Further: Electric vehicles are expected to make a significant contribution to reducing carbon pollution in rich countries. About a third of emissions in the US is from combustion driven vehicles. Worldwide about 145 million electric vehicles are expected to be on the road by 2030 EVs are not without their own environmental impact: 12 million tons of lithium ion batteries are also expected to be retired by then. What to do with the units containing mined minerals like cobalt, nickle and lithium. The immediately obvious answer is to recycle them, if we want to avoid mountains of poisonous electronic waste destined for landfills. Recycling operations are just beginning to ramp up and will take time to mature. Now vehicle batteries are not designed with recycling in mind, for exmple using welds instead of removable fasteners to connect components, so complex operations are necessary to extract the valuable minerals. Tesla announced that it had started building recycling capabilities at its Gigafactory in Nevada to process waste batteries. In the meantime, another more efficient answer is to make batteries last longer. One answer is theoretically possible--sold-state batteries--but those are still in the laboratory stage.{13.05.21} Lithium-ion batters that can no longer power cars and trucks still have residual capacity, which can be used for storing energy generated by solar panels and wind turbines. Demonstrations of this capacity are underway.
Enel Group uses 9o expired Nissan Leaf batteries in a energy storage facility in Spain. Powervault in the UK uses expired car batteries as part of a home storage system. Getting more bang for the buck out of EV batteries also allows replacement of toxic lead-acid batteries. This is a big bonus in tropical countries like Africa where the heat degrades lead-acid batters quickly, requiring more frequently recycling. There are few facilities that can do this safely in the developing world. Lead is a particularly dangerous neurotoxin, affecting young children's brain development. This is one reason governments require high levels of lead-acid battery recycling and safe disposal of remains. Similar regulation is needed for the new generation of batteries. The EU proposed changes to its regulations targeting them. It proposes target rates of 70% for battery collection, recovery rates of 95% for cobalt, copper, lead and nickel and 70% for lithium, and mandatory minimum levels of recycled content in new batteries by 2030. Also being considered are digital labels that traces the individual unit's history, reports its condition and remaining capacity, helping vehicle manufacturers direct it for reuse or to recycling facilities.; While all of these developments are being cogitated and priced, do not forget to walk or ride a bike to your destination of choice.
