I plan to publish a paper and want to run this by the Tesla enviromentally minded folks first.
Currently LCAs if using virgin materials attribute all the mining/refining/ and other stuff to one end product.
This is not technically true and is a failure in life cycle assessements.
Consider copper
We have the mine/refine/melt/form/delivery/use
but once that product is done, now it moves onto the next product, and that product uses "recycled" copper which uses alot less energy and resources
What I propose is 100 years/(product life cycle)= number of products
Then
(virgin + (number of products-1) * recycling energy)/ number of products
Batteries
mine/concentrate/refine/form/deliver/use
same premise, but the mine/concentrate is taken out for subsequent batteries and the refine.
Also with the batteries one must also consider the end of life uses as back-up power
So for the battery it would be:
cycle life as an EV battery/ Cycle life as an EV battery + cycle life as a back-up battery= % as an EV battery
Then a similar formula as before, but multiplied by % as an EV battery to get the impact per product of EV.
What do you think? More accurate and more realistic
Currently LCAs if using virgin materials attribute all the mining/refining/ and other stuff to one end product.
This is not technically true and is a failure in life cycle assessements.
Consider copper
We have the mine/refine/melt/form/delivery/use
but once that product is done, now it moves onto the next product, and that product uses "recycled" copper which uses alot less energy and resources
What I propose is 100 years/(product life cycle)= number of products
Then
(virgin + (number of products-1) * recycling energy)/ number of products
Batteries
mine/concentrate/refine/form/deliver/use
same premise, but the mine/concentrate is taken out for subsequent batteries and the refine.
Also with the batteries one must also consider the end of life uses as back-up power
So for the battery it would be:
cycle life as an EV battery/ Cycle life as an EV battery + cycle life as a back-up battery= % as an EV battery
Then a similar formula as before, but multiplied by % as an EV battery to get the impact per product of EV.
What do you think? More accurate and more realistic