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Comment by d33lio | Hacker News Reader

Tesla seems to have used the same dirty trick used by oil companies to convince the public that plastics were largely "recyclable" by conflating economically productive (for Tesla) re-use of decommissioned batteries from Teslas and "recycling" of actual cells. I support the work of Elon Musk, obviously many here do not and call him a fraud, however I do take issue with how he uses this line to call the battery tech Tesla uses "renewable".

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Tesla's previous CTO and Co-founder, JB Straubel (who spent 15 years at Tesla), left to found Redwood Materials [1] (which intends to scale up battery recycling processes).

Fortum, a Finnish clean energy firm (correction provided by @Sharlin), has reached an 80% recycling rate as of 2019 [2].

It's always going to be cheaper to pour end of life cells into a remanufacturing process than to extract raw lithium from brine ponds, so it makes economic sense to do the R&D to do so. It's also going to be cheaper to reuse existing, functioning cell modules (such as folks harvesting cell packs from Teslas and other EVs for stationary storage) than to landfill or recycle those materials.

Batteries are mostly recyclable currently, full stop, although there is work required to make them 100% recyclable.

[1] https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/

[2] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/03/25/innovation-boosts-lit...

> Fortum, a Finnish startup

Uhuh, Fortum[1] is not exactly a startup. It is a state-owned corporation with annual revenue of about 5 billion and one of the largest players in the Nordic energy sector.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortum

>> Batteries are mostly recyclable currently, full stop

SOME lithium batteries are recyclable, but ALL oldschool lead acid batteries are recyclable. For installations where weight/size are secondary concerns, old fashioned wet car batteries are more "green" than anything involving lithium.

A used lead-acid battery is not a liability. It is a useful and profitable product that can be easily turned into other useful products... today.

https://www.regionalrecycling.ca/auto-car-battery-recycling/

"Did you know you can make money recycling your old lead-acid batteries? Why not put a little extra cash in your pocket this season. *Earnings vary depending on weight. If you have 3 or more, please call (855) 701-7171 for a quote. It pays to recycle. "

I don't know anyone using lead acid for new stationary storage or electrified transportation applications, although you are correct that lead acid are entirely recyclable.

I know lots of people. The bulk of residential off-grid solar installations use lead-acid battery banks. Most all RVs and boats use lead-acid. And virtually every new car/truck/motorcycle/ATV/snowmobile/jetski, including the hybrid cars, ships with a 12v wet lead-acid battery.

Our Nissan Leaf has a 12 volt lead-acid battery. I guess that was easier than bleeding 12 VDC off the traction battery to run the radio.

Actually it’s normal for heavy machineries to have separate low voltage power for computers and high voltage large current for actuators. Even open source 3D printers has provisions to do that if so desired.

Even full EVs have old school 12v lead acids in them because they still have a full 12v system to run ~everything in the car that aren't actual traction motors (for compatibility with the existing automotive supply chain if nothing else).

There's a regulation at least in the US that says the HV system also has to be physically disconnected when the car isn't being used so if the 12v battery dies you're still stuck like a regular car, because you need the 12v battery to close the HV relay.

That's interesting. I hadn't realized that full EVs still needed 12v batteries. I have jump-started a couple hybrids over the years (lights left on etc) but never a full EV. I would love to make a meme out of a Tesla needing to be jumped by my little honda.

I remember my surprise when I learned EVs have regular car batteries in them.

The funny thing is, I can imagine a future where "jumper cables" isn't a hefty set of thick wires intended to supply the current needed for a starter. Instead, people will have a 20' long cable with cigarette lighter plugs on both ends. The HV relay can't require that much current to close, right?

Maybe, but the dead battery is still in the circuit. So a tiny wire won't provide enough current to raise the voltage enough across the entire circuit. (I assume that it requires something akin to a the solenoid of a IC car.) You don't need the cranking amps, but you will still need something thicker than a USB cable.

Ah, good point. I guess it matters whether your battery is drained, or dead. Sometimes the battery just doesn't have the juice to turn the starter (you hear the clicking of the solenoid when trying to start, but no cranking). Other times it's so depleted that an external current supply will be sucked up by the thirsty battery.

It probably won’t take a large current, but I expect you need more than just enough to close a relay. Most likely, you’ll need enough to power some CPUs and data buses as well. That’s still tiny compared to the current required to run a starter motor, though.

There’s a different problem with your scheme. Tesla doors won’t unlock if the 12V system dies.

I could see it being a push button switch instead, manually closing the relay.

But if the 12V is dead, the stuff running off of it will also be out

I have owned no less than three Kia Soul EVs. The first two would succumb to a flat 12V battery, but the latest (a 2020 model) will connect the HV battery to charge the 12V battery if needed, even when the car is parked and switched off. You can see it in action, as a blue light on the dash will flash while this goes on.

I'm surprised this wasn't thought of from the very beginning. Must be the Big Battery Lobby.

Oh that's neat. I hope tesla adopts that, because one of the biggest issues has been the 12 v batteries dying quickly. I'm not sure if anyone's figured out the root cause, but IIRC people think that they abuse the battery in some way that an alternator wouldn't.

> SOME lithium batteries are recyclable

I interpreted the original quote "Batteries are mostly recyclable currently, full stop" to mean "all batteries are mostly (i.e., >=80%) recyclable" i.e., even lith-ion batteries are ~80% recyclable and 80% constitutes "mostly". The original quote is confusing, and I think you might be interpreting it as "most batteries are recyclable" or perhaps "most lith-ion batteries are recyclable". In whatever case, I wanted to jump in and clarify.

This is precisely the literary slight of hand I was talking about! Similar to Musk's hilarious dismissal of hydrogen technology. Hydrogen will obviously in time become the ideal source of energy for electric aircraft and electric long haul trucks.

Has hydrogen storage been solved? How big would a hydrogen tank have to be to power a plane for more than an hour? And what is the conversion rate of hydrogen to electricity?

Hydrogen storage is definitely not a solved problem. It was a hot funding topic for the US DOE a few years ago, but sufficient energy density and operating pressures are super challenging targets to hit.

Efficiency depends on fuel cell type and operating conditions and such, but I think it’s generally pretty high for the useful life of the catalyst material. (The catalyst is another materials challenge itself, since I think most of the good materials are super expensive like Pt/Pd alloys, and they’re vulnerable to carbon monoxide poisoning)

Edit: this DOE program page has some good detailed discussion of the current status, including on compressed liquid/gas storage systems, which I’m not as familiar with: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/hydrogen-storage-curre...

"Obviously" is shorthand for "I want you to believe this but I don't have evidence for it, and I can't see how to validate it".

Used a lot in mathematics, substituting "proof" for "evidence".

> A used lead-acid battery is not a liability.

Can't they leak hydrogen, potentially causing an explosion? I admit my only knowledge of this comes from perusing the Wikipedia page on them and an episode of Mr. Robot.

Only during charging. The bigger problem is the release of lead dust during the recycling process.

> It's always going to be cheaper to pour end of life cells into a remanufacturing process than to extract raw lithium from brine ponds, so it makes economic sense to do the R&D to do so.

This is a major point to assume away.

I make the assumption based on existing evidence. I could be be wrong if it gets drastically cheaper to source lithium, nickel, and iron from mining operations versus concentrated ore in end of life cells. Doesn’t seem likely based on mining costs and the demand curve (demand will increase as fast or faster than reserves can be sourced), as well as jurisdictions mandating manufacturers stand up recycling supply chains for the products they're building and selling (California did this with solar PV, many others have done it for electronics recycling in general, for example).

I would be willing to make a Long Bet [1] on this point. Accountability is important.

[1] https://longbets.org/

Lithium does not suffer from undesired pigmentation and overabundance of too many completely different types of lithium the way plastics do. Plastics are composites so if you were to extract the elements out of them then you would end up with carbon and hydrogen which unfortunately aren't plastic. With lithium all you have to do is extract the lithium elements.

Aluminum and iron recycling is viable because they are elements in their own right.

The preference order is Reduce, Reuse, then Recycle. If they're going hard on Reuse, that's better than if they jumped straight to Recycle from a green perspective.

If Tesla is ending up with all these batteries in the end, we've also done another good thing for recycling, which is forcing Tesla, the producer, to deal with how to dispose of them, which is not the case with oil companies

I'm having trouble following your argument. Are you saying it's bad that Tesla batteries are being reused instead of recycled? Or are you claiming that Tesla is taking credit for the reuse and that's bad?

Musk has stated publicly that they will recycle Tesla batteries once they become available in enough volume to make it viable. He'd be stupid not to -- they will be a cheaper source of nickel and cobalt than digging it out of the ground.

But reuse is better than recycling, so recycling should remain in the future as long as possible.

Re-use != Recycling

That's right, it's better.

The old mantra "reduce, re-use, recycle" is in that order because that's the order of "greenness". Recycling should be the last resort.

Re-use of a battery is fine, but it's a stop-gap. The battery will eventually reach a state of health where it isn't useful in any application anymore, so recycling is still necessary. The "re-use" step just delays that a bit.

Exactly, so stop worrying about recycling. It'll happen when it's viable, and not before.

Batteries are a way too important source of valuable materials to not be recycled.

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