When Electric-Car Batteries Die, Where Will They End Up?

From now on, before 2010, the owner of the electric car may encounter a dashboard light flashing an unwelcome message after driving a clean green mileage: check the battery.
Their first concern is likely to be the cost of the new battery, which could cost $10,000 or more depending on today\'s price, although production breakthroughs at that time could reduce costs.
But eco-conscious drivers will soon turn to the problem of finding the last place to rest for their wear --out batteries. A bulky 500-pound lithium-
Ion battery packs will never be candidates for roadside recycling.
Improper disposal will offset the benefits of years of zero accumulation
Emissions cars.
Of course, there are still many years left. Few lithium-ion-
Life Estimation of battery components for electric vehicles on the road-
No one knows exactly.
Rising from seven years.
Even so, battery suppliers and power companies are already working to build a recycling process.
Advertising in organizations hoping to create an afterlife for batteries no longer suitable for road use is Washington-
The trade group, which is headquartered in the charging battery Association, claims to be PRBA.
There is a high risk of such efforts.
All parties would like to be seen as product administrators with due diligence so that electric cars have the opportunity to flourish.
Also, they want to screw out the last bit of value from the battery before the raw material is finally processed and recycled.
To grasp the good and bad of product management, consider two common examples: tires and traditional leadacid batteries.
Millions of wear each year
Remove tires from American cars.
About the third one was renovated or recycled, but many were eventually abandoned and hundreds of millions of people were in storage waiting for the arrival of economically viable use.
Tires are prohibited in most landfill sites because they are large in size and contain large amounts of methane.
The lack of viable End-Use of balding tires is a major example of poor product management.
The gold standard for effective management is oldfashioned lead-
Car battery;
According to the Chicago-based trading group International Battery board, 97% of the battery lead is recycled.
Over the past decade, major manufacturers like Exide Technologies have developed an infrastructure to minimize the possibility of waste batteries being landfill.
\"Stores that install new batteries and keep old ones for pickup pay about $10 per core,\" said Robert Horman, vice president of complete battery source, a chain retailer based in Brighton, Michigan.
\"Recyclers chop hard parts --
Plastic Box-lead plate
Capture acidic electrolyte, \"he said.
\"Almost all recycled materials have entered the new battery.
\"The metal value in lead batteries, according to him, is about 30 cents per pound.
Herman, in sharp contrast to the value of 4 pounds of lithium in 400
A pound of battery will power the Chevrolet Volt on a 40-mile journey.
As a commodity, the current price of lithium is about $2 per pound and may not be enough to guarantee its recycling and reuse.
In the short term, California\'s Toxco will handle many exhausted EV batteries
The headquarters of Brother Kinsky.
Founded in 1984, Toxco is a leader in battery recycling with factories in California, Ohio, Tennessee and BC.
Current procedure for recycling lithium
At the Toxco plant of Trail in BC, Ion batteries start with deep freezing at minus 325 degrees Fahrenheit to stop chemical and electrical activity.
Metals, plastics and compounds are sold or disposed of separately after shear and crushing.
A chemical reaction converts lithium into lithium carbonate, which has a variety of medical uses as an industrial chemical and gives a bright red glow to fireworks and flares.
Last year, the Department of Energy issued $9 ads to Toxco.
5 million expand its business in Lancaster, Ohio
Currently used to recover nickelCadmium, nickelmetal-
Lead-Acid Battery-
To cope with the influx of lithium that is about to run oution batteries.
But lithium batteries are not destined to be dismemberled: electric car manufacturers and battery manufacturers say that when the battery pack is no longer able to provide complete performance or mileage, and think it is necessary to replace it, three-
There are still several quarters of its energy capabilities.
That\'s why the answer to where electric car batteries will be put in the long run is probably the power business.
One of the most daunting tasks facing utilities is to coordinate power generation and power supply in the event of fluctuations in demand.
Consumers go home from work, open big-
Show the TV when dinner is in the oven.
This behavior has been repeated throughout the community, resulting in a surge in energy demand.
Then, after the evening news, people tend to turn off the lights and appliances, and demand drops sharply.
The final result is,
The plant efficiency is affected because the generator does not have a stable output.
Utilities have relied on buffer zones to balance supply and demand, to inject water into storage tanks, to inject compressed air into underground reservoirs as a way to manage the use of generators.
But with the use of renewable energybut fickle —
Energy sources like wind and solar are increasingly demanding storage devices that are not a stain on the landscape.
\"For more than a decade, we have been focusing on the development of electric vehicles,\" said Mike Rowland, technical consultant at Duke Energy, North Carolina.
\"The Early batteries weren\'t that appealing, but we jumped up completely --
Three years ago, many automakers were involved.
For 20 years, Southern California Edison has been driving the car to be electrified.
\"We hope that electric vehicles will not only benefit the environment, but also help the power system work more effectively by absorbing some of the electricity generated by non-electric vehicles.
The peak period for wind turbines, \"said Ted Craver, Jr.
Chief executive of the company\'s parent company, Edison International. Mr.
Craver said his company operates the largest electric vehicle fleet in the United States, which has traveled more than 18 million miles in the past 20 years.
Advertising \"we built the roof of what we call the future garage --
\"Solar panels, smart meters and batteries have been installed,\" he said . \". “Second-Battery life-
Removed from the road service
Ideal for this app.
Paul de Matini, vice president of advanced technology at Southern California Edison, said that 16% of the energy that utilities provide to customers has come from renewable energy --
Wind, solar and hydro.
\"This year, we are in a substation in the tehachapi mountain area. C. E.
We are building a utility company with many wind farms.
32-scale installationmegawatt-
Storage in 8,000 hourssquare-
Building, \"he said. “The lithium-
The ion battery provided by A123 will fill the peak and trough of the power generated by the wind generator. Mr.
De Martini added: \"We expect a second
Battery life will be on the market around 2025.
We have plenty of time to develop new batteries.
A management system suitable for our specific application.
One of Tesla\'s designs is already under test.
\"Nobody can say lithium exactly-
The ion battery will continue to be used on the road, or if the battery taken out of the car will compete with the next battery --
A generation of batteries in hope
For utility applications.
But people are very optimistic about it: GM says it believes
The use of the car will extend the battery life by 5 to 10 years.
Nissan cooperates with Sumitomo Corporation for lithium-
In a project called reuse, resale, refilling and recycling, Ion batteries taken out of Nissan Leaf electric vehicles.
Custom repackaging according to customer needs is part of this business plan.
A version of this article was printed on page AU2 of The New York edition on June 13, 2010, with the title: When electricity
The car battery is dead. Where will they die? .
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