Here is one way to find out whether a company is serious about its long term plans for a given product: Find out whether they worry about what to do with their products after they are dead. That usually separates the serious players from the wannabes. Word reaches us from The Nikkei [sub] that Nissan has teamed up with the venerable zaibatsu Sumitomo, and established a joint venture to recycle electric car batteries.
We aren’t talking starter batteries. The new firm will find ways to recycle and find new applications for used automotive lithium ion batteries. Such as the ones in the Nissan Leaf. Sumitomo is no newcomer to the field. Sony and Sumitomo have developed technology to recycle cobalt and other precious metals from spent lithium-ion batteries. Nevertheless, it’s not digging for gold. It’s more like charging for garbage removal. Recycling batteries takes a lot of energy, and recyclers usually get paid $1000 to $2000 per ton to take dead batteries off your hands. That would come out to $300 to $600 to retire a Leaf battery pack.
Nevertheless, it’s not digging for gold. It’s more like charging for garbage removal. Recycling batteries takes a lot of energy, and recyclers usually get paid $1000 to $2000 per ton to take dead batteries off your hands
Interesting, since many OEMs pay a bounty on lead-acid and NiMH packs. Is this a cost issue for lithium alone?
Car-class batteries are typically rated to 80% original capacity. I’d love to have a 19.2 kwh UPS backing up my home.
I think you’re misinterpreting the basis for Nissan’s actions IMHO. Japan is VERY sensitive to used battery disposal. It would be unlikely that any Japanese company wouldn’t have a very public and well-thought out disposal plan.
Why you ask? You’ll recall the famous Ninamata mercury poisonings.
http://www1.umn.edu/ships/ethics/minamata.htm
While the mercury there wasn’t from batteries, the disaster created a very strong awareness of the need to properly dispose of batteries as batteries contain heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and nickel, which can contaminate the environment when batteries are improperly disposed of. When incinerated, certain metals might be released into the air or can concentrate in the ash produced by the combustion process.
http://www.epa.gov/osw/conserve/materials/battery.htm
Neglecting to have a very public and throughly thought-out recycling plan for the large batteries in electric cars could result in a PR disaster for Nissan.