[Goose]

Goose, there was just a WSJ article on this very topic (battery recycling):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/battery-rec...1663115377

Ultimately, we will see, but I do think the relative high costs of mining the metals, coupled to the challenges disposing of the used batteries, will lead to a viable battery closed loop cycle, but we will see.

BC

Another along those lines:
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2022/03/0...on-startup

Unfortunately these battery recycling companies are all going to collide with the same environmental regulations that render rare earth processing in the US impossible. Battery recycling has some technical challenges but I believe these can probably be overcome. The regulatory ones cannot, at least with the current restrictions (no pun intended). Something is going to have to give here, as there is no question that battery powered "things", not just EVs, are becoming more common. Having our cake and eating it too just isn't possible in this instance. While to some degree one can trade off cost vs low environmental impact, battery recycling is inherently going to be "dirty". IMO we as a nation have to face that fact and agree on a regulatory approach that is "as good as possible".

It is possible to have electric vehicles that use fuel cells as a power source. While not cheap, these cells can avoid the battery recycling problem. Not all fuel cells are carbon footprint free. The ones that use methane certainly are not. The hydrogen ones are if the hydrogen was produced by electrolysis of water. In the USA today that is not how hydrogen is usually produced. That needs to change. Fuel cells energy density is not great. Of course, for many years batteries were considered to have the same problem.

IMO, the best approach is to burn hydrogen in an ICE. There are problems with this approach, but they are clearly solvable. The cost of hydrogen needs to be low, because your "gas mileage" won't be great. You need to either use a low compression engine to keep NOx formation low or use a catalytic converter to allow higher compression engines. You need a strong gas tank to allow compressed hydrogen to have adequate mileage. Liquid hydrogen is just too hard, at least for the moment. So, make hydrogen using solar power and burn it to run our vehicles. We know how to do this. We just need the cheap hydrogen.

[Goose]

Goose, there was just a WSJ article on this very topic (battery recycling):

https://www.wsj.com/articles/battery-rec...1663115377

Ultimately, we will see, but I do think the relative high costs of mining the metals, coupled to the challenges disposing of the used batteries, will lead to a viable battery closed loop cycle, but we will see.

BC

Another along those lines:
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2022/03/0...on-startup

Unfortunately these battery recycling companies are all going to collide with the same environmental regulations that render rare earth processing in the US impossible. Battery recycling has some technical challenges but I believe these can probably be overcome. The regulatory ones cannot, at least with the current restrictions (no pun intended). Something is going to have to give here, as there is no question that battery powered "things", not just EVs, are becoming more common. Having our cake and eating it too just isn't possible in this instance. While to some degree one can trade off cost vs low environmental impact, battery recycling is inherently going to be "dirty". IMO we as a nation have to face that fact and agree on a regulatory approach that is "as good as possible".

It is possible to have electric vehicles that use fuel cells as a power source. While not cheap, these cells can avoid the battery recycling problem. Not all fuel cells are carbon footprint free. The ones that use methane certainly are not. The hydrogen ones are if the hydrogen was produced by electrolysis of water. In the USA today that is not how hydrogen is usually produced. That needs to change. Fuel cells energy density is not great. Of course, for many years batteries were considered to have the same problem.

IMO, the best approach is to burn hydrogen in an ICE. There are problems with this approach, but they are clearly solvable. The cost of hydrogen needs to be low, because your "gas mileage" won't be great. You need to either use a low compression engine to keep NOx formation low or use a catalytic converter to allow higher compression engines. You need a strong gas tank to allow compressed hydrogen to have adequate mileage. Liquid hydrogen is just too hard, at least for the moment. So, make hydrogen using solar power and burn it to run our vehicles. We know how to do this. We just need the cheap hydrogen.