Although electric vehicles come with significant potential to eliminate transportation-related emissions and pollutants, they carry concerns about the end-of-life treatment of used batteries, which need replacing every 7-10 years. While used batteries can be re-purposed for energy storage, this is only a temporary solution until the energy storage market considerably grows to match the growing EV market. Therefore, EV recycling technology must mature to recover 100% of the battery materials–enabling us to reuse materials that would otherwise be mined and avoid land-filling. So how should fleets plan for battery replacement and disposal? This West Coast Electric Fleets webinar explores this question, as well as discussing what technology exists today, and how battery-recycling technology should be regulated.
In this webinar, Dr. Hanjiro Ambrose (Hitz Family Climate Fellow for the Clean Transportation Program at the Union of Concern Scientists) provides an overview of the economic and environmental implications of strategies for battery recycling and reuse, and how fleets can incorporate this into their planning. Then, Zarko Meseldzija (CTO and Board Director of American Manganese Inc.), discusses his company’s process on the direct recycling of material from lithium-ion batteries back into the battery manufacturing process.