GM Spokesperson admits energy to charge cars comes from coal

Timmo! wrote:

time2roll wrote:
And these items are not burned to power the vehicle. Eventually they will be recycled and reused in the next vehicle or some other use. Gasoline & diesel is never recycled, only burned.

I wish that was true---from that same article

Recycling Lithium-Ion

In Australia, only two percent of the country’s 3,300 metric tons of lithium-ion waste is recycled. Unwanted MP3 players and laptops often end up in landfills, where metals from the electrodes and ionic fluids from the electrolyte can leak into the environment.

Because lithium cathodes degrade over time, they cannot be placed into new batteries. Researchers are using robotics technology developed for nuclear power plants to find ways to remove and dismantle lithium-ion cells from electric vehicles. There have been a number of fires at recycling plants where lithium-ion batteries have been stored improperly, or disguised as lead-acid batteries and put through a crusher. Not only have these batteries burned at recycling plants, but auto makers are seeing battery-related fires leading to vehicle recalls and safety probes. In October, U.S. safety regulators opened a probe into more than 77,000 electric Chevy Bolts after two owners complained of fires that appeared to have begun under the back seat where the battery is located.

Because manufacturers are secretive about what goes into their batteries, it makes it harder to recycle them properly. Currently, recovered cells are usually shredded, creating a mixture of metal that can then be separated using pyrometallurgical techniques—burning—which wastes a lot of the lithium. Alternative techniques, including biological recycling where bacteria are used to process the materials, and hydrometallurgical techniques which use solutions of chemicals in a similar way to how lithium is extracted from brine are being investigated.

It is estimated that between 2021 and 2030, about 12.85 million tons of EV lithium ion batteries will go offline worldwide, and over 10 million tons of lithium, cobalt, nickel and manganese will be mined for new batteries. China is being pushed to increase battery recycling since repurposed batteries could be used as backup power systems for China’s 5G stations or reused in shared e-bikes, which would save 63 million tons of carbon emissions from new battery manufacturing.

Pyrometallurgical (aka smelting) for nearly 100% efficiency is performed at ultra high temps (1,550° C).

On edit--for a good unbiased read of lithium battery recycling https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlehtml/2020/gc/d0gc02745f#cit10

OK and compare that to the recycling of gasoline.