Larry Magid: Breathing new life into old batteries

As you may know from my past columns I m a big fan of electric vehicles but I also recognize that plenty of people have concerns These include the environmental impact of making the batteries and dealing with them at the end of their operation life There are also geopolitical and humanitarian concerns about where the raw materials come from usually not the U S the sometimes-dangerous conditions under which they re mined and the challenges of recycling them responsibly EV batteries typically contain toxic substances such as lithium nickel and cobalt which must be handled scrupulously throughout their life cycle Related Articles Magid Why I took a Facebook break after Charlie Kirk killing Magid New iPhone operating system arrives on Monday Magid Roblox to estimate age of all users Magid What I learned from wearing a glucose monitor and a smart ring together Magid Back to school tech tips And it s not just EVs Rechargeable batteries are in various household devices ranging from watches and hearing aids to home battery storage systems My toothbrush my smart ring my TV remote control and particular of my flashlights are among my various devices with rechargeable batteries And thanks to the global enhancement of EVs phones potency storage systems and rechargeable gadgets the demand for batteries is growing rapidly Repurposing and recycling One business addressing these issues is Redwood Materials a Nevada-based privately held company that repurposes and recycles rechargeable batteries from things as small as hearing aids and cell phones to heavy equipment like Caterpillar s -pound electric underground mining loader The company has a massive recycling activity but it also launched a division focused on repurposing rather than at once recycling rechargeable batteries For example an old EV battery can be combined with others to create an array powerful enough to run a statistics center On its website Redwood notes that plenty of batteries still retain more than of their usable maximum when they reach a recycling facility enough to be put back to work before recycling With this strategy a single battery can have three lives its initial use a second life in repurposed applications and eventually having its valuable materials recovered to make new batteries Redwood calls this a circular supply chain Redwood says that its process uses about less resource fewer CO emissions less water than traditional ore refining and at least fewer emissions than other recyclers In mining extraction and delivery make up over of the footprint Redwood cuts that to under highlighting the efficiency of its circular supply chain My visit I visited their -acre facility roughly the size of football fields in Sparks Nevada about miles from Reno It s also about four miles from the even larger Tesla Gigafactory which in partnership with Panasonic produces the batteries used in Tesla EVs and Powerwall home vitality storage systems Tesla s battery factory and Redwood Materials aren t just neighbors they also share a founder J B Straubel who started Redwood in was a Tesla co-founder and its longtime chief innovation officer before leaving in to focus on his new venture Driving to Redwood Materials is an adventure in itself After leaving Reno you head into Nevada s high desert where the landscape is mostly tumbleweeds sagebrush and rocky hillsides until you reach the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center That complex has expanded dramatically since I last visited in Back then the Tesla Gigafactory was the lone giant Now companies such as Google Microsoft and Apple operate massive statistics centers there As you approach Redwood s facility the first thing you notice is a vast field filled with thousands of old batteries draped in white cloth Just beyond that is an enormous low-rise building that houses the company s offices and part of its processing operations There are several other large buildings used for processing and recycling batteries Newly arrived batteries waiting to be processed Photo Larry Magid Turning pancakes into batter After I arrived and parked my Tesla in one of their numerous EV spots a colleague and I boarded an electric Ford van for a tour of the facility We saw large machines being used to crunch batteries of all sizes followed by other machines that separated and extracted the raw materials The process explained our guide was like turning pancakes into pancake batter to produce end products that battery makers use to create new batteries He noted that these extracted and recycled raw materials are as good or slightly better than new materials At one point I saw a worker unpack boxes of old electric bicycle batteries and insert each into a machine to start urgent them down into reusable compounds that would be used to help make new batteries The van also took us up a hill to a information center with a lot of solar panels and a large array of repurposed batteries that provide power when the sun isn t shining or when additional potential is needed The Nevada sun makes solar a great source of force but these repurposed batteries can also be charged by generators and other power sources Eventually even these batteries will be recycled but not until they ve reached the end of their useful life Squeezing more life out of old batteries is both an economic and environmental win Redwood Materials which has employees also operates a battery processing facility in Charleston South Carolina and a research maturation center in San Francisco Doing your part As I was leaving the facility I noticed a recycling receptacle in the lobby The company invites visitors to drop off their phones and other devices with rechargeable batteries and on its website says that less than of lithium-ion containing devices are recycled and that Americans throw out over million phones every year They also point out that Recycling batteries and rechargeable devices keeps critical minerals in circulation and reduces the environmental impact of our products You don t have to drive to Nevada to recycle your devices The California Department of Toxic Substance Control has guidance to find recycling programs on its website Reincarnation I m not all that spiritual but I do understand the Buddhist concept of karma and reincarnation The battery in my toothbrush has served me well With a little help from companies such as Redwood Materials maybe someday it will come back to help power a bicycle or maybe even a spaceship to Mars Related Articles California commissioner proposes insurance rule that critics call revenge Lopez H- B visa is a gamble that could protect US jobs Newsom says PG E other utility customers can expect bill credit East Bay apartment deal would preserve affordable housing for residents Santa Clara signs off on Super Bowl LX reimbursement agreement for the estimated million cost of hosting the big tournament Larry Magid is a tech journalist and internet safety activist Contact him at larry larrymagid com