[lbo-talk] The War on the Car

[Gar Lipow]

On 11/15/05, Leigh Meyers <leighcmeyers at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tuesday, November 15, 2005 3:25 PM [PDT],
> Gar Lipow <the.typo.boy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > Wrong. Batteries are heavy, inefficient, but they are still good
> > enough for electric cars. Even old fashioned nickel cadium batteries
> > can last 1000 cycles with  only a 50% loss of capacity. That means a
> > car that started with a 240 miles range would still have 120 mile
> > range at 100,000 miles. There are now lithum batteries on the market
> > that only lose 2% of their capacity in 1000 cycles. The batteries are
> > expensive, but the rest of a car that runs on them is cheap - lowering
> > the overall cost, batteries and all to that of normal car if mass
> > produced.
> >
>
>
> Is anyone here considering how absolutely toxic cadmium & lithium are?
>
> Cadmium poisoning
> >From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
>       Cadmium poisoning
>       ICD-10 code:
>       ICD-9 code: 985.5
>
> Cadmium is one of the few elements that has no constructive purpose
> in the human body. This element and solutions of its compounds are
> extremely toxic even in low concentrations, and will bioaccumulate in
> organisms and ecosystems.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_poisoning
>
> Zero constructive purpose in our bodies, or our lives and environment.
>
> Lithium? Well, not only is it seriously toxic (in medical preparations too),
> but spontaneously combusts when exposed to... air.
> www.fas.org/nuke/intro/nuke/lithium.htm
>
> How about a battery factory YOUR backyard?
>
> That part of battery technology is the area most likely to be the joykiller,
> and except for a few forays into mercury/cadmium free batteries (they
> were crap), the battery industry is progressively more toxic every day.
>
> It's ok, the factories that make them are in 3rd world countries whose
> leaders would be glad to toxify their nation if the price is right.
>
> Also, what to do with the millions of absolutely deadly toxic spent batteries.

Recycle the batteries - they are expensive enough for the spent metal
to be valuable. Lithium  can be handled safely - the computer I'm
typing on runs an a lithium battery, as do quite a number of primitive
electric vehicles (primitive in the sense that they were converted
from normal ic rather than designed from the ground up to be electric
.)  The lead in your plain old lead acid automobile batter is more
toxic than lithium. The gasoline in your engine is more flamable.
Anything can be implemented half-assedly. A lithium battery factory
designed with worker and community safety in mind does not need to be
a poor neigbor; do it right and  you can put one in my neighborhood. 
And yep back to politics again; you need strong and strongly enforced
worker and community health and safety regulations.