Lithium Recycling FINALLY goes global!
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- Опубліковано 11 вер 2024
- Lithium recycling wasn't considered important ten years ago when fewer than 60,000 electric vehicles were sold worldwide. But today that number is 2 million and ten years from now it will be over 20 million, not to mention the billions of phones, tablets and other consumer electronics, all of which get their energy from lithium ion batteries. That means that resources and recycling are becoming a problem. But now, FINALLY, the industrial world has responded. And it's responding fast!
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If you are in the process of replacing a phone or tool battery and don't have a recycling option available think about putting them to one side for now. They don't take up much space so if you are able to store them for a while (it may be a year or two depending where you live) they will be able to enter the recycling loop when it becomes possible rather than going to land fill where they're effectively lost.
Home Depot takes Li-ion tool batteries for recycling.
Also please store them safely. No combustibles and no water nearby. No flammable liquids nearby.
@@SocialDownclimber I've never seen a discharged Li-ion cell have a thermal runaway. Is that even possible?
@@incognitotorpedo42 If I was storing Li batteries I'd assume they were not fully discharged. If the casing corrodes or leaks I'd rather be safe than toasty.
@Donald Kasper Some recycling makes sense, and some doesn't. We should do what makes economic sense, at least. If Home Depot wants to pay for the recycling, it's ok with me. Maybe they make money on it, who knows? Apple recycles iPhones in a clean, automated manner and makes a profit on it.
Ton by ton, the average landfill has more gold than a gold mine, more silver than a silver mine, and now probably more lithium than a lithium mine.
I say, mine the landfills!
You make a good point. In developing countries (I live in Panama) there is a lot of activity around land fill sites pulling some of the more obviously usable items from the waste but there is still a lot that is missed. Education of these largely independent and unofficial workers would enable much more to be separated.
First tap them for methane and make electricity from it, negating about 7/8ths of the methane's greenhouse effect. Then, yeah, send the remains for resource recovery.
That will probably be true in future, where people end up mining our landfills for depleted resources.
landfills are a completely backward solution. they are a pure failure. civilization will have to develop 100% reuse of all of its components, so that there is no throwing away of anything. we will need a steady state population , steady state economy and agriculture. increasing diversity of production, and introducing new methods and products, can continue, but total resource use measured in electricity production, fresh water use, must be stable, with the rate of return of fresh water to the enviroment exactly balanced with the amount of fresh water taken in. resources are not to be plundered, but managed. so crude oil use should match the rate that new crude oil is created in the earths crust. not a lot. so 99% needs to stay in the ground.
@@mercurywoodrose of course you're right about landfills and an equilibrium future, we're just talking here about existing landfills and the many more that will be created before we turn this planet around.
Had a nerdy little chuckle at the x-axis label in the first graph: "Mileage (in kilometers)".
No go and rip Mars a part.
There is bound to be some tonnage expressed in pounds somewhere.
**laughs in crash course**
Is kiloage a word?
@@AZOffRoadster No. But in french "métrage" is.
In India, Tata Chemicals had launched a Li-ion Battery Recycling Facility in 2019.
I really hope earth becomes more liveable, by initiatives like these 😅
This is probably the reason why is India so energy clean.
@@Helloverlord not yet. it is developing.
Good to hear Anshuman and no doubt a whole chain of human dismantlers without any kind of protection. Tata vehicels also makes a car that runs on compressed air, 120 miles per tank, wouldn't they actually be better than the battery car and do they sell many?
@@petergambier ,that is still in development phase.... That concept is also amazing.... hopefully it will compete the electric vehicles. (Especially for public transport)
@@anshumansahu5485, but this was about 3 years ago, seems a pity to not push that forward as a concept. Thanks for replying, all the best from the UK.
Something else all these scarce resource production enterprises really need to do is maintain constant public list of actuarial lifetimes given known technologies of all critical components. This is critical not only for the knowledge, but it needs to be there to begin to educate the populace about the dynamics of these things.
Keeping lithium ion batteries 30-80% charged makes them last up to 5X longer in terms of calendar life // easy way to charge for 20-40 min at a time //
@Donald Kasper
You don't know what you are talking about.
We need to think of our garbage as raw materials, not waste.
Currenty we're throwing away 95% of nuclear fuel - UNUSED - and call it 'waste'.
I would say recycling is another industrial revolution which some countries failed to look into.
It's all economics, only when it gets more expensive to mine a product than it is to reprocess do we actually think about "recycling". So when your local garbage company start thumping their chest claiming how much they recycle... it's because they found someone to buy their garbage. And as we've seen in recent years some of those purchasers of garbage don't want it anymore.
It's sooo hard getting ppl into that mindset. Even my family. I often watch as they just causally throw everything they use & brought in the trash despite literally walking by recycling. & Also I watch as ppl literally throw things in the streets without a 2nd thought
I know a lot of research & investments goes into products but, Honestly the world should consider the full life of products that we produce & use. Start to End of life. & Possibly creating more incentives or motivations for full recycling of all products for people, towns & companies for will we produce, buy & dispose of starting at the the design.
But I know it's way easier said than done.
@@pear7828 The worst thing is that some countries don't recycle everything as they should be. They only recycle things that are profitable and send the rest to third world countries. Which gets dumped in land fills.
This is good news. Recycling is key for a sustainable future.
No, not buying too much crap we don't need is the key.
No, both are
@@sergior. No Neither No No No (sound like Amy Winehouse & look what happened to her).
Lol, so much investment is done for this when nuclear sector been asking for privileges to get investment in already known method.
I can't wait for the environmentalist criticizing ITER for using lithium as a fuel source.
@@mmmk6322 I am definitely pro nuclear. But with lithium batteries being recycled efficiently and maybe it's capacity being pushed further electric cars may become very viable as an alternative to combustion engine powered ones. They can then be charged with nuclear power;)
I actually have a family friend that has a business in the battery recycling industry here in Canada. Collecting mountains of cellphone batteries, sorting and packaging them up for larger scale recycling. I am constantly picking there brains for all the info you’ve put together here!! Good job!!
i am in Canada and am interested could you post a link?
Our Cat Troy Seekandis I am also interested in a contact that could help me with recycling...please send contact details if possible
@Our Cat Troy Seekandis From Ottawa here; can you post a link to your friend's facility?
@@lawrencetaylor5407 company is Versocet Solutions Inc.
Since I am still trying to implement Windyday Concept, this is one of the most valuable videos you have made. I've been following the battery field for over 15 years, they have been concerned from the beginning to have recycling in mind. And the fossil fuel lobby has been going crazy trying to pollute the average person's mind with false information. And they do a much better job, unfortunately since they have a huge machine behind them.
You have told the truth about lithium and batteries. Maybe it would be useful to also tell the truth about fossil fuels, especially petroleum products.
Fossil fuels are NOT recycled. 0%. Nada. Nothing. In fact, by burning them, they hang around for centuries. There is a little thing called Global Warming, and you have many videos about this subject.
Great Job.
Not so. Fossil fuels are 100% recyclable ...just takes a few millions years or more.
@LazicStefan And how is that working out for humanity with global warming presently at 1.1 degrees celsius and at current rate predicted to reach around 5 degrees in 2100 which would mean total climate collapse.
And how is that working out for humanity with global warming presently at 1.1 degrees celsius and at current rate predicted to reach around 5 degrees in 2100 which would mean total climate collapse.
C02 plus photosynthesis is tasty.
Thanks Lawrence.
There's a Canadian company called American Maganese that has patented, zero environmental impact, recycling process. They have a pilot plant and so far they reported 92% extraction from batteries. So that's pretty good for a plant in continuous operation.
I like his voice. So calming and so british
Was just thinking the same thing..
Superb! I will pass this along to our Town EV task force and the local Zero Waste committee. I am sure they will be delighted by it.
Two of the cofounders of Tesla have started a battery recycling company, Redwood.
@@Jay...777 A deregulated private sector response has resulted in a 99% recycling rate for lead-acid car batteries. (Not that I'm opposed to regulation per se.)
@@Jay...777 Why is lead dangerous? Who avtively looks for a lead as a food source? Its so high because you get over £10 per battery.
@@Jay...777 A deregulated private sector is what produced the majority of all green technologies, regulations are what caused idiotic ones to be used (like windmills). Nuclear power is the cleanest, safest, and CHEAPEST, power source by far. Its twice as safe as even solar panels INCLUDING alll of the lives affected by nuclear powerplant accidents. Because its the cheapest the private market would have switched to nuclear power a long time ago if it wasnt for government officials. Government officials thinking they make a difference are a joke, they are the only reason coal and oil are still a problem. Lmao.
@@jonathanbauer2988
Nuclear power certainly isn't the cheapest. The renewables companies are already signing power purchase agreements with utilities for less cost per kWh than nuclear or fossil fuel power plants. The utilities are not in the business of losing money so they're writing off the old nuclear and fossil fuel power plants as 'stranded assets' that are losing money and have become liabilities. In their place there are being built solar and wind farms along with battery storage. The sun is setting on the big thermal power plants. They'll all be gone in a few decades. And so will the fossil fuel companies if they don't refocus their business on renewables.
Stranded fossil fueled assets:
www.greenbiz.com/article/growing-concern-over-stranded-assets
just have a Think - JAPAN has had Closed Loop Recycling for a DECADE now.
TOKYO bay is out of Landfill space , and its Current one it its LAST one.
JAPAN has total Recycling. it Compels its people to SORT Recycleables from TRASH and collects them.
Glass is sorted in 6 types , Plastics are sorted in 15 kinds , did you know the Plastic Bottle caps are a Diffrent kind of Plastic than the Bottle itself ? Japan even Recycles the bottle caps and the Labels too.
Japan uses lots of STEEL for Drink Containers as well as Aluminium. and metals are Sorted as well.
Japan has SEPERATE Recycling for ALL KINDS of Batteries , from Disposable cells to car batteries to Consumer Electronics batteries.
Japan has the LARGEST Community based Recyclng programs in the WORLD.
Japan , even invented the 5 R's to Recycling , we all know Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle.
but, Japan adds REFUSE - to refuse Extra Packaging , and Bring your own Bag or Container to the MEAT or FISH counter.
and Japan also adds REPAIR !!!!!! Japanese waste management Collect unwanted Household items and Technology.
they are Inspected and are REPAIRED for FREE and sold to a RETAIL Customer at COST !!!!!!!!!!
these Japanese THRIFT Shops are Popular with Students and NEW Workers .
AMERICA and the UK needs this !!!!!!!!
it will either happen, or we will die as a species. and if we dont introduce it soon enough, we will die anyway.
That's good from a country who invented lolly wrappers inside lolly wrappers
America had a vibrant radio and TV repair business until the Japanese company sold their TVs below cost in the US and destroyed the repair business. The Matsushita Company sold the TVs to Japanese consumers at higher cost to pay for the losses in the US. They were caught and fined $150 million.
And Australia..the Govt is all talk little action on legislating change & innovation.
In Japan YOU NEED to recycle, but not in Europa or Americas.
Your voice is always relaxed, yet passionate. Great to listen to, Cheers Mr Attenborough.
Former Tesla Engineer, Ryan Melsert, has joined American Battery Metals Corp and was the winner of the Greentown Labs Circularity Challenge for his Battery Recycling Technology. $ABML has a head start on Redwood.
Recycling of batteries is one of those things nobody really talks about. When I've seen it mentioned in relation to BEVs, for example, it's only as a side note and not really expanded upon as much. Most people just jump on the next bandwagon of new trends, like BEVs, without really investigating the full lifecycle impact, and I understand that... not everybody knows what's behind the final products we see in front of our eyes. But that's why I appreciate this channel so much - system thinking. I'm so glad these businesses are starting to take battery recycling seriously and I look forward to seeing many more and much more interest in this market.
Sounds like there are companies working on a more direct process of filtering out the Lithium and not require the evaporation salt ponds that will be much faster and not require all that water. Existing process was developed a long time ago and until recently, no R&D was spent on improving mining since the market was small.
Electrowinning similar to electroplating, using direct current to put coulombic pressure on the fluid to pull metal ions with specificity to either the anode or cathode //
Selective extraction technology for metal ions is an interesting and sophisticated field which should provide a revolution in lithium production in the medium term. Electrowinning is not a significant component of the leading technologies.
I adore your research skills. I am writing my bachelor thesis right now about the cost of lithium for LiB. I am having difficult times to finish it. Just to research the content of this video had to take a lot of time. Great job.
Huge amounts of Pb (Lead) and Al (Aluminum) are recycled now. Lead mostly now from ICE auto batteries and aluminum from containers. I'm sure that Li (Lithium) will find a viable recycling scheme and join Pb, Al, and Fe as major recycled materials. We just have to give it some time to develop.
The thought I'll share, is that you are bloody brilliant! 👌👍🏾💓
Wow, thank you!
I know this isn’t your intention but what I learn from your videos gives me just a little bit of hope for the future.
Thank you. It's so refreshing to hear a well researched and talented UA-camr, without the obnoxious and loud dialogue. Almost ASMR like. Please never change your style my brother. And thank you for entertaining and sharing.
Bless you Charlie. I really appreciate that :-)
Very good the idea behind that comprehensive shredder leading to later separation.
Have long thought London waste would profit by application of same principle: barge collection points on Thames - down the tide to Barking flats, back up the tide for more.
Triple layered green housed conveyor belts for miles to centrifuge and other separators - powered by tide also. So much in way of value back.
It sounds like American Battery Technology Company out of Nevada will be able to recycle the actual EV batteries themselves which apparently is complex. Ryan Melsert, a former tesla R&D manager of battery materials and energy systems is CTO currently. Might be worth looking into them for more info on this.
im a small ewaste collector. i have found that Li-ion batteries are generally difficult to dispose of and they get sent to the dump/landfill. it would be good if there was some intl program where ppl were paid for their Li-ion batteries- this will provide the incentive to not just dump them. currently, the only ppl i have found who want used Li-ion batteries are those who do 3D printing.
There’s another company in Australia that has been in the lithium battery recycling for some time. There separation system is patented.
By the way I like the information you share in your videos.
I have been a part of a research group into power generation and we have a new system for generation of power. It can not be classified as a generator. Because it converts energy into electricity.
I would love to share this with you as we are looking for to hopefully begin to manufacture in the next six months.
Hi John. By all means ping over details if you like. Email address is in the 'About' section. Cheers. Dave
Just Have a Think Lithium Australia
Just Have a Think
lithium-au.com/
Thanks very interesting. One thing I do know from personal experience is the recycling industry is hugely innovative, when the waste material is available in quantity and a financial return is possible, then recycling will happen. It may take Gov initiatives to make the finance possible, eg landfill tax etc.
I have operated inert shredding plants, they take a lot of maintenance, and nitrogen,but there are a huge number of separation technologies for the shredded material, magnetic, eddy current, flotation, optical etc. Recycling will happen.
Taxes ,more now than ever.
Most "innovation" centers around legal loopholes, secret shipping to other countries and other shenanigans. Just like waste disposal has always been rife with organised crime, so is recycling. Criminals simply don't accept that saving the planet is more important than getting rich.
Nice episode, mate! Thanks for spreading the good news.
Great Tesla Battery Day post from Robert Cain: So many people blowing right past the environmental impact reduction of this announcement. Massive water usage reductions in ore processing. Massive increase in recycled materials. Increase in abundant and easy to access materials like natural silicon instead of synthetic materials or graphite. The DBE process eliminates industrial solvents that are expensive and toxic. The end to end process has nailed “Faster, Better, Cheaper”. This is an engineering hat trick. Its remarkable.
I think I like your podcast best over all others - no interrupting adds but very informative. Thanks !
Had to Sub as soon as you pointed out that it was a finite resource. To many "global warners" are to biased regarding this and your unbiased approach is a breath of fresh air. The question I still have is what is the actual energy and resource cost to recycle lithium?
THANK YOU for this much needed update on the whole but-what-about-tha-batteries question. I will gladly post this vid to shut up the more vulgar comments about EVs actually being worse than ICEs of which there are still far too many.
Good on you Till. And also tell them that the EV / ICE car comparison is much more in favour of EV's than VW suggest because they base their lifetime usage on the recharging being done with electricity supplied by coal and gas. As more and more renewables come on line, that will reduce significantly.
@@JustHaveaThink sure thing ; )
Thanks for all the work I never get to see you do. You do a great job.
Lithium-ion batteries contain a relatively small amount of Li, the real value in them are Cobalt (~35000USD/t) and Nickel (~25000USD/t). Nowadays most of the batteries are LiCoO2 (lithium-cobalt oxide) type , however in electric cars the Ni-Mn-Co batteries are becoming dominant. These contain far less Co and much more Ni, especially newer ones. Still, main the targets for recycling are the Ni and Co. Most recycling processes recover metallic Co and Ni by either smelting the black mass together with ore based raw materials or by hydro-electrometallurgy, or both. The latter involves dissolution in acid, than solution purification, separating the metals by solvent extraction than the pure solution is electrolyzed, producing pure metal - which is expensive - thus worthwhile to produce. However, for new battery production, their high purity salts are more than sufficient. Thus the actual reduction of the compound into the metal can be avoided. Lithium -if recycled at all by the facilities- can be recovered only as a salt, which is an ionized form of the Li , such as Lithium-carbonate. It is not Lithium, but a compound of Lithium. It's recovery usually involves heating the Li bearing alkaline solution to near boiling point, than introducing carbonate ions to the solution and precipiattiong LiCO3. This may sound simple, but it is rather costly. To produce Li metal, either aluminothermic reduction at ~1200-1400°C is required or the electrolysis of Li bearing molten salts.
New processes are being developed for direct lithium extraction from lithium-rich brine aquifers which allows the lithium depleted brine to be re-injected into the aquifer, thus eliminating the need for additional water or the land for evaporation ponds, while maintaining the aquifer pressure to avoid effects on other potable water aquifers.. e.g. E3 Metals membrane process. Many such lithium-rich brine aquifers are associated with fossil fuel reservoirs. e.g. Alberta Canada, which does not even show on the global aquifer map in the video, yet the Leduc Reservoir alone hosts lithium-enriched brine with 6.7 million tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) which can support a 50,000-tonne lithium hydroxide operation for up to 35 years.
I last heard (5 years ago) they need around 10,000 m³ of water production to make a profit. I wonder if the tech has been developed enough to make a profit on a smaller quantity of water? Another fun fact, spilling 100m³ of this water can easily cost 1 million to clean up.
You can also check Lithion Recycling here in Quebec, Canada, which also has developed a process for recycling lithium batteries up to 95%, and they also have a first processing plant in construction.
Laptop, smartphone, electronics, lithium ion batteries can be recycled at any Batteries + Bulbs all across America FYI // Battery electric vehicle batteries & large format lithium tend to have other pathways for recycling through dealers etc //
Technically nearly everything can be recycled, upcycled, refurbished, restored, scrapped, broken down, parted out, built up, modified, customized, so many options :)
I had always wondered about the costs involved in electric vehicle production.
This video gave a great breakdown of the batteries.
That graph at the beginning from Volkswagen is suspect. It shows comparable EV and ICE lifetime emissions. In fact: "In the UK in 2019, the lifetime emissions per kilometre of driving a Nissan Leaf EV were about three times lower than for the average conventional car, even before accounting for the falling carbon intensity of electricity generation during the car’s lifetime."
The third route for LIB recycling is direct recycling. In direct recycling, the cathode and anode recycled and not destroyed as in the case for pyro- and hydrometallurgy.
Another interesting area is the recovery of electrolytes, which is lost in both pyro- and hydrometallurgy.
That news made my day really brighter
thanks for the hope. i mean it
@@Jay...777 I think XR is a bit off with that motto. When hope fades, people give up. That's what really happens. When there's hope, people jump up and say "great, let's do it!"
Always a good listen. 👍
Unless the US decides to ivade Australia, I think we are ok. Which ever way you look at it, espeshially with recycling, Lithium is never going to do as much damage as oil has done.
Recycling is an absolute must in ALL areas of manufacturing including lithium. Like nuclear power plants in the US, some of the funds accumulated from selling electricity is channeled into to a power plant decommission fund which also includes any recycling. All manufacturing should be setup on a similar model particularly with plastics.
Love your videos: calm, unbiased, SUPER informative and understandable. Thank you for all your vulgarisation videos
To me, the main question will be : will those ressources sourced from recycling cheaper than mining new one? And I have big doubt about it. Unless there are regulations to enforce recycling, which we should do, I’m afraid it will be economically not viable.
I just subscribed to this channel for my mental health.
Your videos are much appreciated.
As you said there is a finite limit to everything- especially clean water. Although recycling uses less energy than extraction of the elements from primary mother load, the ultimate need for both is cheaper energy. Currently, probably the most efficient way to extend recycliability of resources is to produce the energy required through recently developed modular molten salt energy converters using liquid Thorium salt. Thorium is not a rare element and being fertile rather than fissile with its extremely long half-life, makes it relatively safe to mine, especially as it is usually the major waste product of mining the heavier rare earths. This not only can give us a win-win situation but by using it as a fertile liquid salt it is also capable of consuming current nuclear waste in the process reducing storage life from tens of thousands of years to only 300 years required for the Strontium 90 and Caesium 137 which is safely captured as a non volatile salt. All this is done by burning up 99.5% of the fuel used compared with the current LWR using less than 5% leaving more than 95% as "nuclear waste" created with the current 60 year old design with its potentially dangerous high pressure light water reactors (LWR) currently in use, (because their manufacturers could make more profit keeping it that way). Please include MSR when considering ways to reduce coal pollution..🥝🥝🙏
Here is the reason why Indonesia is developing 7×500MWe Liquid metal Thorium ion molten sodium fluoride salt burner reactors with capitalised cost of $1/Watt; fuel cost 0.5cents/kWh at a consumer price of less than 7cents/KWh according to their PPA and has a 43kW/m^2 foot print for a 180m × 65m 500MWe plant ..or as a base loader 375MWh/m^2/annum. An impossible task for Solar & wind farms.
How about analysing these alternative solutions?🥝🥝🙏
ua-cam.com/video/rZx7kwZo4hQ/v-deo.html
Little more details on extraction appreciated as it is going to be a most sought topic among entrepreneur
Almonds
What aspect? The chemicals needed to extract the seperate metals?
What a great collection of information, and well stitched together. So glad to see Australia has some wheels turning in the direction of recycling. I hated watching the Leaf cells getting crunched.
You realize that rather than cargo container batteries in a yard, they can put them in a city as modular batteries that plug into a highrise building structure that is the city supply station.
LOL "UA-cam somewhat random search algorithm" you said it man :)
Recycling is very important. Miss you next Sunday. Thanks 😊
Love your delivery
Great, calm, balanced view. Watched one video and subscribed. Would love to hear some interviews with some of these start up companies.
Nice to hear that we are also improving this area :-)
A great show thanks
You might want to keep an eye out for a company called Redwood Industries with regards to battery recycling. They are based in the USA and are in dark mode at the moment but I'm guessing they will be heavily mentioned and detailed in Tesla's upcoming battery day on the 22nd September.
Hi John. Yes Redwood are well known.
GREAT WORK ! GREAT PROGRAM AND VERY PLESANT TO FOLLOW . BIG THANKS !
The evaporation process will soon be eliminated by a little start-up company in Nevada, who have invented a process that extracts the lithium directly from the brine without any need for pond evaporation. Pure Energy Minerals are merely weeks/months from full production.
Source?
@@insevanhouts www.pureenergyminerals.com/overview/
I was always curious as to what happened at the end for lithium batteries and you did a great job explaining it.
Interesting, like to see a video about the costs and emissions from manufacturing and running these recycling facilities....
lets start with mandating that laptop and phone batteries are use removable again
The secret to electric cars is super capacitor batteries
They are easy to recycle efficient and and 35 percent of the charge could be maintained by the braking system
35 percent super capacitor charge could be added on top of lithium full size
And it would increase the efficiency and life of the battery a secret
Second unit could keep a fully charged
Battery at 100 percent charge 😎😎😎
Super capacitors... with Cobalt and Manganese spinels? or even worst: ruthenium and Iridium?
Have you heard about the Canadian company called Li-Cycle?
Recycling of geographically-constrained resources also creates job opportunities for populations that don't have said resource deposits. That's a point a much wider audience can get behind.
The real question is: how usable are the recycled materials. The video mentioned the recycling process making SOMETHING, but not what that something was used for. Did anyone make a battery using recycled materials from another battery?
I have a feeling that just like plastic recycling, battery recycling will not get far enough. Plastic for example can only be recycled a few times, so the “circular economy” is impossible.
Okay, they're starting to address the Lithium issue, but what about the issue with rare earth magnets? From what I've read, it is one of the most environmentally damaging processes ever devised.
And I'm not talking about greenhouse gases (although Chinese rare-earth production uses lots of coal-fired energy), but *real pollution* in the form of heavy metals and radioactive tailings (i.e. thorium) released directly into the environment.
I don't think the Rare Earth elements (Lanthanides if memory serves) are used for any of this.
Thank you ! You are FANTASTIC .
What a refreshing presentation of what as far as I can make out are unembellished facts. Compliments and lucky enough to have received this recommendation by YT now subscribed.
In South America, I think, evaporation has the lowest energy cost to extract precious metals. Unless a very efficient membrane can be invented, other extractions via liquefying would created different kinds of pollution. I had been involved in extracting precious metals, and thus aware that extracting the last few molecules can be tremendously expensive. We have always settle for compromised solutions.
There should be a law forcing companies to provide detailed plans/instructions on how to recycle everything they produce. We need to force them to take responsability for their products AFTER their lifecycle. Or even a tax incentive, making it economically unviable to not invest in recycling or even repairng.
You say this like these companies are some sort of alien entity. These companies are owned by stockholders (us) and their costs are passed onto the consumer (us). How much more are you willing to pay for the implementation of this idea? How much less would you be willing to earn from your investment?
The point is that companies aren’t some form of evil enemy. They respond to market forces which is a much better way to promote change than laws.
Sure evaporation uses lots of space. But deserts have plenty, that is not the problem.
Removing all that water may cause instability in an already unstable land
Presumably, if the energy for the battery recycling comes from wind or solar (or hydro), then the metals in batteries and hence the cars that use them become very very carbon friendly. Even the hydro and pyro methods become green.
Yes please! An episode on 'Urban Mining' would be appreciated :)
👏 👏 Battery recycling will be huge...in due time.
@Just have a think: Question: why is it an issue if you use water from rivers and direct it to saltpans when it is finally evaporated again and gets over the air back into the river?
Alternative usage at that location for river water is food (corn&cows) where water also ends up either in the food or is evaporated as well. So it is not about water preservation but about local usage.
So what is the real issue? People who work at the lithium facilities can buy food instead of farming it. That's what most people in the UK are doing.
It seems to me the real solution is not cleaner energy but the need for less energy, and the best way to achieve this is for us all to take a break from consumerism,
It appears that humans can't help themselves and want the new shiny bauble, because they are in competition with each other to impress each other and get to the top of their dominance hierarchy (an impulse driven by the desire to procreate). You may get a handful of people to be satisfied with a second-hand phone to help the environment, but when both the help and the damage is not immediately visible, most are going to demand the latest thing with the latest time-wasting and social illness features. You can't even get people to turn off lights, not use plastic bags and put a jumper on instead of cranking the heater, let alone forego the latest huge-screen TV in order to save power. As far as I can see, you need to offer consumer options that are green (with barely any more effort involved than the usual options) and that requires govt regulation, because non-green options will always be cheaper, given they already exist and don't require innovating. That brings us to how bad people are at voting in their best interests, as you may witness all around the world right now.
The local issues of Lithium production are noteworthy but the global issues of ICEs are more severe.
In Peru it is not about preserving water, but about water distribution.
It doesn't help to use more water for cows and corn instead of getting lithium salt into a waterphase, when we face dramatic climate change that also has its impact on the local situation in Peru but also worldwide. The imbalance between
ICE users being immune to their impact on nature while BEV users are hypersensitive about their potential local impact is a huge leverage for the ICE lobby.
Hi there large deposits of Lithium have been found in Ukraine some 1.2 million tonnes of it in the Donbas region also large deposits in Serbia so European shortage is not there also to substitute the cobalt with a mixture of manganese and again large deposits in Ukraine second to South Africa. The electricity is the stumbling block and as before 80 percent would have to be nuclear power and the rest 20 percent renewables.
When I looked up lithium stats in 2019.
Australia had the highest lithium mining production in the world.
Bolivia has the highest untapped stores of lithium but it was in really heavy terrain.
In late 2019 a Bolivian(lady) minister was in an interview that Bolivia had reached agreement with a private company to mine that lithium.
Hopefully covid19 hasn't caused this to stall.
The Uyuni Salar is vast however there are significant technical and political hurdles to clear before that resource can be exploited economically.
Thank you for this video. A lot of people do not know this about Lithium
Did you ever discuss Nickel-Iron batteries yet? If I'm not mistaken I read/watched they can last up to 100 years or even more with topping up (simple easy to make fluid). For home & office/factory solar storage use they seem so great, rarely ever need recycling.
Sustainability and new shaping of a new economic system are going to be this decades challenges. Thank you for the video. Interesting insights.
Thanks for the detailed explanation. 👍
4:23 I don't see the issue with water use... It evaporates and then falls back down to earth as rain. Its a cycle, its not just gone forever.
The financial impact on recycling companies really should be supplemented by the OEM’s. These companies make billions and pass the burden on to recyclers that have to scramble to find an environmentally safe way to process these materials. How hard would it be to accrue a portion of the sales profits to invest in improving this technology?
Great video and content. Very important. I am very interested in further updates. Many thanks
I've been watching your channel a while...Didn't know about your stance on funding. How refreshing to see this in a successful channel. You could earn a fair amount with these viewing figures I'm sure. Good on you mate. Very Impressed......
I have to question your statement that a big part of the battery footprint comes from the extraction and processing of lithium since lithium only makes up about 2% of a battery pack. Lithium probably is a very small part of the battery pack footprint.
Lithium makes up a small proportion, roughly 2%, of the battery's production cost, not its weight or volume, which are greater proportions of the battery. The relatively low value of the lithium involved may be an impediment to battery recycling, though some of the other materials may be of greater economic interest.
@@milesrideout974 I don't believe you are correct. I've seen about 4% by weight at the cell level and about 2% by weight at the pack level. Costs are about 1%.
"The lithium raw material in a Li-ion battery is only a fraction of one cent per watt, or less than 1 percent of the battery cost."
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/availability_of_lithium
I think the proportions vary significantly with battery design. The Tesla 70 kWh battery pack weighs 453 kg and contains approximately 63 kg of lithium (13.9%).
@@milesrideout974 No it doesn't, that's an estimate by Goldman Sachs about the amount of Lithium Carbonate, which itself is only about 18% lithium. I can see where your confusion comes from.
Battery manufacturers and sellers, should have financial and legal incentives to insist on customers returning used batteries for purchasing new ones. A discount of 25 percent on the new battery when the old one is returned might be a strong incentive. Remember, empty coke, milk and beer bottles were recycled in the good old days before plastics. A tax on new lithium batteries can also be imposed to subsidize the recycling chain initially till it becomes viable.
There is something here I do not understand about lithium extraction via evaporation. A chemical company I worked for extracted tons salt from water (from the Houston ship channel) with a system that utilized a vacuum to remove the water, leaving the salt behind. The method was fast and simple, so I wonder why the same method isn't used for obtaining the lithium.
👍!!! I want to jump up and down in excitement as we endeavor to embark on a journey into a new frontier and promising future!!🌺Thank you for all your encouraging words. 🎉🌎
Really interesting and well balanced report. I see no problem with entrepreneurs taking up the intitiative, if regulators incentivise through policy frameworks built on green metrics and 'closing the loop systems'. Is this not the best way to balance capitalism and policy making? The subsequent synergy that this feedback loop will facilitate over time will be better recycling through better design. Which will in the future be the absolute ideal of a highly developed and responsible society. I think peak global population as a function of consumption is not too far from reaching its maximum as well so this will find balance over time ( i hope)
Really love your content, thanks for making it, it's great to be able to keep up to date with tech, especially the green tech.
Glad you enjoy it!
86 million cars sold world wide in 2019. The numbers of EVs sold is 33 times as many as in 2019 from 2010 - 60,000 to 2 million. Project that on a straight line graph and that is 66 million new EV cars sold in 2028. But the take up will be exponential. That means that in eight years time ICE cars that are sold will be a curio with nearly all new cars sold being EVs. There will still be older ICE cars around, however they will also disappear quickly when it will be difficult to buy petrol and diesel. I may be safe to say that in 15 years time no ICE vehicles will be on the roads at all.
Expect the take up of hydrogen fuel cell trains to quicken when diesel fuel costs rise, with the fuel also difficult to access.
It looks like the battery industry is keeping pace.
In 15 years (2035) some countries such as the UK plan on banning the sale of new vehicles that run on fossil fuels. That includes hybrids.
@@acmefixer1
The market may accelerate that date substantially.
@@acmefixer1 actually, they are thinking about bringing the ban forward to 2030. The transition will probably happen a lot quicker than everybody thinks
@@johnburns4017
Yes, no one can predict the future. The market may cause a lot of changes. When commuters find they can drive their electric vehicles 4 or 5 times the distance for the same cost as a fossil fueled car, they may make the change to EVs and make banning unnecessary.
Thanks. As various processes are developed for recycling different materials, we'll obviously get better & better at it. If these things can be done on a truly industrial scale, they may even become profitable. I've been saying since the 80s, that we need really large-scale operations to dig in (literally, in some cases) and extract reusable materials from everything from landfills to seawater. [With fresh water set to become the oil of the 21st century, that's going to be crucial.] Seawater could - in theory - be 'mined' for salts, lithium, deuterium, tritium, radioactives, trace amounts of minerals, tiny precious gems (including diamonds) for many purposes, and other things; and, of course, fresh water itself. One could even have samples of it sent off to various bio-labs looking for novel life forms, or just to do some chemistry or biology. Even landfills could be subjected to these industrial grinding up & separating processes. More general-purpose equipment, and computer controls will help immensely. Can you imagine a market in which big corporations compete for the right to clean up a landfill?!? I like that. tavi.
how about the impact on CFP of EV's when you have to replace the batterypacks, and especially in cold climates when even in the ev's it may be as low as a 3 year lifetime?