Can you recycle an old EV battery?

Lithium-ion batteries have enabled us to build electric cars that let us drive around without burning fossil fuels. But how green are these batteries actually? And where do they end up once they're spent?

We're destroying our environment at an alarming rate. But it doesn't need to be this way. Our new channel Planet A explores the shift towards an eco-friendly world — and challenges our ideas about what dealing with climate change means. We look at the big and the small: What can we do and how the system needs to change. Every Friday we'll take a truly global look at how to get us out of this mess.

#PlanetA #Battery #Recycling
  
Read More (Links):

Electric vehicle market:

Lithium criticality:

Working conditions in Cobalt mines:

Lithium-Ion Vehicle Battery Production:

Lithium-ion battery recycling market (excerpt of full report):

More on the Nobel Prize winners:

Reporter: Malte Rohwer-Kahlmann  
Video editor: Johanna Rath
Supervising editor: Joanna Gottschalk

[jasonrhtx]

If manufacturers are made responsible for recovering spent batteries, they will design them better for re-use and recycling.

[meerkathero]

8 minutes is really short for such a complex topic, barely enough to scratch the surface. Would be great to see a video which dives into the details.

[drewmurray]

I feel like there is a lot of misinformation on the web about this topic and I feel I should share what we are seeing in Canada. Hybrid vehicles with large nimh battery packs are showing up at scrap yards and initially they are more dangerous to deal with for the average worker because the dc voltage is quite high around 300v. So there is extra cost involved with making the vehicle safe to put in the crusher. So far I have made many attempts to sell or reuse these batteries but you can't even give them away. No recyclers will take them that I have talked to and we are stuck storing them indefinitely. I don't understand how this is better for the environment. 7-10 years is not good enough for a major component like that.

[hiankun]

I really appreciate that you put every image sources at the bottom corners. That's should be the norm of YT videos.

[mAx-grassfed]

Svolt just recently started its production lines for cobalt-free batteries.

[AlexAguilar]

You nailed it on the head at the end. The more sustainable solution is fewer cars. More mass transit, biking and walkable cities.

[scottfranco]

It takes energy to make gas cars as well. In addition, a lot of the carbon emissions in gasoline are hidden, which is to say it takes a lot of energy to produce gasoline during the drilling, extraction and especially refining processes. All of this must be taken into comparative account unless you are the Wall Street Journal.

[Soordhin]

Funny that, they could have just called Duesenfeld in the city next door which already achieves a recycling rate of 91% on automotive LiOn batteries. They even power part of the process by the energy content in those batteries as they have to discharge them anyway at the beginning of the recycling process. The main problem is currently that there are not many EV batteries needing recycling, most can and are still used in secondary applications and EV numbers are still very small.

[williamlaw]

Let's face it, on the front end, people will invest in high profit sales of electric vehicles, batteries and so on but on the back side, people will not invest in high cost to low profit recycling or pollution control.
I believe the increase of battery usage will continue to increase pollution in our air and the waterways. Mismanagement of recycling these batteries will undoubtedly create much more pollution than we are being told because recycling is costly or very low profit.
Reverting to mass transit is the answer to lowering pollution.

[traceyolsen]

If there is an efficient public transport system and safe bicycle routes hopefully very few people will want cars.It would certainly make life more pleasant in big cities.

[LilaKuhJunge]

BYD (chinese automaker) has found a way to avoid the shredding, their "blade" batterie is designed for efficient disassembly.
Dry coating may also help to recover valuable materials.

[Kimhjortsbjerg]

Don’t compare how long you can drive to emit co2 with gasoline when you can only do that once lithium can be used many times

[jeffm]

If you have to mine it out of the earth it's a temporary solution. Recycling of course helps greatly, but ultimately we run out. CO2 extraction for fuel might be a good option. Start pulling CO2 out and figure out more and more efficient ways to burn that fuel to end up with a surplus of CO2 based fuels and less in the atmosphere. The power grid in most countries can't sustain electric car power demands.

[alekkryz]

i would say that other areas need to focus on public transportation so there’s less cars on the road. public transportation could become cleaner if they use batteries too.

[daviddgz]

"lithium is finite"... Everything is finite and most of the materials once recycled they are become low quality raw materials so no, you cannot "recycle indefinitely".

[maggiejetson]

It would need standardization to make them recyclable or reusable. Currently other than Tesla or Prius we don't have a large number of the same cells / pack to recycle / reuse cost effectively.

[Clark-Mills]

Excellent reporting / editing; interesting and entertaining. Well done! :)

[beatreuteler]

Building fewer cars will not work as they are demanded. Making too few of them will cause a mismatch between manufacturing and demand which will drive prices skyrocketing. There will be 3 ways: a) perfection of the recycling way, b) adding a 2nd competing battery technology that will use more redundant primary materials. If that will be the Sodium or another it's too early to tell but there should be another one. c) Also the 2nd life concept as mentioned in the video works well: We have a 14.4 KWh 2nd life battery powering our home in cooperation with a solar roof. It's too early to praise it but so far it just works.

[desertdan]

Hydrogen Fuel Cells are a better option and are more power dense. They also don't pollute and the waste is pure water and heat, that's all.

[rayzimmerman]

Good to see, sad part is many people mock the recycling effort. Kind of like people one hundred and twenty years ago mocked the gasoline powered cars. "Never replace the horse and buggy".