Electric bus explodes on Paris street
(www.youtube.com)
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Lithium is not consumed by the operation of a battery. It's like mining aluminium - yes, there is pollution is involved in mining it, but once you've got it, you've got it for the next hundred years.
An electric vehicle produces less pollution even if it is entirely powered by coal. A large, stationary power station is more efficient than an internal combustion engine.
lithium is really tough to recycle. Aluminum is not. Lithium for batteries is an ionized crystal oxide. It doesn't particularly want to be in that form and when it has gone through many charge cycles, it must be refabricated. Resmelting, like with aluminum, won't work, because it's not the nature of the base metal to be an ionized crystal oxide. I don't know the cycle, but there is a reason we aren't mass recycling these batteries--the process is not at all economical.
EDIT: Batteries are recycled now, actually. I guess it is more economical than it used to be. Go read how they do it and guess who environmentally friendly it is :D
https://waareeess.com/lithium-ion-battery-recycling/
"After shredding, a “black mass” is obtained, which needs to be processed to extract essential metals like cobalt and nickel. The black mass typically includes a blend of lithium, manganese, cobalt and nickel present in distinct ratios. This process requires an intensive amount of energy, and it also degrades the value of the extracted components."
separating out these metals is actually effectively re-refining the elemental forms of the metals. Which requires settling ponds and industrial quantities of acids. Metal refining is often super noxious and releases a LOT of nasty gasses. After obtaining the elemental form of the metals, each will need to be re-ionized and alloyed, which also requires a lot of energy for the smelt and fabrication. Additional materials will need to be sourced for the packaging and layering.
EDIT 2: Lithium is already ionized naturally, since it's an alkaline metal like cesium, potassium, sodium etc. The chemistry involved with using it in an alloy is nuts and well beyond me.
To remake the electrolyte you need lithium chloride, which can be found naturally in lithium salts (mixed with sodium perchlorate to make lithium perchlorate). Raw lithium would be more useful in making lithium carbonate, which you can use to make the lithium cobalt oxide which is also needed.
perchlorates are nasty nasty business. I wonder how green anything that demands mass amounts of a perchlorate is.
It is when it burns.
To be fair internal combustion engines do produce actual pollution, and coal plants do have massive fuck off scrubbers (although there's still the problem of ash, which doesn't go into the air but is pollution all the same).
I'm mostly just talking in terms of air quality. I mentioned the ash and slag just to avoid anyone saying "akthually, coal plants..."
Comment Reported for: Rule 2 - Violent Speech
It doesn't look like you were telling a user to kill themselves.
That being said, CO2 is pollution, so is methane, and you produce both, not sure why that's a reason to die...
If you do an Amber Herd and shit the bed, that is still polluting the bed.
Methane, again, is common in the natural world. Yet, shitting in the river still makes the river polluted. Shit also can help make plants grow as fertilizer.
It's still a pollution.