Free Republic

As the world looks to electrify vehicles and store renewable power, one giant challenge looms: what will happen to all the old lithium batteries?... ...In your average battery recycling plant, battery parts are shredded down into a powder, and then that powder is either melted (pyrometallurgy) or dissolved in acid (hydrometallurgy). But Li batteries are made up of lots of different parts that could explode if they're not disassembled carefully. And even when Li batteries are broken down this way, the products aren't easy to reuse.... ...The current shortcomings in Li battery recycling isn't the only reason they are an...

But rushing to replace gasoline-powered cars with electric vehicles would hand the keys to the American transportation sector to China, given Beijing’s near-monopoly on rare-earth elements like neodymium and dysprosium, which are used in the high-output motors of most electric vehicles. ... manager at a state-owned rare-earth enterprise based in Ganzhou: “The new company will enforce stricter rules on the production quantity as well as the export volume of rare earths, which may also drive up prices.” In May, the International Energy Agency reported that an electric-vehicle motor requires “upwards of 1 kilogram,” or more than 2 pounds, of rare-earth...

Scientists have taken aim at inactive clumps of lithium that build up over a battery's lifetime and shown how they can be brought back to life to boost the performance of the device. They say this can be achieved simply through tweaks to the charging process, and the approach mightn't just benefit the batteries of today, but unlock next-gen battery designs with far greater densities. The breakthrough comes from a team of scientists at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University, who were focused on what they call islands of inactive lithium. These form as batteries...

"Lithium — a mineral that is key for electric car batteries — continues to rise in price, jeopardizing the ongoing transition to renewable energy outlined by Western governments. The cost of lithium has skyrocketed more than 250% over the last 12 months, hitting its highest level ever, according to an industry index from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. While the cost of manufacturing a lithium-ion battery for an electric vehicle (EV) has fallen sharply over the last decade, the decline has slowed in recent months due to rising lithium costs. ..."

In Finland, an unhappy Tesla owner decided to blow up his Model S after learning it would need a new expensive battery pack. In the video on YouTube with English subtitles, Tuomas Katainen explains his 2013 Model S was in the shop for more than a month for service. When he heard back from the shop, they told him they couldn’t repair his car, and the only option was to change the entire battery cell. Katainen said the fix would’ve cost him upwards of €20,000 ($22,500). He told the dealership that was absurd, and he donated the car to a...

The union representing workers at Chile’s La Escondida copper mine said its members voted to reject the most recent contract offer from the mine’s owner and go on strike, potentially risking disruptions to the supply of a key metal as the world’s economy continues to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. BHP Group Ltd. -controlled Minera Escondida, located in Chile’s northern Atacama Desert, is the world’s largest copper mine, producing almost 5% of the world’s supply of the metal, which is used to make electrical wiring and motors and in construction, among many other applications. By law, the...

A lawsuit filed this week in Washington, D.C., alleges that some of the world's largest technology firms knowingly engaged in the usage of child labor in Africa's cobalt mines. The suit was filed by nongovernmental organization International Rights Advocates and mentions Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Tesla and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, USA Today reports. Cobalt is an essential part of rechargeable lithium batteries that power many of the electronic devices that the listed companies sell. According to the suit, two mining companies — British company Glencore and Chinese company Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — supplied cobalt to all of the...

NEWRY — The richest known hard rock lithium deposit in the world lies a few miles northeast of the ski slopes of Sunday River and not far from Step Falls, where swimmers can wade in shallow pools formed by hundreds of feet of cascading granite ledge. Smaller deposits have been known in Maine for decades, but this recent discovery, just north of Plumbago Mountain in Newry, is the first to have a major resource potential.

Afghanistan’s newly ensconced Taliban regime has been looking to China for major economic support, but the Taliban’s lithium-mining invitation to South Korea has displeased the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). To keep Beijing happy, the Taliban offered it copper mining rights.Enduring 20 years of war, Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. According to the World Bank, Afghanistan’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2020 was $19.8 billion (compared to the United State’s $20.93 trillion), and its GDP per capita was only $508.8 (compared to United State’s $63,543.6). Former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani revealed last year that 90 percent...

SALTA, Argentina, Sept 14 (Reuters) - In Argentina's remote northern Salta province, the silence of the desert landscape is broken only by the hum of machinery pumping salt-water brine to extract lithium, a sign of accelerating efforts to ride the global electric vehicle boom. Beneath the South American country's highland salt flats, reached by winding mountain roads, is buried the world's third largest reserve of the ultra-light battery metal, which has seen a price spike over the past year on the back of a global push towards greener modes of transport. Already the fourth top producer of lithium worldwide, Argentina's...

By incorporating sugar into the web-like architecture of the electrode they have stabilized the sulfur, preventing it from moving and blanketing the lithium electrode. Credit: Monash Energy Institute ________________________________________________________________________________ Simply by adding sugar, researchers from the Monash Energy Institute have created a longer-lasting, lighter, more sustainable rival to the lithium-ion batteries that are essential for aviation, electric vehicles and submarines. The Monash team, assisted by CSIRO, report in today's edition of Nature Communications that using a glucose-based additive on the positive electrode they have managed to stabilize lithium-sulfur battery technology, long touted as the basis for the next generation of...

Taliban Secures World’s Largest Lithium Deposits After US Withdrawal From Afghanistan It’s been more than a decade since we penned “The US “Discovers” Nearly $1 Trillion In Mineral Deposits In Afghanistan” in which we highlighted the colossal untapped mineral deposits that reside in Afghanistan. President Joe Biden’s decision to rapidly and completely withdraw from Afghanistan makes even less strategic sense if readers go back to our 2010 post where we quoted “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: Part 2, the 21st Century paradigm”? Which said, “Yet the American officials also recognize that the mineral discoveries will almost certainly have a...

It is painful to see people attempting to flee their own country on the wings of foreign military airplanes. But the sudden shift in politics in Afghanistan has made fleeing the country an easier option than staying back amidst collapsing infrastructure. With the Taliban now in charge of the capital city of Kabul, it is also now in charge of the mineral deposits in the country, which include cobalt, iron ore, copper, and rare elements like lithium. Early in 2020, Ashraf Ghani, the Afghanistani President, now in exile, had termed these mineral deposits a curse. The areas with rich natural...

General Motors is recalling tens of thousands of Chevrolet all-electric Bolt hatchbacks for the second time in less than a year because of a potential fire risk. The company made the move on Friday after two Bolts caught fire without impact recently. GM is confirming that at least one of the Bolt fires was battery related and happened despite the owner getting the fix from the first recall. This time, GM said it would recall all 2017-19 model-year Bolts. In total, the recall involves 68,000 vehicles globally; of those, 50,925 are in the United States. The vehicles contain high voltage...

A Chevrolet electric vehicle owned by Vermont state Rep. Timothy Briglin recently caught fire while charging in the politician’s driveway, according to Vermont State Police. The fire is the most recent to highlight an ongoing concern of automakers and vehicle safety watchdogs as companies release an influx of new EVs.

Experimental setup. As a beam of beryllium comes in from the left, the deuteron Trojan horse intercepts it at the target and delivers its neutron soldier. This allows the decay products of the beryllium and neutron reactions to be captured by a curved array of six detectors on the right. Credit: Hayakawa et al. There is a significant discrepancy between theoretical and observed amounts of lithium in our universe. This is known as the cosmological lithium problem, and it has plagued cosmologists for decades. Now, researchers have reduced this discrepancy by around 10%, thanks to a new experiment on...

...Wednesday ...Spears detailed in court testimony the “abusive” nature of the conservatorship that her father... obtained... ...(allegations) including that individuals involved with her conservatorship have forced her to take birth control, preventing her from having another child, put her on lithium after she disagreed with dance choreography, and forced her into concert tours. ...(on) Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, McGowan called Spears’ testimony a “cultural reset” and said she believes the pop star is “ready to blow the lid” on who has wronged her in Hollywood and what has been done to her over the last 13 years. “...And I know...

A fire at a bus depot in Hanover caused millions of euros in damage. According to fire fighters, the fire broke out on Saturday afternoon at the Üstra transport company where electric buses were parked, According to Üstra spokesman Udo Iwannek, the fire caused damage running in the millions. Five e-buses, two hybrids and two combustion engines were destroyed, as were also the building and the charging station. According to the European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE), Hanover’s administration wants to run only e-buses in the city center area by 2023 and is purchasing 50 new vehicles in a...

One autumn evening four years ago, Ivan Bender, a Hualapai man in his mid-50s, took a walk with his fluffy brown-and-white Pomeranian, Sierra Mae, to check on the ranchland he tends. Nestled in western Arizona’s Big Sandy River Valley, the ranch protects Ha’ Kamwe’ - hot springs that are sacred to the Hualapai and known today in English as Cofer Hot Springs. As the shadows lengthened, Bender saw something surprising - men working on a nearby hillside. “I asked them what they were doing,” Bender recalled. “They told me they were drilling.” As it turns out, along with sacred places...

Why electric cars will take over sooner than you think I know, you probably haven't even driven one yet, let alone seriously contemplated buying one, so the prediction may sound a bit bold, but bear with me. We are in the middle of the biggest revolution in motoring since Henry Ford's first production line started turning back in 1913. And it is likely to happen much more quickly than you imagine. Many industry observers believe we have already passed the tipping point where sales of electric vehicles (EVs) will very rapidly overwhelm petrol and diesel cars. It is certainly what...