Posted on 09/04/2022 6:53:11 AM PDT by lowbridge
An electric vehicle needed some coal miners to get where it needed to go last week.
The vehicle broke down Friday near Mettiki Coal access road on US 48, in Tucker County, West Virginia, according to WBOY-TV.
A Facebook post from Randy Smith described the incident.
Smith is a Republican state senator who represents the region where the incident took place, according to the West Virginia state Legislature website. He’s also the safety coordinator at Mettiki Coal, his Facebook page states.
“Some days are just better than others,” Smith wrote before launching into the tale.
“Today at our mine off Corridor H an electric car from DC ran out of battery at the road entrance to the mine. Someone called one of our foreman and told him a car was broke down in the middle of our haul road,” he wrote.
The foreman learned the car’s passengers were en route from Washington, D.C., to the Tucker County town of Davis, Smith wrote. Davis is about 170 miles west of D.C.
“He then went back to the mine and got guys to push the car to the guard shack so they could plug in to charge,” he wrote.
Giving the vehicle a tow was out of the question, he wrote, because “it was all plastic underneath and nothing to hook up to.”
“So here are 5 coal miners pushing a battery car to the coal mine to charge“up. If you look closely you can see our coal stockpile and load out in the background,” he wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at westernjournal.com ...
They're high-grade lithium ore. You smelt the lithium out of them ... recycling metals is smart.
“They’re high-grade lithium ore. You smelt the lithium out of them ... recycling metals is smart.”
Everything has to make economic sense. Every manufacturer uses a different form factor. Anything from a few million double A batteries to some large packs would need to be easy to break down. But how do you do it without raising the temperature to the point where the battery combusts? That’s just two problems. The amount of handling and special tooling before you even get to the battery counts against profit as well. See link for some explanations.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=problem+recycling+lithium+batteries+
And, if the answer is, well, everyone has to make their batteries compatible with recycling, then you do shift the expense from the tail end to the front end of the cost cycle. Which makes the cars cost significantly more and limits the ability of the industry to innovate. But I suspect that EVs will be relegated to the dust bin of automotive history probably sooner than later. They just don’t make environmental or financial sense.
, what do you do with the dead batteries?
/*
I hear they burn pretty well !
Feed them into all those coal fired generating plants,
I’m sure the exhaust will be cleaner than the coal smoke,,,
,,,, oh wait,,,,
,
“
,
,,,,nevermind,,,,,.
” an electric car from DC ran out of battery”
That pretty much sums things up.
” Also, what do you do with the dead batteries? “
Used batteries go into grid storage systems.
Tesla has just completed a three year test of a new battery. Expected lifetime - 100 years / 4 million miles.
I certainly agree with that.
Everything has to make economic sense.
I also agree with that, but I expect that some folks would devise a method for grinding up dead batteries and extracting lithium in an inert (nitrogen) atmosphere. We (still) have plenty of "rocket scientists".
” an electric car from
Dumbassery Central
ran out of battery”
That pretty much sums things up.
/\
Yup.
“The vehicle broke down Friday near Mettiki Coal access road on US 48, in Tucker County, West Virginia, according to WBOY-TV.”
What the hell is anyone doing driving an ELECTRIC CAR in that part of the country? Those types of cars are only meant for Metrosexual areas of the country, in order to virtue signal.
Potentially not guilty!
“But I suspect that EVs will be relegated to the dust bin of automotive history probably sooner than later. They just don’t make environmental or financial sense.”
EV’s can run off nuclear, hydro, coal and NG produced electricity.
Combined cycle NG units are achieving over 60% efficiency resulting in about 50% of the energy hitting the pavement.
Gas cars get about 25% to the pavement.
I spent a career in manufacturing. One of the huge issues is that you’ve designed something to use X component based on the manufacturer’s spec sheet. The manufacturer said they used a particular process and materials. But some manufacturers change processes or materials without notifying you. Or the sub manufacturer changed the materials they used without notifying anyone. What worked great is now dangerous and you may not know where you built that problem into your production. Say the batteries went from an aluminum case to one with a lot of magnesium. Your recycling process now causes sparks that will ignite first the magnesium and then the lithium. (Grinding, neutral atmosphere, etc. is now not helping make anything safe.) Further, you’ll be recycling batteries you know nothing about. They may have come from cars built five years ago, ten years ago, fifty years ago. What were the batteries built from and what problems do they pose? You won’t know. Suddenly, your huge expense in setup and process control goes up in literal smoke.
The thing is recycling is usually more expensive than building from raw materials. Any problem you have, no matter how small, will kill your margin. You won’t find investors and you won’t get insurance and the first employee who is injured will sue you out of business. Also, say you built this plant in California. They’ll have an EPA guy living in your shorts. Think that’ll be cheap?
Iconic image....A harbinger of the chaos to come...All directed and produced by the Democrats...
ROFL!!!
California is about the last place in the United States that I'd build anything.
Beyond that, given the extensive use of recycling in the metals industry (steel and aluminum in particular), I think you may be overestimating the difficulties. We shall see, one way or another.
“The thing is recycling is usually more expensive than building from raw materials. “
Car batteries are the most recycled item. 99%.
Extending the life of a battery pack is a superior option to recycling for both environmental and business reasons. For those reasons, before decommissioning a consumer battery pack and sending it for recycling, Tesla does everything it can to extend the useful life of each battery pack. Any battery that is no longer meeting a customer’s needs can be serviced by Tesla at one of our service centers around the world. None of our scrapped lithium-ion batteries go to landfilling, and 100% are recycled.
Tesla.com
The car was from DC - makes perfect sense!
“Car batteries are the most recycled item. 99%”
That is by law. Not because it makes financial sense. (Although, it might be due to other regulations on mining lead, shipping, etc.) And, part of the cost is imposed on the buyer at purchase.
If you tried to impose that cost on EV buyers who are already paying a premium it would impact sales, acceptance, etc.
Several people have responded with something like, we recycle other stuff like steel and aluminum, this is no different. The cost is in disassembly, separation and recovery all of which are labor intensive. Also, separation is easy if the material is magnetic or has a low melting temperature or other properties that Lythium does not have.
That pic ought to go up on billboards.
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