adding complex drive trains.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7387432.stm
Hot Cars Best Gas Milage
Welcome to hi-mpg.org. We are automotive enthusiasts and travel aficionados who also love the environment. We appreciate both form and function, all while striving to leave future generations a legacy of clean air, scenic grandeur and a continuum of natural resources. In addition: the freedom to drive.
http://hi-mpg.org/best-cars-with-high-gas-mileage.phtml
"Don't put it past them to steal the batter packs some time in the future as well."
Apparently you live in a sheltered area, because thieving dirtballs have been stealing car batteries for decades.
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
It's collective -- it refers to a group of things like "flock" or "bunch". But it's not plural -- batteries is plural.
"also a battery is a collection of cells so it is also plural"
While you are technically correct, common usage of "battery" is widely considered singular.
Now that's a pretty piss poor assumpion, considering these vehicles are hybrids. Don't you think?
FRA: STFU GTFO
Did you install a SBC in your Pathfinder?
If so, got any links to info and photos?
I was thinking of installing one in my '90 Hardbody 4x4 short bed.
Mufflers don't weigh hundreds of pounds. Now, on the other hand, chop-shopping a hybrid may become an option.
As for collision safety, well, that wasn't too much of a concern with the VW either. :)
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
Nano-titanate technology, which has recently been developed by Altair-nano, is all kinds of better then other developed battery technologies. These batteries utilize a nano-titanate material which doesn't exhibit the kind of molecular level stress that other rechargeable batteries exhibit. This in turn essentially eliminates the risk of thermal runaway, and this in turn provides pretty significant features - it lasts far longer then most known rechargeable battery types - while being recharged on a regular basis (research suggests 20 years or more - a big leap over Lithium Ion). A full recharge takes less then 8 minutes - in fact, 80% can be achieved in the first minute alone (verified in established prototypes). And also, due to the molecular stability of the material involved, temperature variation (within an earthly scope) is quite literally reduced to a non-issue.
The lightning GT, a UK electric sports car, as well as Phoenix motorcars, which will have models available next year, both already have these battery types incorporated into their designs.
From your article:
Add to this the success of the Toyota Prius, and you can see why only 3 percent of cars in the U.S. use diesel. "Americans see hybrids as the darling," says Global Insight auto analyst Philip Gott, "and diesel as old-tech."
I own an 07 Prius. The deciding factor? MPG. If something out there had better MPG, I'd have bought that instead.
The people buying high MPG cars aren't idiots. They'll buy whatever is good. Leave it to Ford to build something as awesome as the Fiesta and not market it in America thinking we're too stupid to understand it.
They deserve what's going to happen to them. What morons.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Some might be, but most are pretty clean these days. 21st century hippies are quite interesting actually - there seems to be a high percentage of computer geeks amongst them also. My brother is basically a hippy (qualified by the fact that he lived in a hand-painted bedford van for several years, smokes a fair bit of pot, has long hair and is very ecologically minded), and he's also an excellent graphic artist, reasonable coder, and excellent with home-brew electronics. He also definitely never smells bad.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
No, no, no... he was talking about your right to do something... not sure what, but it might be about your right to recycle hybrid batteries.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Well, of course, you get lithium from recycling hydrogen bombs!
Ever since the second hydrogen bomb test, where instead of liquid deuterium ("wet bomb") they tried lithium ("dry bomb"), which gave 15 megatons yield instead of 5 MT planned ("Ooops!"), it's been known that you don't have to use the special lithium-6 isotope to "breed" hydrogen isotopes; you can use regular ol' lithium, and it'll work just fine, and your T+T reactions will *really* light things up.
Of course, this was a huge problem at the time.
Google "Castle Bravo" for some great screen backgrounds of this one. It's the largest test the United States ever did, and absolutely done by accident; someone didn't measure the cross section of regular lithium for neautrons correctly.
Hmm, I do wonder about the total recycle loop. Of course with Russia driving tanks into Georgia the rate of stripping down those ol' sealed secondaries may slow down...
-- thanks,
Dave Small
p.s. Sarcasm? Me?
While I see a lot of discussion about other types of batteries, there is little here about lead-acid batteries. Something should be said for them.
Lead-Acid car batteries are one of the most magnificent stories in all of recycling.
Engineers working without a lot of credit have created a recycle that is the envy of nearly all recycle operations -- and almost no one knows about it!
Quoting Wikipedia on the rates 7 years ago, "Lead-acid battery recycling is one of the most successful recycling programs in the world. In the United States 97% of all battery lead was recycled between 1997 and 2001."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead-acid_batteries#Environmental_concerns
To give you an idea how important this is, the EPA reports that 100 million lead-acid batteries were manufactured last year in the United States. http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/battery.htm
Very little PR, no news articles, just some very solid people doing planning, engineering what had to be done, implementing the equipment, and getting the bugs out of the system that is now running smoothly today.
Well done!
-- thanks,
Dave Small
Really? I mean I know this is /. but if you can't lift 100lbs without serious injury you've let yourself go a bit too far..
You use a forklift every time you install a UPS in a rack?
Try lifting a 400 lb Hammond Organ up a 2 story narrow icy stairs with one person below and one person above.. Now that's worth filming (too bad we didn't have a video camera!)
Ayn Rand would *never* use a collective noun.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
I don't see anyone spending a good 30 minutes tearing open the Prius with powertools, only to run around with a 100+lb weight. At that point, they might as well steal the entire car.
You're not the first one to err in assuming thieves are as smart as you.
My mom likes to tell me of how her father (my grandfather) used to weigh down the bed of his pickup truck with two big barrels of sand to make it easier to drive. Then, one day he had to park in downtown Houston and left his pickup alone for supposedly about ten minutes and when he came back, some guys had stolen two very large very heavy completely worthless barrels of sand. They'd have made out better with a hybrid battery (even if you ignore it being technology that won't be around for decades).
Ah well, at least Ford makes thieves' lives easier by installing special compartments to make sure thieves can see your iPod (item 4) when they pass by your car. Morons.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
It is the dread of every car owner, you come back to your car only to see the hood open, with fear in your heart you circle your strikken vehicle only to see what you suspected, yet another druggie has made of with your engine, to hock it on some streetcorner for a couple of bucks.
Come on, these things weigh a ton, don't believe me? Take out the battery of your laptop and weigh it.
There is another problem, where is the market? Car radios were stolen because they were small and people were willing to buy a cheap stolen radio they would then readily slide in to their radioless car. But any hybrid car is going to be coming with batteries from the factory.
Yes, the replacement market exist but I worry about that when you see people stealing windshields, doors, tiers etc etc. All parts there is a large market for as they need constant replacement but are far to big and low profit to make sense for a crook.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I lack the experience as a nudist to have build callasses on my behind, so I doubt I'll be making them happy any time soon :)
I think it's more like replacing your car's fuel tank.
Extreme Programming - Redundant Array of Inexpensive Developers
I think it's more like replacing your car's fuel tank.
In terms of expense, it's definitely more like replacing the engine. Think ~$10,000 if you ever need to do it.
Of course, it's hard to see why you ever would. A hybrid is not like a battery electric; it uses the same sort of battery technology that's specced to last (typically) 10,000 deep charge-discharge cycles. But you're unlikely to ever see more than 50% discharge on a hybrid's battery pack (probably not even that), so you'll get a lot more cycles. 20,000 or more, I would guess. That equates to more than 200,000 miles with anything like a normal usage pattern. If you're doing long journeys it's probably more like 400,000 miles.
I wrote: "specced to last (typically) 10,000 deep charge-discharge cycles"
Err... I meant 1,000. The rest of the figures remain unchanged.
Interesting article on businessweek.com. Ford is selling 65mpg cars in Europe, but not the US.
Well, sure. I don't see a 65mpg diesel as a particular achievement, though. Not in a small car. I mean, I get 40+ out of my Citroen XM, which is (a) over 10 years old and (b) probably weighs about 3 times what a Fiesta does.
Don't forget, diesel has a higher energy density than petrol, so you can't compare them gallon-for-gallon.
As 50% of electricity in the U.S. is generated by coal, then purely electric cars are actually 50% fueled by coal... not necessarily a good thing environmentally. Hybrids can recharge batteries from the burning of gasoline or diesel. One good thing about coal though is that the pollutants are cast downwind to other states rather than in the local atmosphere.
on the other hand, junkies do not have a reputation of being overly professional ... and i dont think you need to worry about organised gangs stealing the batteries to ship them of to third world countries, since the hybrids will be very scarce in those parts ....
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
here is a working example of a car with truly clean, recyclable batteries:
www.solartaxi.com
The Prius is being used very successfully as a Taxi in Australia. I very much doubt that a hummer would be as profitable, friendly to the environment or as manoeuvrable in city traffic conditions. Here is a test you can conduct in the comfort of your own home (if you have an enclosed car garaging area). Just close all the doors and start your hummer. One less oil industry supporter... bummer ;-)
DIDO, I agree 100% with this I use to have a 85 handa civic and got 44-48mpg on the hiway , so the auto manufactures, sold themselves to the oil companies , besides, I was a auto mechanic, then I went into electronic engneering now a network eng. I thing some of use know whats going on I think the govement & oil & car compines are all hosing us .... they claim emissions standerds and adding weight for safty , this is BS.. NJ has on of the most strickest standerd for emissions on cars and my 85 honda got great mpg . shure weight but addin 300lbs to a car does not drop your mpg 10-20mpg ? duh ... I AM SO TIRED OF BEING HOSED ..... PEPOLE WAKE UP !!!
...when they completely ignore the wound and lunge at you like they would have done anyway.
My father works as a police officer and I've worked private security, and we've both seen addicts make fairly convincing cases for the strength and resilience of the human body.
And for anyone who is going to reply with comments about headshots: Yes, they have a great deal more 'stopping power', but they're much harder to do in real life, even at close range and a miss is going to be far more dangerous as it may result in a far more serious wound to bystanders.
My understanding that making the nimh batteries
is very bad to the environment. Someplace in Canada where they are made has no vegatation, etc.
Buy a bicycle if you want to sleep.
the environmental problems of gasoline engines and old batteries are not really comparable. one involves the recycling and treatment of toxic chemicals, something that can, to an extent, be shelved for a later date (a year or two in storage for a battery is probably not an issue as we develop better and better means of recycling). the problems of global warming aren't as easily put off. Based on the scientific consesus, this is a problem which as to be addressed now.
the time-sensitivity of the issues makes a big difference.
buy a bicycle??? Made from fairy dust or from metals mined from the earth and smelted in huge factories across the world and transported in massive diesel liners and painted with chemicals made from some of the foulest substances known to man. Man you are a disaster. WALK. No impact then. Your morals are no different to the person that uses a car for convenience. Hipocrite.
"The same tree-huggers telling me gasoline is bad are telling me that batteries are bad too."
In that case, your choice is either (1) walk or bike everywhere or (2) find a new set of people to listen to.
If they are strongmen competitors and have to get their next fix of 'roids, they might
What is the environmental impact to create these batteries in the first place? Small batteries are one thing but judging from the thread,these are whoppers.
One answer to your question about why to put the battery in the trunk is weight balance. Most "sports cars" benefit greatly from a 50/50 weight distribution. Now your definition of a sports car, hence the quotes, may be different, but my Miata had one in the back and was renowned for its perfect weight distribution and handling. My Mini Cooper S also has its battery in the trunk, though it is somewhat less successful at achieving that perfect balance. That may explain why BMW also does it.
Anyway, that is one answer. The battery in the trunk is somewhat less efficient, since you have to run very long cabling from the trunk to the engine/fuse box up front.
Back in the mid 80s we used to relocate the battery to the trunk to remove some weight from the front tires on our racing cars. It was a big job but relocating 40 lbs of battery to the trunk made a huge difference when setting up a car. It could mean a few tenths of a second on a 1 minute laptime, a big deal.
This post brought to you by your friendly neighborhood MBA.
If you try it without knowing what you're doing, it's quite likely you'll briefly do A LOT of twitching, and then you'll be doing nothing but beginning the process of rigor mortis.
Just stick to stealing the tires, okay?
Beside, the companies could have an ID on their battery and know to whom it had been sold. If the ID has been tampered with they won't pay for the batteries (but will still recycle them) and if not, they have to validate it's the correct owner..
Easy solution ;)
The battery in E36 BMW convertibles is a special, extra heavy one in the trunk. It's supposed to help as a harmonic dampener, I guess due to the reduced structural rigidity from having the top cut off.
All righty then ... where do you park?
If it's made out of magnesium and in a Japanese car yes it can :D
That's what treehuggers *do*. They don't carefully analyze the impact on others or offer any alternative solutions; they just criticize things they think are bad, as well as the people they consider responsible. For society, the environment, their own point of view etc. Their favorite justification is to "call attention" to these things. Too bad they spend so much time protesting in the street; if they spent that time and energy in the library instead, they could have solved many of the world's most vexing problems by now. While I'm sure they are sincere and they mean well, I nonetheless have made it my personal mission to staunchly ignore said treehuggers until they collectively decide to do something constructive and helpful with their copious free time.
Zooperman
100 pounds isn't much when it's a hot chick naked in your arms or a small compact box. But make it 5000 cubic inches and almost bigger than your arms can reach, and it seems like it's 200.
I was thinking of buying a gas or diesel powered automobile, but I heard that they have batteries that contain lead and sulfuric acid. They have to be replaced frequently over the lifetime of a car, and if the batteries are improperly cared for, they can explode. This sounds like an environmental disaster to me. Can anyone explain the entire lifecycle of car batteries before I make the leap and purchase a car?
What's with all the anti-hybrid sentiment on Slashdot lately? I followed the comments to this article last Thursday, and there are a surprising number of people who go out of their way to make up reasons not to get better gas mileage. Hybrids are some of the geekiest and most technologically advanced cars on the road.
I'm all for questioning the environmental impact of manufacturing, but this topic really reads like a troll. Next week, are we going to see "I heard that Priuses kill blind people..."?
I've had a Civic Hybrid since 2002. While it is technically true that the larger battery can die and you can still operate the car, it is also true that the normal 12 volt battery in the car can die, and the car won't start. I had my 12 volt battery die this past February and it was annoying that the larger battery wouldn't start the car.
It is probably a lot more likely that the normal 12 volt battery will die anyway.
I think that the original question was about battery recycling - although I must say this has been very fun to read...in any case, you can visit the people who actually recycle the batteries to find out more. www.rawmaterials.com - that should help you decide if you feel that a hybrid would be better than a gasoline car. One battery every years as opposed to 1 tank of gas a week, I think the environmental footprint speaks for itself. Although I am not in a financial position to purchase one of these lovely hybrid vehicles, I certainly will as soon as I can afford to. Now, if we could just convince the car makers to start running the cars or renewable fuel sources, this would eliminate the need for the arguement in the first place.
I don't know about calling the life of the vehicle 200k. I've got a Toyota Sienna with 305k on it and its still going strong. I'm also toying with picking up a hybrid, and the battery replacement is one thing that has me scratching my head a bit.
I could be wrong, but I don't think the battery pack for a Camry or Prius costs anywhere near 10,000 dollars.
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
You're under the mistaken impression that wacko environmentalists like any alternative energy or green technology. What they really want is a decrease in energy production and consumption of evil rich countries. In their socialist minds, every country should be equally poor, and the Achilles heel of productive, prosperous countries is energy.
I am surprised that mercedes, who goes to so much trouble to isolate the battery from the rest of the engine, does not move the battery to the back. Perhaps there is some power limit for a sealed battery.
Actually, Mercedes does make cars with batteries in the trunk - my friend's 2006 E350 is one example. We had to take a look at the owner's manual to figure out how to jump start the thing.
WWARD?
Think ~$10,000 if you ever need to do it.
Your pricing is off a bit for a typical engine replacement. I've replaced the engine in my Nissan Sentra with a used engine from a junk yard for $350, fluids & gaskets, and my own labor bringing the total cost to about $400. Now not everyone will go that approach so if you look at rebuilt engines, the cost goes to about $1200-$4000 for the engine and a couple hours of labor (some vehicles like vans may require a bit more time with limited access). Your probably looking at $4000-$6000 for a typical replacement.
Mij
I could be wrong, but I don't think the battery pack for a Camry or Prius costs anywhere near 10,000 dollars.
You're right. Initial figures place them around $12-15k plus labour. If they're in fact $10k at this point in time it means economy of scale is finally taking effect.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
A guy I know works at a Volvo dealership. He said they got ahold of a Honda Insight and found out the batteries were shot. Apparently the book value on the car was the same as the price to replace the batteries.
I was kind of surprised that they weren't warrantied (the current trend seems to be for manufacturers to "mask" battery issues by offering warranties not seen on other components), but I didn't argue the point since these guys know their business.
The end result was that the car was really only worthwhile to someone willing to invest in the batteries, which made me wonder if we're going to see in 10 years or whatever a bunch of hybrids with no real economic value because their battery systems are shot, even though the vehicle itself (were it an ordinary gas car) would have value.
So I talked to a Toyota executive at a recent car show where he mentioned a very interesting fact: all Toyota hybrid batteries are sent back to Japan for recycling. Last time I checked Japan was running our of room on their island but apparently they want our waste back.
This also brings on an interesting point... how environmentally friendly is shipping the car here on a big oil guzzling cargo ship, and then sending the batteries back on the same ship. I'm assuming just sending the batteries back will consume more oil than you could ever save by driving a hybrid.
Anonymous Coward.
In EU models of the Mini Cooper, especially the Cooper D, you get many of the features of the Hybrid with out the battery:
1. Regenerative breaking (using the alternator to charge the battery)
2. Stop/Start engine (stop the engine at intersections, then, using the energy recovered from breaking, start it back up on demand)
3. Awesome milage
Of course, the USA model doesn't have these features. I'll leave you to speculate why.
Mercedes Benz does often put the battery in the trunk or under the rear seat.
I would (seriously, cause i own a hybrid :)) like to see your sources: a few minutes of googling shows people claiming anywhere from 2-6k, maybe that's not counting labor, but considering this isn't a rip-the-transmission-out type of job I don't see how the difference is coming from labor costs...
If you can't see the value in jet powered ants you should turn in your nerd card. - Dunbal (464142)
Wheel locks? Mind you, wheel locks won't stop a determined thief with power tools, but they will slow them down.
For full disclosure, I'm currently trying to start a business to convert vehicles from Gasoline to Electricity. (Plug-In Motors Inc. www.pluginmotors.com) Our first vehicle is a Mustang Conversion. We are setting up our base vehicle to run 85 miles @ 55mph on a charge but are capable of setting up the vehicle to run 250 miles @55 mph per charge. It's surprising to me that this would be such a big deal. When you consider the number of laptops that have batteries in them and no one is asking any similar questions. And if you consider the extended concerns with gasoline and gasoline engines, it's pretty obvious that an electric vehicle is much easier on the environment. First, AC Induction electric motors usually last about 10 times gasoline engines. So we could have 10 times fewer "engines" in the world even with the same number of cars. They are much smaller (about 10 times smaller when designed correctly for an electric vehicle) and much easier to make. If anyone has seen a gasoline engine plant you would understand how environmentally unfriendly that whole discussion is. Add to that the opportunity to eliminate the transmission, or at least much of it's internals, and just with these two components one is able to make up for any increase in land fill for the batteries. Additionally, there are many options for the batteries even after the vehicle is finished with them. At Plug-In Motors, we expect that customers will use the batteries in our vehicles until they reach about 80% of their original capacity. Thus, if our original set up goes 85miles, at the end of their life cycle (expected to be between 2000 and 2500 cycles) the vehicle would still travel 68 miles at 55mph before needing another charge. If we are correct, then these batteries, while probably not adequate for the vehicle any longer could very easily be used for other needs. Specifically for power plants to charge at night so that they can load level between the night and day, or for second by second changes to peak demand. The value here is extra-ordinary as it could easily reduce our need for new powerplants by 30-40%. This isn't done today because of the cost of batteries is too high, but if the pack has already been used for 200,000 miles in a vehicle, being able to then sell them to the power plant can help pay for the next pack. Alternatively, if you live in a region where the power company charges more for electricity during the day than at night you can charge them at night and sell back during the day. Or, hook it up to your own solar cell and be "off the grid". Really there are lots of options before going to recycling. As for the original question, It's my understanding that Ni-Cd (Nickel Cadnium) and Lead Acid batteries are very tough to recycle and are a real issue for the landfills. However, recycling is possible with both. Nickel Metal Hydride is somewhat easier and Li-Ion batteries are the easiest. Li-Ion batteries have no environmental downside like the Lead Acids or the Ni-Cd's which leach lead into the environment.
Whether its gas or battery a chemical reaction occurs releasing energy and heat. Every release of enegy and heat has waste. Writing this comment is creating waste. You simply have to evaluate which waste is more difficult to manage and dangerous to the environment. This is the fundamental problem in a lot of green initiatives. They dont consider the big picture and they rely on kneejerk, emotional reactions causing to people to jump on seriously dangerous bandwagons. We ethonal, fossil fuel blends for one, MTB additives for another. Saving tress by using plastic bags...
Right!
I would (seriously, cause i own a hybrid :)) like to see your sources: a few minutes of googling shows people claiming anywhere from 2-6k, maybe that's not counting labor, but considering this isn't a rip-the-transmission-out type of job I don't see how the difference is coming from labor costs...
My service manager??!
n.b. I work in the car industry.
BD Phone Home!
Shameless plug. Like you weren't expecting it.
The heat of a stopped engine is the reason gas hybrids are the majority out there.
To stop/start so easily, a Prius engine uses the Atkinson cycle (the engine guy, not the diet), reducing the start energy needed over a conventional gas engine. That and a couple other smart design choices allow it's stop/start to be relatively cheap (although it does still cost significant electricity).
If you drive a Prius long enough on local roads you'll learn that heat management is the #1 impediment to your getting 100+ mpg - the gas engine will switch on periodically even when the battery is charged and you're doing very little, because the engine is getting cold, and by extension, the catalytic converter is getting cold, meaning it's losing its ability to clean exhausted air.
In a diesel the power requirements for starting it are already astronomical compared to a gas engine (for example, the fuel pumps heat the diesel on its way in so it can even ignite!), and as I mentioned the Prius had significant design choices made to get a gas engine working in a frequent stop/start vehicle. Doing this in a diesel is probably an amazing feat of engineering. I'm going to guess it would involve a thermos design like that in the Prius, that sucks hot fluid out of the engine to an insulated container every time the engine stops, then uses it to heat the fuel on restart (the Prius does this only when you turn the car off, resulting in a pumping sound that causes new owners to wonder if the car is alive). But it seems a serious, daunting problem of engineering.
It looks like Volkswagen is going to take a first swing at this for consumer cars, and some city bus fleets feature trivial diesel hybrids. I'm looking forward to VW turning even one of their lineup over from vaporware, and reading the engineering discussions about it - I expect they'll be fascinating... or disappointing if the hybrids end up being mild to cut costs.
I just imagined that enough battery power to drive a car would weight more in the neighborhood of 200+ pounds.
I have worked for a couple of companies that profit from the Oil Industry. I agree, it's a fantastic Cash Cow. But the bottom line is now common knowledge; $5.00 a gallon was the Tipping Point for converting to the Hydrogen Dollar; I personally thought $6.00 would be. Now the energy profiting showoffs have to make an Economic Decision by asking the question, "Am I in the Energy Business, or Am I in the Petroleum Energy Business" To a Man, and Women, these types will convert to the Energy Business. So? How does relate to your question? Simple, all one need do is calculate the number of Wind Turbines, Solar Cells, and Battery's to store the energy to run a Recycling Plant to separate the spent battery components into raw materials for other uses, or more batteries. And for the Nuclear Crowd, for extra credit, factor in the requirements of filtering Radio Active matter from the Radio Active Waste. The Radio Active stuff can be recycled to use in Power Plants, and the other stuff which is Depleted Material can be used to make other stuff. That will make buying the radio active stuff from Russia more doable.