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Do We Really Have Clean Green Batteries?
American Thinker ^ | 12/15/2016 | Viv Forbes

Posted on 12/15/2016 8:00:37 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Greens and technically challenged scribes apparently believe that battery-powered cars and planes are exciting new clean “zero-emissions” vehicles.

There is little new about batteries – battery-powered cars were running on British roads over a century ago. They were pushed out of the market by internal combustion engines.

Batteries just store energy made elsewhere, and all have a finite life. Every battery needs primary energy and resources for production, recharging, replacing, and recycling, and every step produces its own emissions.

Batteries require lots of expensive raw materials – lead, calcium, nickel, cadmium, lithium, hydrogen, plus ancillary copper, steel, zinc, aluminium, and plastic. All need primary energy like coal or gas for mining, manufacture, construction, recharging, and recycling plus coking coal for smelting metals. Even wind and solar are not emissions-free once construction, maintenance, and life-cycle replacement are fully accounted for.

All cars, even green ones, need road maintenance using bitumen, concrete, and diesel-powered machinery, all costing money and producing emissions. Green cars also need recharging stations, demanding more metals.

Batteries have an important place in our lives. But they are not “emissions free.”

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Science; Society
KEYWORDS: batteries; greenenergy

1 posted on 12/15/2016 8:00:37 AM PST by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

Gee! You mean all the energy put in them doesn’t just come magically from Gaia and Green Nonpolluting Mother Earth? Quelle surprise.


2 posted on 12/15/2016 8:02:59 AM PST by Gaffer
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To: SeekAndFind

Batteries are not made from unicorn poop? Who knew?


3 posted on 12/15/2016 8:03:17 AM PST by Paladin2 (No spellcheck. It's too much work to undo the auto wrong word substitution on mobile devices.)
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To: SeekAndFind

The only clean green battery I know of is based on the potato.


4 posted on 12/15/2016 8:10:53 AM PST by Mr. Douglas (Today is your life. What are you going to do with it?)
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To: Paladin2

No they come from the energizer bunny don’t you know? ;)


5 posted on 12/15/2016 8:11:18 AM PST by Iron head mike (If we are decended from apes why are there still apes????)
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To: SeekAndFind

No.


6 posted on 12/15/2016 8:16:56 AM PST by WayneS (An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last. - Winston Churchill)
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To: SeekAndFind

Up in Canada there are mining and smelting companies that have tall smokestacks that take the pollution and spread it far and wide. The land downwind is ravaged from the pollution.

The metals are used among other things are for “clean” batteries.

The metal is taken by train to the west coast then by ship to Japan where it is turned into batteries then shipped back. Your “clean” electric car is then plugged into a wall jack that leads to a power plant. That power plant is either coal, oil, gas, nuclear or “clean” bird chopping windmills or frying birds on the fly solar power plants.


7 posted on 12/15/2016 8:33:21 AM PST by minnesota_bound
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To: SeekAndFind

Every car has a battery - as in an energy storage device.

My battery stores potential energy in gasoline. It recharges in minutes, has a 350 mile range, and weighs 150 lb. And it lasts practically forever, without losing capacity to store energy.

Some cars have propane batteries, some natural gas, a few radical concepts store compressed air.

And then some store electrical energy - take hours to charge, weigh 800 lbs, and lose their ability to store energy over time. It is possibly the worst type of battery to power a car.


8 posted on 12/15/2016 8:34:58 AM PST by lacrew
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To: SeekAndFind

I use a lot of rechargeable batteries in various forms. but, even with “high end” chargers to pamper the batteries, care in usage (don’t run them all the way down, often), selecting good brand names to use, etc., few last the number of rated recharge cycles.

Of course, reliability CAN be had: The Opportunity rover on Mars is STILL working, over 50 times over its planned lifetime. I don’t think I’d want to have to pay for those batteries for my own use, though!


9 posted on 12/15/2016 9:02:01 AM PST by Paul R.
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To: Iron head mike
This one?


10 posted on 12/15/2016 9:33:38 AM PST by Paladin2 (No spellcheck. It's too much work to undo the auto wrong word substitution on mobile devices.)
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To: minnesota_bound

Pretty good summation, my friend.


11 posted on 12/15/2016 9:47:08 AM PST by GingisK
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To: Mr. Douglas

It cannot power a pacemaker.... see that at 4:05

Prof Protons Science Show + Potato Clock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIjjGrJHSIo


12 posted on 12/15/2016 10:18:54 AM PST by minnesota_bound
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To: SeekAndFind

“Green” is one of the great hoaxes of all time.


13 posted on 12/15/2016 10:40:59 AM PST by Sans-Culotte (Time to get the US out of the UN and the UN out of the US!)
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To: SeekAndFind
Here is one guy who is making progress on cheaper, better, and more environmentally friendly batteries:

Hemp Battery - Almost Unbelieveable

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcK9JSxVNUc

Not to say the author doesn't make good points in this piece.

Batteries do provide very useful purposes, per the author even, even in vehicles that require huge amounts of energy...


14 posted on 12/15/2016 11:16:39 AM PST by amorphous
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