Climate Tech Reporter David Roberts discusses battery recycling with ceo of a company that is working on scaling up a newer fossil fuel free method of melting down and separating battery metals. This method has advantages of not burning up most of the valuables and sending them into the open atmosphere as well as not requiring a constant stream of harsh chemical feed, or having chemical waste.
Today his small scale plant is handling mostly the waste from faulty primary manufacturing, and is looking to scale up in time for the 2030 boom in lithium battery recycling.
What so 20% of carbon in the production ends up as some kind of slag? That’s a pretty slow way to sequester. For at scale sequestration, I would rather see more permanent and efficient systems.
I mean, I’m all for capturing the methane given off by farms and landfills anyway and using that to generate what it can, but I don’t think that’s a wise choice to base large segments of the economy on. It could account for maybe a few megawatts of the 200-400 giga watts we need.
Its a battery. So only to be used in off-peak or as a dense fuel where we havent yet built electric lines above roads to power busses and trains
Batteries are charged in off peak, but may be used during peak to flatten out the grid and to make up for low solar/wind days