Views: 0
For dreamers of the future, perhaps driving an electric vehicle is one part of the experience. How could it not be, the latest technology vehicles really describe how driving feels in the future. Quiet, smooth, complete with various futuristic devices inside, and able to glide at high speeds as well.
One more thing that many people are looking forward to, with electric vehicles means no need to bother buying fuel oil (BBM). Why don’t you have to buy fuel? Because electric vehicles use batteries as a driver of engine motion.
Well, here the beginning of the disaster that will be discussed in this article begins. Because one of the batteries used will contain nickel. One of the very large natural resources in Indonesia. Maybe even the largest in the world. That’s why President Jokowi once traveled to Elon Musk, to sell this resource, as a source of power for his legendary electric car product, Tesla.
But it turns out that behind this big dream, there are many possible disasters. Not only upstream in the form of mining, even the potential for disaster exists in the processing process, and after the use of batteries made from nickel.
Mining Disaster
Nickel mining starting from upstream is already problematic today. One of them was revealed by research from Gajah Mada University at the nickel ore mining site in Bahodopi District, Morowali Regency, Central Sulawesi in 2017-2018.
The results of the research, which have been published by Geoethics, reveal the conclusions of various damages caused by nickel ore mining there.
“The type of damage to environmental components due to nickel ore mining activities in Bahodopi District, Morowali Regency has caused changes in the landscape from hilly to flat and hollow; resulted in loss of vegetation and terrestrial fauna habitat; resulted in a decrease in the quality of surface water (rivers and seas) around the mining area and had an impact on the decrease in aquatic biota (fish),” explained the results of the research conducted by Hasnia, Totok Gunawan and Sigit Herumurti.
In addition to the research conclusions above, it was also explained that the abiotic and biotic components in the research area were categorized as severely damaged. The level of damage to cultural components in the research area is categorized as moderate damage.
The research results above are just one example of the environmental damage caused by nickel ore mining. Finally, there are still many other nickel mining locations that are indicated to have caused environmental disasters, such as in North Halmahera, which caused ling damage.
Processing Disaster
In addition to environmental damage that causes disasters upstream of the nickel utilization process, it turns out that the processing process also has the potential to cause disasters. As happened in a work accident at the nickel processing plant of PT Indonesia Tsingshan Stainless Steel (ITSS) operating in the Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP) area, Central Sulawesi.
The fire that hit the smelter furnace made it explode, on Sunday, December 24, 2023. The explosion killed 13 workers, including nine from Indonesia and four from China.
In addition, as many as 46 victims were injured generally because they were exposed to hot steam when the disaster occurred. 29 of the injured were referred to Morowali General Hospital, 12 are being observed by the IMIP Clinic, and 5 others are undergoing outpatient care.
The findings show that the smelter furnace No. 41 was initially closed for operation because it was still under maintenance.
“When the furnace was not in operation and in the process of repair, there was residual slag or slag in the furnace that came out, then came into contact with flammable items at the location,” wrote a statement distributed by PT IMIP.
This caused the furnace wall to collapse and the remaining iron slag to flow out, causing a fire. As a result, workers who were at the location suffered injuries and fatalities.
The incident then also became an illustration of the poor implementation of Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) in nickel processing plants in Indonesia. The incident may also be a big picture of the still poor OHS system in other nickel companies in Indonesia.
Post Battery Disaster
If it is true that the target regarding electric vehicles in 2030 is achieved, how many batteries must be used?
As also reported by the Institutes for Essential Services Reform (IESR), it is stated that the Indonesian Ministry of Industry targets that by 2030 in Indonesia there will be 600,000 four-wheeled electric vehicles operating, and 2.45 million two-wheeled electric vehicles.
So you can imagine at least that many batteries will be used to operate these vehicles. Not to mention the spare batteries that must be prepared. Then do you think about the batteries that have been damaged? Will it not damage the environment?
IESR itself states that the life of an electric car battery can only last about 10-15 years, or for use up to about 200,000 kilometers (km). So for the calculation of battery life, it can be estimated that 15 years after 2030, or around 2045 Indonesia will experience the peak point of environmental damage due to used battery contamination.
Farid Wijaya from IESR explained that the world will be flooded with electric vehicle batteries that have expired and need to be disposed of.
“If used lithium ion batteries (LIBs) are simply disposed of and stockpiled in large quantities, it can cause infiltration of toxic heavy metals into underground water, resulting in environmental pollution. Likewise, when used LIBs are incinerated as solid waste, they produce a large amount of toxic gases. For example, hydrogen fluoride (HF) from the electrolyte in LIBs, which can pollute the atmosphere,” Farid explained.
For this reason, a recycling process is needed to recover most of the battery’s active materials. Therefore, handling the waste from these used batteries is urgently needed.
In response to this possible problem, the Indonesia National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) has now started research to find solutions for recycling electric vehicle battery materials. Researcher at the Nanotechnology System Research Center – BRIN, Octia Flowerin, said that recycling used batteries can be done by various methods.
“The most common methods of recycling used batteries are pyrometallurgy, hydrometallurgy, and direct recycling,” Octia told Indonesian news agency, Antara.
According to the explanation, pyrometallurgy is a method of recycling used batteries by heating used batteries at high temperatures. This method produces pure metal, but requires a lot of energy.
While hydrometallurgy is a method of recycling used batteries by dissolving metals from used batteries using chemical solutions. This method produces pure metal with lower energy than pyrometallurgy.
Direct recycling is a method of recycling used batteries by converting used batteries into new battery cathodes. This method requires the lowest energy, but can only be done for certain types of batteries.
Octia and his team developed a recycling method for used batteries using hydrometallurgy and ascorbic acid research. “This method produces pure metal with high efficiency and low energy,” said Octia again.
But despite all these solutions, a question comes to mind. With so many possible disasters from nickel usage, is it worth the benefits?
Writer : Sulung Prasetyo
+ There are no comments
Add yours