What is the truth about car hybrid batteries and the environment?

Question

What is there real effect on the environtment when they are at the recycling stage.

Answer 1

Car batteries are ALREADY recycled.  (those cheap, horribly toxic $50 lead-acid batteries you have to replace every 5 years.)

Hybrid batteries will be recycled likewise, except the core charge on a dead battery will be much higher.  Very close to 100% will be recycled.

Also, it's looking like hybrid batteries may last the life of the vehicle, so they'll be recycled by the scrapper, same as they already recycle most parts on the car.

Reports of environmental damage from hybrid battery manufacture are FALSE.  The oft-cited case is the Sudbury, Ontario nickel plant:

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live...

Answer 2

lovely has the right idea.. Greeners buy a hybrid with 500 pounds of batteries that use more energy recharging than if you just build the same car with a blown diesel that gets 66mpg and they think they are sooooo green! It takes a certain amt of energy to move a certain mass a given distance. . The only variable in the mix is mass, and quality-- better parts-exp. engines- that last forever are available. Engines are not about as good as they can get-- in the 1970's Pontiac built a Bonneville with a diesel engine that got 55 mpg that no one but the cabbies would buy so they quit selling it.. My Detroit diesel has almost a million miles on it and still doesn't use oil and the fact that i may need only one more engine the rest of my life is much greener than burning thru ten hybrids in the same time!

And , yes , you guessed right ; those batteries cost a bundle to recycle..

Answer 3

Actually, while it is true that a certain amount of energy is required to move a certain amount of mass, the real kicker is getting that energy out of your storage medium.

Energy conversion efficiency is the real problem here.  If you had the technology to convert matter directly to energy (yeah, it's magic) a few grams of belly-button lint could push your hummer around for a year.

We currently don't have a 100% energy conversion device : Internal combustion engines just aren't that efficient.  

Yet batteries are getting surprisingly good at giving back almost as much energy as they're given to hold.  There really just hasn't been a lot of advancement in the IC engine, regarding fuel economy when you consider it's 100 year history.  Electrical storage, on the other hand, has been making leaps and bounds.

So then the question becomes : is the pollution from creating the batteries as bad as the pollution from burning the combustible fuels ?

I don't believe that the localized pollution from the factories that create the batteries equals or exceeds the generalized pollution spread from internal combustion engines, especially when you consider the expected lifetime of the vehicles.  

In other words - lets say the average lifetime for a vehicle is 10 years (it's probably more). If you burn fuel (such as gasoline, or diesel) to run a car for 10 years, the pollution output of that is undoubtedly greater than the pollution it would take to make the niCad batteries that an electric version of that car would need over that same period. It's also greater than the amount of pollution put out by the electric power plants that generate the electricity used by the vehicle.

Answer 4

"Nickel metal hydride batteries are benign. They can be fully recycled," says Ron Cogan, editor of the Green Car Journal. Toyota and Honda say that they will recycle dead batteries and that disposal will pose no toxic hazards. Toyota puts a phone number on each battery, and they pay a $200 "bounty" for each battery to help ensure that it will be properly recycled.

There's no definitive word on replacement costs because they are almost never replaced. According to Toyota, since the Prius first went on sale in 2000, they have not replaced a single battery for wear and tear.

http://www.hybridcars.com/faq.html#batte...

"Toyota has a comprehensive battery recycling program in place and has been recycling nickel-metal hydride batteries since the RAV4 Electric Vehicle was introduced in 1998. Every part of the battery, from the precious metals to the plastic, plates, steel case and the wiring, is recycled. To ensure that batteries come back to Toyota, each battery has a phone number on it to call for recycling information and dealers are paid a $200 "bounty" for each battery."

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2005/06/...

Answer 5

It was recently reported that the nickel factory that makes the batteries is one of the largest polluters in the world.

It turns out that in the long run Hybrids are worse for the environment than something like a Hummer, for example.

That's pretty funny when you think about it.  Irony is always funny.

Bottom line, a hybrid might save you some gas, but they won't save the environment.

Answer 6

The truth is that the mining and smelting of nickel for the batteries is producing tons of pollution, I haven't seen one person arguing that.

It is true that the Prius will use FAR less gasoline that the Hummer (which people will continue to point out) but it doesn't use FAR less gasoline than say a Jeep Liberty (economy SUV) and not even any less than a VW Golf turbo diesel.

It is true that it takes energy to accelerate mass.  And the mass of the vehicle does affect the energy required to move the vehicle.  The main thing that uses gasoline at high speed is drag, which some of the hybrids really aren't that great at but they are good.

So in the end, a Jeep Libery vs. the Prius says:

1)  I am much bigger.

2)  I am much safer.

3)  I am better for the environment.

Honda just suspended production of the Accord Hybrid because it wasn't profitable.  Toyota sticks with the Hybrid, we'll see who ends up better.

Answer 7

Just for all this "SAVE ENERGY" and SUV Hybrid Cars and "SAVE THE GLOBE" and you people who devote your lives to it and you people who care, I'm gonna get a hummer when I grow up.

Answer 8

truth is oil companys make 40+ billion in profit last year and put cash on the low low under the table to executives in the white house

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