Have you ever asked: Why are environmental activists advocating the development of electric vehicles, when the generation of electricity and waste panels can also cause pollution? The answer is obvious: electric cars help to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and battery recycling is on the way to becoming a billion-dollar industry.
The number of car charging stations is increasing globally and also in Vietnam.
The energy provided for electric vehicles is increasingly clean
The REN21 Global Renewable Energy (GSR) Report of 2020 (Global Multilateral Renewable Energy Policy Network) shows that, over the past 5 years, the renewable energy sector has reached its speed. 3 times higher than electricity produced from nuclear and fossil fuels.
“When the grid becomes ‘greener’, using electric vehicles will be more perfect ”, Gordon Bauer – electric vehicle researcher at the International Council for Clean Transport in San Francisco (USA) said. According to expert Gordon Bauer, the current innovative grid model will help improve the environmental efficiency of electric vehicles around the world.
The evidence is a study by scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California (USA) that if all personal vehicles in the US are powered by electricity, each year, the country will lose 46%. greenhouse gas (0.5 gigatons CO2 equivalent) compared to conventional fossil fuel cars.
This is what environmental activists expect. Anne Laurent, president of the All-European Environmental Union, admits the members “have no doubts” about the positive impact this vehicle can have on the planet.
“We do not expect a perfect solution. Therefore, we are delighted that electric vehicles deliver positive environmental indicators“Ms. Laurent said in a report released at the end of 2020.
In Vietnam, green vehicles are also developing with the launch of private cars and VinFast electric buses. And look at “National energy development strategy to 2030, vision to 2045” – with the goal that the renewable energy in the total primary energy supply will reach 15 – 20% by 2030 and increase to 25-30% by 2045 we have the right to hope for a “green future, clean air” when clean cars are powered by clean electricity.
Electric vehicle batteries are too expensive to be … garbage
In addition to generating electricity, environmental activists have been concerned about the fate of electric vehicle battery blocks after they have run out of “trumps”. Elon Musk was the “victim” of this wave of protest. But in fact, electric car batteries can not be thrown away because … too expensive, even after the expiry date.
The reason is that the prices of cobalt, lithium, nickel and the metals used in lithium-ion batteries have skyrocketed as the electric car race intensifies between manufacturers across Asia to Europe and the US. Therefore, all electric car manufacturers are researching and announcing solutions to handle expired batteries with battery recycling technology.
“To meet electric vehicle battery demand in the next 10 years, the industry will need 1.5 million tons of lithium, 1.5 million tons of graphite, 1 million tons of nickel and 500,000 tons of manganese. Today, the world produces less than a third of that material ”Sam Jaffe, CEO of Cairn ERA, an energy consulting firm in the US, told CNBC.
Some studies show that recycling can recover between 95 and 98 percent of the nickel, cobalt, copper, aluminum, and more than 80 percent of the battery’s lithium. Ms. Celina Mikolajczak, Vice President of Battery Technology and Technology at Panasonic Energy North America, said that the battery recycling industry will be a billion-dollar land with the development of electric vehicles.
“There are so many benefits to recycling and it would be really stupid if we didn’t take advantage of the old battery cells’ ability to make the next generation.”Ms. Celina Mikolajczak confirmed.
This excellent solution not only eliminates the worry of running out of production materials, but also removes electric vehicle batteries from the burden of the environment.
There are more than 50 companies around the world engaged in the recycling of lithium-ion batteries of varying sizes, most of them concentrated in China (more than 20 companies), followed by Korea (6 companies), followed by the EU, Japan, Canada and the US. Even global tech giant Amazon hasn’t overlooked this potential by investing $ 2 billion in Redwood Materials, a battery recycling startup founded by former Tesla chief JB Straubel. Redwood Materials is also responsible for recycling electric vehicle batteries for Tesla.
In addition to recycling batteries for reuse for electric vehicles themselves, a series of projects to utilize old batteries have been implemented recently by car manufacturers. Toyota has a project to connect old electric vehicle batteries with solar panels to power 7-Eleven stores in Japan; Nissan is using old batteries to power the small robots; Renault is working with its partners to introduce static energy storage systems made of old electric vehicle batteries … Other car manufacturers such as Audi, BMW, Lucid Motors or Proterra … are also incorporating reusable principles into their designs. the battery.
“We believe that the ‘second life’ battery will become an independent business and cannot be disposed of as trash.”, Weiland Bruch, BMW spokesman forecasts.
When the final concern was that electric vehicle batteries turned into environmental waste were completely eliminated – it’s easy to understand why green cars are supported by environmental activists around the world. And that will also be the green future that we need to move towards to escape the country’s “scandal” of the “two-wheeled gas factories” that international indicators set for Vietnam.
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