The chemicals in lithium-ion batteries are 85% reusable so far, with current recycling methods (lithium is lost, but are surface pond mined... hard metals are 100% reusable over and over again).
The 500t claim doesn't acknowledge that other non-battery minerals are also extracted during the process as well, also refined and sold, like copper, iron, nickle, carbon, zinc, aluminum, magnesium, lead, etc. Minerals don't exist individually, they exist together in ore streams.
Once the battery is created, you can charge it for 10-15 years using solar panels, no longer excerting energy to generate driveable distance.
Oil rigs and oil refining is also an energy intensive and dirty process. To build and deliver an oil rig on location, drill hundreds of feet into the ocean, transport workers and oil back and forth, etc for 10-15 comparable years of gas needed to fuel your gasoline vehicle to a comparable mileage.
Once extracted, oil must be refined (energy intensive and dirty), and energy is spent on ships and trucks to deliver that gasoline to your nearest gas station every single week for the next 10-15 years, so that you have access to gasoline always available.
Once the battery is recycled and put into a new vehicle, you don't need to move another 500 tons of earth, while a gas vehicle requires another 10-15 years of oil mining and delivery.
500t is not a lot of dirt. Mining haul trucks can carry 350t to 400t. So you're talking about 1.5 loads per battery pack, and those loads include non-battery pack minerals.
Most oil rigs are on land units, not off shore. I worked on many for 14 years. One of the things people don’t know is an oil company has 90 days after the well goes live that they pay no royalty to the mineral right owner, be it the land owner or the country itself, to recoup the cost of the well. One well the consultant I was talking to had done, was a double leg well and cost 1.7 million from start to finish. They had it paid for in 75 of those 90 days, where afterwards they dialed down the amount coming from the well to pay the land owner less and keep it flowing for longer.
The last few years I was chasing the dragon we were doing a 2200-2400M well in 3.6 days. Day 4 we were moving onto a new location to start drilling a new one. Oil well drilling is not as expensive, dirty and cumbersome as you think.
The chemicals in lithium-ion batteries are 85% reusable so far, with current recycling methods (lithium is lost, but are surface pond mined... hard metals are 100% reusable over and over again).
The 500t claim doesn't acknowledge that other non-battery minerals are also extracted during the process as well, also refined and sold, like copper, iron, nickle, carbon, zinc, aluminum, magnesium, lead, etc. Minerals don't exist individually, they exist together in ore streams.
Once the battery is created, you can charge it for 10-15 years using solar panels, no longer excerting energy to generate driveable distance.
Oil rigs and oil refining is also an energy intensive and dirty process. To build and deliver an oil rig on location, drill hundreds of feet into the ocean, transport workers and oil back and forth, etc for 10-15 comparable years of gas needed to fuel your gasoline vehicle to a comparable mileage.
Once extracted, oil must be refined (energy intensive and dirty), and energy is spent on ships and trucks to deliver that gasoline to your nearest gas station every single week for the next 10-15 years, so that you have access to gasoline always available.
Once the battery is recycled and put into a new vehicle, you don't need to move another 500 tons of earth, while a gas vehicle requires another 10-15 years of oil mining and delivery.
500t is not a lot of dirt. Mining haul trucks can carry 350t to 400t. So you're talking about 1.5 loads per battery pack, and those loads include non-battery pack minerals.
Most oil rigs are on land units, not off shore. I worked on many for 14 years. One of the things people don’t know is an oil company has 90 days after the well goes live that they pay no royalty to the mineral right owner, be it the land owner or the country itself, to recoup the cost of the well. One well the consultant I was talking to had done, was a double leg well and cost 1.7 million from start to finish. They had it paid for in 75 of those 90 days, where afterwards they dialed down the amount coming from the well to pay the land owner less and keep it flowing for longer. The last few years I was chasing the dragon we were doing a 2200-2400M well in 3.6 days. Day 4 we were moving onto a new location to start drilling a new one. Oil well drilling is not as expensive, dirty and cumbersome as you think.