The electric car industry has been romping along nicely. Fresh ideas for better batteries are coming online rapidly, with lithium leading the race thanks to Elon Musk’s giant factories. Moreover, Britain and France have outlawed petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Could anything stop the momentum or slow it down now? Yes, there is something. In three words, it is lithium battery recycling.
The Growing Mountain Waiting for Lithium Battery Recycling
The International Energy Agency thinks there will be 130 million electric cars on the world’s roads by 2030. This is astounding, considering the 2 million we have now. Despite government pressure, only 5% of electric car batteries are recycled in Europe.
In America, we do not even have regulations for large lithium battery recycling yet. There is a tsunami on its way as the first electric car batteries start to wear out. And then we hit the larger problem of how to make lithium battery recycling affordable.
The Lithium Battery Recycling Problem We Must Resolve
Lithium battery recycling is uneconomic. Recovered lithium costs more than digging is out the ground. The income hardly covers the labor to recycle lithium batteries, and the technology is expensive.
Since lithium is a finite resource, we can’t send large car batteries to the tip as happens with most smartphone batteries. However, we could extend their life by redeploying them for home solar storage while we seek a workable solution.
Have We Learned Our Lesson From The Past?
Our grandfathers romped into the automotive era with scarcely any thought of recycling their Model T Fords. If they noticed the exhaust fumes, they probably regarded them as a sign of progress. We have global warming, and mountains of scrap iron to prove just how short sighted our ancestors were.
We need to respond to the challenge of lithium battery recycling soon. Or else what will our grandchildren say … were we silly old fools?
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