Posted on 11/17/2021 7:55:17 AM PST by george76
In the last decade, China has rapidly expanded its “green” new energy vehicle (NEV) industry but recycling and disposing of hundreds of thousands of tons of used car batteries has become a pressing issue due to environmental concerns.
Growth in China’s NEV industry took off in 2014 when nearly 78,500 NEVs were produced and some 75,000 were sold. As of September of this year, China’s NEV registration reached 6.78 million, of which 5.52 million are fully electric vehicles.
The NEV industry predicts that its production and sales growth rate will remain above 40 percent in the next five years prompting the question of how to best manage the growing numbers of discarded lithium batteries from the NEVs.
Industry data shows that the service life of lithium batteries used in electric vehicles is generally 5 to 8 years, and the service life under warranty is 4 to 6 years. That means, tens of thousands of electric car batteries will soon need to be discarded or recycled, and millions more down the road.
According to the latest data from China Automotive Technology and Research Center, the cumulative decommissioning of China’s electric car batteries reached 200,000 tons in 2020 and the figure is estimated to climb to 780,000 tons by 2025.
Presently, most end-of-life batteries are traded in the unregulated black market, raising serious environmental concerns. If such batteries are not handled properly, they could cause soil, air, and water pollution.
“A 20-gram cell phone battery can pollute a water body equivalent to three standard swimming pools. If it is buried in the ground, it can pollute 1 square kilometer (247 acres) of land for about 50 years,” Wu Feng, a professor at Beijing Institute of Technology, once publicly stated.
Electric car batteries are many times larger than cell phone batteries.
According to Li Yongwang, a chemical engineering expert in China, pollution caused by NEV batteries is very likely far worse than the exhaust pollution from gasoline-run vehicles.
If they are buried or discarded at will, Li said, they are not only toxic for the environment but they are a direct danger to people’s lives given they can explode from heat.
Recycle Market.
Recycling of power batteries has become a pressing issue in China, and it’s considered a weak point that the Chinese authorities did not consider adequately when it heavily promoted the NEV industry.
There are currently two different methods for recycling electric car batteries. One is to recover valuable raw materials after disassembly. The other is secondary utilization in other fields.
At present, automobile power batteries are mainly divided into two types: ternary lithium batteries and lithium iron phosphate batteries.
Ternary lithium batteries have a relatively high content of rare metals such as nickel, cobalt, and manganese, and it’s more worthwhile to recover these.
The main ingredients in lithium iron phosphate batteries are lithium and iron, which are less worthy of recovering. This type of battery is often recycled through secondary utilization, as its service life is longer.
Regardless of the type of battery, the recycling market in China is huge. China Orient Securities has estimated that China’s power battery recycling market, including the two methods of recycling, is expected to reach $37 billion by 2025.
Black Market..
In August this year, Chinese authorities issued the “Administrative Measures for the Secondary Utilization of Power Batteries for New Energy Vehicles,” requiring new energy vehicle manufacturers to establish power battery recycling channels.
However, these car makers only bear the extra costs and reap no profits from adding battery recycling to their business. Chinese state media quoted an expert as saying that power batteries are not produced by NEV companies. Therefore, these companies have no incentive to recycle end-of-life power batteries.
In addition, according to Chinese state media, there are a series of problems associated with the current recycling policies: non-uniform recycling standards, non-standard processes, inconsistent resource utilization efficiency, non-uniform pricing, and an unclear distribution of profits.
Another problem is that, although there are many companies engaged in battery recycling in China, there are only 27 companies that have the qualifications for secondary utilization and recycling of batteries used in electric cars.
The huge market, coupled with slow official actions, thus created favorable conditions for a black market. Presently, countless services can be found on China’s largest second-hand commodity trading platform Xianyu when searching for used car batteries.
On this black market, power battery recycling is generally priced in tons. According to Chinese state media, the recycling price of power lithium batteries ranges from $1,250 to $1,563 U.S. dollars per ton. Most of these businesses purchase end-of-life batteries from all over the county.
In comparison, prices set by officially designated companies are often lower than on the black market, as the secret companies are able to cut costs by evading regulatory measures, according to China Energy News. As a result, the official companies cannot even obtain any batteries. An industry expert disclosed to Beijing News that about 80 percent of end-of-life power batteries flow into black markets for recycling.
When recycling is not an option for black market companies, the environment loses out. In 2018, authorities in Tieling City of Liaoning Province seized an illegal lead smelting plant and 330 tons of waste batteries. Workers at the plant dismantled storage batteries and discharged 50 tons of sulfuric acid directly into nearby land without any treatment, causing irreversible pollution.
So how many sq miles of ocean would be contaminated if a shipload of old batteries sinks?
I have a 2007 SUV and my son has a 2004 SUV. Both are in great shape and run well because of regular maintenance. Guess my son would be on his 3rd EV. But he would be saving the planet!
>>According to Li Yongwang, a chemical engineering expert in China, pollution caused by NEV batteries is very likely far worse than the exhaust pollution from gasoline-run vehicles.<<
Tell that to the environmentalists and climate change crowd. Spilled LNG leaves no trace of its presence in the soil. The greenies are poisoning the very soil they are trying to preserve.
Apex idiots.
It would almost certainly be less than if you dumped the waste from recycling in the ocean.
I tend to agree with you as I believe the time for an electric vehicle will be when we come up with a battery which can be recharged indefinitely, very quickly and will hold enough of a charge to power such a vehicle for hundreds of miles before requiring to be charged again. I believe this will be the time when people will rush out to buy such a vehicle. In the meantime I don’t see anything wrong with a high efficient gasoline powered vehicle, or perhaps using hydrogen as a fuel source if it could be produced economically and be priced affordably.
I have read that the production of hydrogen pollutes many times the amount gasoline pollutes.
But people are missing a very basic fact and that is our modern world can not exist without oil. Gasoline revenue helps make oil exploration and drilling affordable.
The list of items that depend on oil is almost endless, but it starts with national defense. The military would be back to the days of horse cavalry and foot soldiers without it. Imagine being in battle and needing to shut down your tank for eight hours to recharge. the battery
Look around your house:
Telephone
cell phone
computer
keyboard
fountain pen
lamp, Rormica/Micarta counter top in kitchen and bathroom
Bottles of everything, soap, face cream, etc.
Tooth brush
shirts,
jackets
insulation in cold weather gear
finish on furniture
upholsterydrapes
bed clothing
carpets
most of your socks
ladies hose
fountain pens
medicine bottles
The list never stops.
Fertilizer
And farmers use huge amounts of diesel
I am old enough to remember when we pushed a steel wheeled lawnmower for all afternoon to mow the yard, only the very rich had more than one car regardless of how many were in the family....and many families did not have a car.
The present government presents a real risk of destroying our living standard.
$7.00 or $10.00 gas will ruin the economy.
We are not London and we will not be.
Well it was just a thought and I hear you loud and clear as it is difficult to argue with reality. Take care and thanks for your reply!
using hydrogen as a fuel source if it could be produced economically and be priced affordably.
—
Requires massive investment in new power generation and transmission infrastructure - not windmills, solar farms - to create that much hydrogen on a consistent stable basis.
Pull the lead out and recast them into bullets. GET READY AMERICA!
You forgot to include the amount of contamination of the fish consumed from that area. How many people worldwide will actually be poisoned by consuming the fish? We are slowly eliminating future good food sources by dumping old batteries in the ground and in the sea. We are starving and poisoning ourselves and future generations to come. No such consequences with the use of fossil fuels. It is still not too late to change our minds on which energy route to follow. Plenty of oil,gas and coal. Think in terms of jobs, jobs, jobs. The alternative is cold winters steeped in hunger and malnutrition.
Bon appetite y’all.
That b*tch is a criminal. Environmentalists are our downfall.
As a guy who used to engineer earthmovers, I like the look of that open pit!
Musk’s former consigliere, Straubel, is working on that in Nevada at a company called Redwood Materials.
SHITPAPER!!!
No energy, no means to run the machines that make the paper.
Get rid of fossil fuels and this world will die a slow and agonizing death under a clear blue sky.
How many cubic miles of contaminated ocean water with the edible fish therein? We are led by a bunch of fools who are trying to kill us before our time by blaming climate change.
How many cubic miles of contaminated ocean water with the edible fish therein? We are led by a bunch of fools who are trying to kill us before our time by blaming climate change.
Folks, these people are more nefarious than we realize.
China knows how to play the game. Say what Biteme, Kerry and the Euros want to hear, demand their money and keep doing what they’ve been doing.
>>We are not London and we will not be.<<
Biden may just send the FBI for making such a statement. Where do you think you are?
America?
(Yes. Biden’s America)
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