Millions Of Electric Car Batteries Retiring By 2030, Are We Ready To Deal With What Could Be Ticking Time Bombs?
Millions Of Electric Car Batteries Retiring By 2030, Are We Ready To Deal With What Could Be Ticking Time Bombs?
Authored by Autumn Spreademann via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours), September 9, 2022
The evolving landscape of lithium batteries is creating both
contradictions and infrastructure hurdles that, according to some, need to be
addressed sooner rather than later. A critical component of this is waste
management.
More than 6 million electric vehicle (EV) battery packs will end
up as scrap between now and 2030, and the recycling and reuse industries are
racing to keep up. Some researchers project that recycling
alone will be an over $12
billion industry by 2025.
U.S. President Joe Biden wants to make America a key player in
the EV battery industry with a $3.1 billion spending package for automobile
production to transition away from fossil fuels.
Much of this dream is pinned on a dusty stretch of soil in the
Nevada high desert called Thacker
Pass. It serves as the lynchpin in Biden’s push for increased domestic lithium
production and more EV batteries. That’s because Thacker Pass is the largest
hard rock lithium reserve in the United States.
Currently,
China dominates the world’s EV battery production, with more than 80 percent of
all units developed there.
Yet while Biden’s administration has its sights on the top spot
for EV battery production, insiders are pointing out industry
trapdoors.
Due to the potentially dangerous chemistry of lithium-ion EV
units, concrete solutions are needed before an avalanche of dead battery packs
ends up sitting around and waiting for recycling like ticking time bombs.
Those working on the sales end of the EV revolution tend to
squirm or offer vague generalities when queried about what will happen to all
of the old batteries.
The notion is quickly lumped into the very broad category of
recycling or second life applications without offering any planning details.
Second life applications are an option for EV batteries no
longer fit to power cars, but are suitable for alternative uses like energy
storage.
And while that’s a start, the ultimate question lingers: How can
America effectively deal with millions of completely spent, defective, or
recalled EV units?
For
people who specialize in hazardous waste, handling lithium batteries is a
serious subject.
“For me,
the biggest challenge I see, especially with second life, is on the safety
side,” Scott Thibodeau at Veolia North America told The Epoch Times.
Thibodeau is the general manager of environmental services and
solutions at Veolia North America, the second largest hazmat removal service in
the United States.
He explained the chemistry of lithium-ion batteries is
problematic since they can’t be dumped or recycled as easily as some other
materials. This requires particular adaptations within the evolving EV industry
to responsibly strip, package, and dispose of old units.
A ‘Thermal
Runaway’
“The packing and logistics isn’t easy or cheap,” Thibodeau said.
Moreover, the batteries pose a significant fire hazard.
Tucked within the sprawling Chicago suburbs is the town of
Morris, Illinois. Around midday on June 29, 2021, the fire department received
a call that a warehouse fire had broken out in a structure that many residents
assumed was just an abandoned building. The call came from someone who claimed
to be an employee for a company that was storing 200,000 pounds of batteries in
the building, most of which were lithium.
Fire Chief Tracey Steffes told reporters that it was the
first time his department had ever fought a lithium fire.
Mitigating traditional fires is done by using water or chemicals
to cut off the supply of oxygen. However, lithium is unique in that it doesn’t
require oxygen to burn. Once ignited, it creates what Thibodeau called a
“thermal runaway,” which is incredibly challenging to control.
“Once the battery goes into that state, stopping it is next
to impossible,” Steffes said to reporters after the June 2021
fire.
Confused Morris residents were quickly evacuated from
neighborhoods close to the blaze and spent hours in hotel rooms, watching smoke
fill the sky, and fearing for the safety of their homes.
At that moment, residential Americans got an up close and
personal look at lithium’s dark side.
It wasn’t the first incident where lithium battery storage
turned catastrophic, and it likely won’t be the last.
Thibodeau says that while there’s no easy way to put out a
lithium battery fire, having people properly trained on how to reduce the fire
risks, combined with proper handling and storage, is a huge step in the right
direction.
Recycling
EV batteries poses another significant hurdle. That’s
due to a trifecta of complications including expense, existing capacity to
handle demand, and the simple fact these batteries aren’t easy to recycle.
“Currently, less than five percent of lithium batteries that
reach the end of their lifespan are recycled,” a spokesperson for the carbon
accounting group Greenly told The Epoch Times.
The representative for Greenly went on to explain that though
the potential for ramped up recycling exists, it’s not possible with
lithium-ion batteries until they reach the end of their lifespan.
“The industry hasn’t obtained the knowledge or experience
necessary to learn how to recycle these batteries or maximize their usage
beforehand,” they added.
This is where second life applications come in, which can buy a
non-defective EV battery an extra 10 years of life. It also essentially buys
the burgeoning recycling companies time to catch up.
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