Re: Some questions I got from a listener by email

Regarding the question about batteries.
Batteries store energy so the energy to propel the car has to be produced elsewhere, preferably via renewable sources. An internal combustion engine burns fossil fuels, or biofuels, which act as the energy carrier or storage. The problems with fossil fuels are obvious relating to climate change but are multiplied by the fact that the vehicles as currently designed are incredibly inefficient, somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to18% on average well to wheel. Most of the energy of the fuel is lost as heat, precious little is used to produce forward motion. Some of this is due to excessively heavy cars. Making cars lighter does have recyclability issues, currently there is an industry already handling heavy car recycling as the materials are currently used.
In electric cars much more more of the energy is used to produce forward motion and the vehicles are therefore substantially more efficient, up to 88% efficient. This drops substantially, down to 28%, if power plants are used to charge the batteries. (http://www.electroauto.com/info/pollmyth.shtml 02/08) 28% is still a significant improvement but simply increasing CAFE standards to 40 mpg, easily achievable with current IC technology, would be a doubling of current average and if the entire fleet were brought up to that standard US GHG emission would be reduced by 10%.
As far as environmental impact is concerned, lead acid batteries have a mature recycling industry in place and are 90% recyclable for the electrolyte, 96% for the lead. These are figures based on the EU which mandates recycling of lead acid batteries. I'm unsure about Lithium Ion batteries and recycling.

C Robb
http://sustliving.blogspot.com/