SA to get world's biggest lithium ion battery in 'historic' deal with Elon Musk

There are going to be many unhappy people if this works out, and that is the saddest part.

 

What is the pollution profile of the construction and eventual disposal of the batteries?

 

Yes, and I wonder how they compare with the Hazelwood coal generator
which worked for 53 years before being decommissioned.

 

So you don't have, or are afraid of the answer so you just side step it. I will do a bit of research and get back to you on this.

 

'Elon Musk' sounds like an aftershave!

 

Decommissioning for Hazelwood is going to be astronomical. Place is packed full of asbestosy goodness. Don't know what other issues will be encountered, but that one alone is a nightmare. The company would literally give it to the government for free if the taxpayer is going to assume the cost of decommissioning.

 

And was in the top five most polluting power stations on the planet

 

Not to mention the pollution profile of mining the coal and shipping it to the power station for 53 years.

 

Good to know that!

My grandfather worked at a coal fired power station for most of his life. Apparently when the wind took the coal fumes towards the city center the particles would eat holes in women's stockings. Imagine what that was doing to the local flora and fauna on a daily basis?

 

And the workers' lungs.

 

I hope this battery is a great success. I am not a militant environmentalist, but I think we should all embrace and promote anything that helps make the world cleaner and more sustainable. Don't get me started on plastic bottles and bags

It is important however to discuss the eventual issue of what do we do with the product once the lifecycle is finished.

I can see a major ecological problem in the future with disposal of the waste product generated by these eco friendly products. Especially solar.

I am sure this can and will be overcome, but we would be kidding ourselves if we believed there will be no residual effects on the environment.

Nobody is discussing what we will do with the so called ' green friendly waste'. At the moment old solar goes into land fills. These have some pretty dangerous chemicals with large lifespans past their used by dates in them. Surely there is a plan in place

Then again this is Australia. A land of plenty, and plenty to waste.

Like most things here, we will have a conversation on the issue, but long after it has become a dilemma.

 

I've been told that the Musk batteries are recyclable and that the chemicals can all be retrieved without too much of a problem.

 

Yes like most batteries I imagine they would be. What happens to the retrievable chemicals, are they recycleable? If not where do they go? Is it like nuclear waste? Does it get barrelled up and dumped? If so, who does this job?

I can tell you what is happening with old solar panels and the lethal chemicals in them. A huge proportion are being pushed into landfill. Why? Because nobody wants to remove the chemicals, not only because it is highly toxic, but also they don't know what to do with it once removed. They can't scrap the unit with the chemical in it, so it becomes too difficult, so in a hole it goes for some future generation to dig up and poison themselves.

It is a subject that really confounds me, this green energy revolution. We are creating batteries that require plastics, leads, and toxic chemicals. We are harnessing the sun with steel and glass filled with a lethal coctail that will melt flesh on contact. Yet we bemoan coal and its toxic effect on the planet.

Don't get me wrong I am all for alternative energy, but surely we must discuss the environmental cost as we have done with coal. That would only be fair minded and logical, surely.

We are funny creatures humans. We have this wonderful attribute called ignorance. It is both our friend and our foe.

Until we are all willing to give up our cars, phones, computers, toiletries, planes, etc. etc. the environment will only ever suffer. Don't kid yourselves.

 

The old panels can be recycled. Looks like a growth area.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/solar-panel-recycler-leads-australia-in-emerging-industry-99038/
Tesla battery recycling.
https://www.tesla.com/en_AU/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-recycling-program
I agree with you- man is greedy selfish and thoughtless.

 

Instead of producing batteries that create pollution and do little, why don't we put the money into developing real green energy sources such wave, tide, thermal and hydro. These staggeringly expensive batteries do not generate power, they just provide a small and brief backup to generating sources.

 

Our hydro is to be expanded but at present it is just storage for cheap coal power generated in daytime. This seems peculiar to me. It was a big scheme for power generation, and isn't being used for that. When you say thermal, do you mean geo thermal or thermal salt?
Wave and tide systems are not well developed as yet. Shame. Now that the pressure is on, to get rid of coal, we might have the right sort of environment to get these systems promoted.

 

Great links!

It appears as though solar and battery manufacturers take the concept of being green to include the complete life cycle of their products into consideration.

That Tesla is fully recycling the cobalt says volumes since that is one of the more toxic elements involved.

 

It's about time isn't it? Innovations in the battery world have been a long time coming.

 

Largely because there was no demand for innovations and battery manufacturers knew that "build in obsolescence" would keep them in business.

All that has changed with lightweight rechargeable batteries powering all kinds of electronic devices and that technology being applied to vehicles, homes and now entire grids.

 

there has been innovation especially here. We had one the few Vanadium redox batteries powering King island

 

How did they work? Have they got solar there or diesel?
Flinders island is going green now.
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=power+on+flinders+island&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en-au&client=safari

 

Now you are asking difficult questions. UNSW put a fair bit of research into them. They are robust but really heavy. Best feature apparently is that there is no real limit to the size

 

Tassie Hydro is a forward thinking outfit. I suppose it's necessity, but why can't the mainland follow its' example.