Tag: batteries

OM in the News: Everything You Should Know About Lithium

Lithium is neither cheap nor easy to mine at this Nevada site

Lithium: “a metal crucial to what bankers, regulators, and clean-energy advocates see as the imminent transformation of the transportation sector and the electric grid,” writes Businessweek (April 3-9, 2017).

The lightest metal on the periodic table of the elements and a superb conductor, it’s what gives the lithium ion batteries in our cell phones, laptops, Priuses, and Teslas the ability to recharge more times, last longer, and provide more energy per weight or volume than other battery chemistries. (The lithium in a Tesla costs around $500). It’s also what makes devices explode if their battery-management systems aren’t working properly, as in many hoverboards or Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7.

How is lithium changing transportation? Chinese battery and auto manufacturer BYD just build its first American bus factory near LA. The buses are lithium-intensive; each uses about 8 times as much as an average electric vehicle, which in turn uses about 10,000 times as much as an iPhone. The vehicles are more expensive than ones that run on diesel or natural gas, but only initially. After 3 to 5 years, customers save $50,000 to $75,000 per year per bus on fuel and maintenance.

In Shenzhen, 20 miles north of Hong Kong, thousands of electric buses draw wind power from the grid overnight, when residential and business customers aren’t using it, and then disperse it during the day as they drive around the city. A shift toward electric vehicles is under way in Europe, as well. BMW and Daimler have each invested hundreds of millions of dollars in electrifying their fleets, moves that help drive the European Union’s policies. And China’s broader electric auto market will soon dwarf them all. Although electric vehicle adoption has been slower in the U.S. than expected, the price of battery packs has been dropping fast, to the point that electric cars are poised to become cost-competitive with gas-powered vehicles.

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. Why is lithium so important in manufacturing?
  2. Lithium prices have increased from $4,000 per metric ton in 2014 to $20,000 today. Why?

OM in the News: GM and Old Chevy Volt Batteries

Used Chevy Volt batteries are becoming backup power options for GM's IT administration building.
Used Chevy Volt batteries are becoming backup power options for GM’s IT administration building.

General Motors said it has begun utilizing used Chevy Volt batteries to help power one its buildings, reports ZDNet.com (June 16, 2015). Under the plan, GM will use first generation Volt batteries to power its IT administration building at its Milford Proving Grounds facility. The company has built out an enterprise data center there.

When Volt batteries expire for use in the car, there is about 80% of power storage left. As a result, GM is using the Volt batteries to complement a solar array and wind turbines. By repackaging the batteries in this way, GM has found a very effective, efficient use of batteries that does not require difficult and expensive recycling.

GM’s move highlights how secondary uses are emerging for electric vehicle batteries. Scrap Volt battery covers have already been used for things like buildings for animals and nesting areas. One of the more interesting moves is Tesla’s efforts to use its battery technology to power data centers and homes. Amazon Web Services has been testing out Tesla’s technology for its data centers. For GM, the five Volt batteries serve as a nice backup power supply and cut down on waste. The batteries can provide back-up power for up to four hours in an outage.

Classroom discussion questions:

1. What other uses could an operations manager find for these Volt batteries?

2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of electric vehicles?

OM in the News: Shipping Our Batteries to Mexico for Cheaper Recycling

When we discuss the 3R’s of Sustainability in Supplement 5 we emphasize how important it is to build sustainable production processes.  But the  lead article in The New York Times (Dec.9,2011) asks what really happens when our American car battery industry claims to have the highest recycling rate for any commodity–97% of the lead is recycled–and most states mandate that stores take back old batteries. It turns out that spent batteries we turn in are increasingly being sent to Mexico, where their lead is usually extracted by crude methods that are illegal in the US, exposing plant workers and local residents to dangerous levels of a toxic metal.

The rising flow of batteries is the result of strict new EPA standards, making domestic recycling more difficult and expensive. (The allowable lead levels have dropped by a staggering amount in the past 3 years and cost of compliance is about $20 million per plant). So about 20% of batteries (20 million) are being legally shipped to Mexico this year (up from 6% since the new EPA rules), with many more smuggled across covertly. “Along the border, where US vigilance focuses on drugs and illegal immigrants, there is little effort to staunch the flow”, writes the Times.

Whereas lead battery recyclers in the US now operate in sealed, highly mechanized plants outfitted with scrubbers, the vast majority of Mexican plants just break the batteries, releasing the lead as dust and emissions. Spent batteries house up to 40 lbs. of lead, which can cause high blood pressure, kidney damage, abdominal pain in adults, and serious neurological development in children. Lead pollution remains in the ground for decades. The EPA says it “does not inspect, monitor, or verify the Mexican facilities.” Adds a Dallas recycler: “We’re shipping hazardous waste to a neighbor ill-equipped to process it and we’re doing it legally, pretending it’s not a problem.”

Discussion questions:

1. Do your students view this as an ethical dilemma?

2. What other harmful products do we ship abroad for recycling, and why?