Battery recycling appears to be an easy thing. Nonetheless, while precise figures are difficult to locate, it is believed that only 2% to 11% of li-ion batteries that fail in Canada, the United States, and several European nations make it to a recycling center to be recycled. Rather, they languish in cupboards or cabinets unopened or, worse yet, wind up in garbage dumps.
Since the batteries in electric vehicles are large, hazardous and expensive to just toss away, that situation might soon change. A new recycling sector has emerged as a result of the worldwide electric vehicle revolution, and it intends to take advantage of the ensuing trash problem and assist in addressing the impending mineral scarcity.
A group of battery recyclers in Canada that are competing for a piece of the worldwide market are perfecting this innovative technique. By 2030, approximately 1,700,000 metric tons of battery trash will have to be thrown away due to the first surge that will offload end-of-life of electric vehicle batteries.
Currently, we have around 20 million electric vehicles for passengers on major roads, but there might be 10 times that figure in 10 years, according to the International Energy Agency’s estimates. The majority of these electric vehicles are powered by large li-ion batteries weighing over one thousand pounds. Although battery compositions vary somewhat, nickel, lithium, graphite, cobalt and manganese are thought to be essential for fresh batteries and are abundant but not evenly distributed on the surface of the earth.
The crucial mineral supply is produced worldwide by a small number of countries. While lithium is primarily produced in Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, and Australia, graphite and cobalt are primarily produced in China and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, respectively.
Within 20 years from now, there will likely be a dramatic increase in the need for these minerals. The International Energy Agency forecasts that lithium demand will rise about 90% while cobalt and nickel will see demand rise by more than 60%.
What is going to be problematic for the electric vehicle industry in the upcoming years will be the lack of capacity by the international mining industry to meet the demand, with the current mines unable to deliver even one-half of the required minerals toward the entire energy shift. Everyone agrees that plenty of mining is required to decarbonize transportation globally. However, in the long run, even if we had unlimited mining capacity, the issue is whether or not to. The human and environmental costs associated with mineral mining are significant.
Recycling can help with that. A solution to this supply problem lies partly in what we do with electric vehicles’ depleted batteries. Even if automakers such as Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA) make batteries that can last longer than the previous generation of EV batteries, these new ones will still reach the end of their long service life, and recycling can be a handy way to retrieve and reuse the minerals therein.
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