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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.
http://www.rbrc.org/consumer/
http://www.ehso.com/ehshome/batteries.php
Toyota claims that
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I was going to post a very similiar response, but now I don't have to. The parent post is right on. I care about the planet and want to make sure we can live on it far into the future, so I try to be responsible. But the only thing that will make most environmentalists happy is to wander around in the forest naked, eating raw vegetables. There are some very good environmentalists, but in my experience, most of them are just wacko sensationalists that want or need attention.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
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.
You can avoid the whole moral dilemma by buying yourself a good bicycle and/or using public transit. It works for me.
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
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.
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.
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.
I'm paranoid about theft, so I always take my battery with me when I park. Solves both problems.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
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
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.
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.
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.
Here is another article that I came across today regarding a Ford diesel that they are only going to sell in Europe. They are claiming 65mpg. It's ridiculous that they won't offer this thing in the United States. I wonder who the hell does their market research for them. Americans will buy huge turbo diesel trucks that crappy gas mileage but they won't spend an extra $1500 for a 65mpg Ford diesel because it isn't a big enough improvement over a ~45mpg Toyota Prius to justify the extra $1500?! http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_37/b4099060491065.htm?chan=rss_topStories_ssi_5 Right now I drive a 1992 Volvo that gets ~25mpg. I put regular 87 octane in it. If I had a car that got twice as many miles per gallon, I could suck it up and spend the extra 30 cents per gallon when I fill it up.
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.
Are you thinking of catalytic converts? Mufflers generally are not made from things other than stainless steel, steel and aluminum. CCs, on the other hand, have expensive internals.
...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.
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."
Both problems? All three. If you can carry a Prius battery around, you're not going to get mugged.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
And fat friars are made of delicious, delicious monkflesh.
.sig withheld by request
I'm an overweight monk, you insensitive clod!
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
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.
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?
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)
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.
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?
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?
Squatting on a tree branch might disturb bugs or damage the bark. It might also damage mossy growth. It's best just to get rid of all humans. After all, only humans are evil and damage the environment. [Yes, I'm being sarcastic]. :)
The only time they're predictable is straight after you've shot 'em.
No, battery is singular. It may be a collective noun, but that doesn't make it plural, just as fleet is plural, despite the fact that refers to a collection of ships. Hence you can have a battery or several batteries.
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.
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...
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.
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!
It actually goes back to the early days of the artillery. A batterie (french, from battre = to fight) consists of two trains of two cannons each together with their teams of loaders, cannoniers and aimers.
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 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..."?