As I understand it, these types of batteries are not rechargeable. They would need to be taken back to a factory and be recycled.
I'd like to know how energy efficient the recycling stage would be. I've not seen that information anywhere so far.
I'd like to know how energy efficient the recycling stage would be. I've not seen that information anywhere so far.
Instead I'd like to see some continuous process, granulated aluminum perhaps, and the alumina simply ejected as granules. Its present everywhere already, so not an un-green thing to do.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_smelting
Edit: It would be interesting to see how much Al (not total weight of the system) is used/km. According to wikipedia there should be about 1.5 mol CO2/CO per mol Al created (depends on how the process is tuned). Car ads declare how much CO2/km they release, right? Anyone know their car engines? (I live in a city center and only drive on vacation.)
Edit 2: This Al energy source is cool, but what everyone here really want is some hard data comparing it to a normal hybrid energy in costs, how easy it is to use and (maybe also) greenhouse effects. That the articles doesn't discuss that is probably a good answer.