On Sep 14, 4:57*pm, Tim Daneliuk wrote:

...

Lead-Acid can be recycled up to a point, but at some point they
are done. *Today, as best I know, they just get tossed at that point.

The whole car gets tossed at some point. Lead/Nickel/Cadmium in
the car may be the most critical disposal recycling issue.


NiCad has the problem having Cadmium in them - another not very nice
heavy metal.


The nickel; batteries in question appear to be Nickel-Zinc, not nicad.
The nickel is still an issue, but not as bad as cadmium or lead.

I doubt LiIon have the energy density for a car, but perhaps they've
come far enough to do that too. *In any case, you do have some
problem with the remaining Li when things are done.

You can recycle it into thermonuclear weapons.

Seriously:

Lead, cadmium, and nickel are toxic heavy metals that
biomultiply in the food chain. Lithium is a 1-A metal, a
nutrient, an essential trace mineral. Of course you could
OD on it and chronic exposure to much higher than normal
levels in your diet would cause long term health problems
but it is huge improvement over the others. Low levels
of lithium contamination in the environment are about
as damaging as low level contamination with sodium,
potassium or calcium. The anion would probably merit
closer controls.


The point is that all engineering is the art of tradeoff. *

My point is that facts matter.

Expressing concern over something that is not
happening, or concerns about disposal of a benign
material used to replace a very toxic one is not
condusive to a constructive discussion.

--

FF