Is there a cost to going green?
A rebel with a cause
While toiling online one day, I stumbled upon an interesting eco-story. The venerable General Motors EV1 had popped up in the news but with a much different angle to its ordinary “greenliness”.
The story I came across was about an EV1 that had sold for $465,000. GM had stipulated in their EV1 leases that all cars be returned to them, with all but a few destroyed. This particular car has apparently escaped the crusher.
This lone rebel got me thinking. One thing that has always baffled me about the move to green technology, particularly in cars, is the economic and environmental impact of the science itself. To get more specifice, what about all those batteries?
Batteries are everywhere but to whose benefit?
There’s a palatable push by the pro-green movement to pressure the world’s automakers to build hybrid and all-electric cars, in spite of the fact that the technology is still in its infancy. Battery technology has evolved but not to the point of futuristic unlimited charges.
But because of that, a battery is thought of as disposable, tossed away when its no longer useful.
Whether it be hybrid or electric, automakers are dropping hundreds of pounds of batteries into cars, all in the name of being green and attracting the newly formed green buyer.
What of the batteries? Is there a guarantee that the vehicle’s power source won’t land up in the city dump?
The economic impact brings its own price. Hybrid and electric cars carry a premium. And, particularly with hybrids, the dollars you save by not buying gas does not offset the systems initial cost or the cost to replace it. Pocketbooks are having a say more than ever regarding vehicle purchases and scrimp is its middle name.
Batteries as a commodity
Can batteries be considered a commodity, not unlike oil? A battery isn’t made up of too many parts but the most important in today’s eco-friendly car battery is lithium.
Toyota’s Prius uses nickel-metal hydride batteries. Recent improvements with lithium-ion cells means some of the new hybrid and plug-in electric cars will use this technology.
Lithium carbonate, which is extracted from dried salt ponds, is processed to make lithium. South America and China possess the most abundant sources of lithium. Is the supply limited? Hard to tell, but as demand goes up, so will the price. Sound familiar?
There’s been much debate surrounding petroleum’s global impact. Is there any impact to the environment from all these batteries? Are all nickel-metal hydride and lithium batteries recycled?
An integral part of being green is reducing your use of petroleum and the products created from it. I suspect it’s going to take many small solutions to replace the only one we’ve ever had.
Leave a comment below and let me know what you think.
Labels: EV1, Hybrids, MotaGreen
Stumble It!
posted by Miss Mota Mouth@ 3:12 PM 1 Comments
1 Comments:
Andy,
These are interesting questions. I have a few thoughts. First, aside from hybrid or all electric cars every vehicle I know of uses at least one battery. I don't know the percentage of these that get recycled, but there is already a substanial infrastructure for this.
Unlike a lot of other consumer products that use batteries (and even advanced batteries) these are likely to be replaced by a licensed repair facility. Think about all of those laptops, cell phones, handheld games, and other devices that have much shorter life spans than cars... how many of them end up in the trash when they die or get replaced? Granted, there are a lot fewer batteries by volume in these than in a car (a few ounces vs. dozens or even hundreds of pounds of them) but I would have to assume that the average person isn't going to be removing batteries from their Prius or Volt at home. As a result it should be easier to maintain a closed life cycle for automotive batteries. They are also quite valuable and nearly 100% recyclable so there is a substantial downside to throwing them away.
For the foreseeable future, it appears that the cost of batteries are falling rapidly, leading me to think that the economies of scale of production are far outweighing the cost of the raw materials. I don't know how long this will last, however, I do agree that there is a concern about the implications of tieing ourselves to another limited natural resource... but unlike oil, batteries can be recycled and the precious materials re-used so it's not quite the slash and burn proposition that it is with petroleum.
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