It’s not that I don’t like the idea of electric cars, it sounds nice and having owned a golf cart in a city that allowed people to drive them down the street, I enjoyed traveling to the local Starbucks or grocery store. sometimes. Still, something that has always bothered me, and something that we talk about often in our expert group is what you do with all the old batteries from all the electric cars that people are going to buy. That’s if electric cars ever catch on, and there have been several false starts in the past few decades.
If you talk to someone evangelical about the concept of the electric car, they will tell you that batteries can be continuously recycled, rejuvenated and reused. However, nothing lasts forever, and claiming that it could be simply denying the laws of physics. The reality is that eventually these components will corrode, deteriorate and deteriorate. At that point, they will be discarded and not available for recycling, ending up in landfills.
Still, there are many people who deny this and say that we can continuously recycle these batteries forever. Yes, that is a beautiful and wonderful concept, and it is the correct and environmentally friendly answer to this very important question, unfortunately it is wrong. Okay, let’s talk a little more about this and take it up a notch, shall we?
An interesting article to read on this topic could be; “The Ecological Impact of Batteries” by Colleen Dillon, written back in August 1994, in fact. The abstract states;
“There is still much to know about the specific problems that present to the ecosystem as a result of the disposal of batteries in landfills. This report explores the various effects that toxic metals in batteries (specifically mercury, cadmium, lead, nickel, zinc and lithium) have throughout the ecosystem, detailing the damage these metals can cause to the human body. The most predominant effects these metals have on humans include neurological damage, kidney damage, birth defects and cancer. “
Many questions, not many real answers; in fact, for the most part, we still don’t know the answers to these relevant questions here. What I ask of you is that you come up with a real strategy, one that works, and one that avoids the batteries of the 15 to 17 million cars that we build in the United States each year, that is if we had to build only electric cars, so that they are not thrown into our landfills already intoxicated. Answer me that. Consider all of this and think about it.