The epidemic of putting batteries in things to "go green"
Batteries. Are. Not. Green. They should only be used when permanent line power is highly impractical. Not just when it’s inconvenient, more expensive, or ugly.
Battery busses are a thing, and only growing more common. Siemens has battery trains. Hitachi has battery trams. And everyone seem to be fawning over this concept like it’s the bees knees.
What do these three things have in common? Oh right! Putting batteries in them is completely unnecessary for the vast, vast majority of use cases! Gee, if only there was a way of efficiently delivering power on demand to a vehicle travelling a known fixed route! Maybe some form of thin metal conductive material running over the road or track, and a pole on the vehicle that latches onto it to get the electricity! Railway electrification and trolleybuses have only been running reliably around the world for a century or so! Back when putting a battery of the capacities we have today on a moving vehicle was a mere twinkle in an engineer’s eyes.
Lithium ion batteries are NOT environmentally friendly or sustainable. They contain highly toxic chemicals, release even worse pollutants into the environment if they fail (and that usually involves a fireball or two), require lithium and rare earth metals, have a much shorter life than the rest of the vehicle and can’t be efficiently recycled no matter what battery companies tell you. Not to mention that we’re also running out of lithium.
It seems that in most of the cases where these vehicles are deployed, it’s either because people think overhead wires are ugly and battery vehicles feel more advanced, or that building and maintaining overhead wires are more expensive than a bunch of batteries. Sustainability considerations are secondary at best. Greener than burning diesel, probably, but that’s a real low bar and not nearly green enough to be proud of.
To which I say, stop it! Maybe in some edge cases batteries would be better for the environment than wires, but those would be the exception and not the rule. For all the other cases, use wires, not batteries.
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