Assault on battery
I wasn’t surprised I couldn’t buy a new battery pack when my cheap cordless drill suddenly stopped charging. But I was caught out to find it contained loads of papercovered torch batteries, all soldered together – I was expecting something more high-tech!
But when a mate told me he’d seen a crashed electric car, surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of similar small torch batteries, spilling out of its broken power cell, I realised this is as high-tech as it gets!
Another mate checked his failed drill pack with a meter and found only a few were dud – but it still stopped the drill working. If the same technology is used in car batteries, won’t the same apply – replacing an extremely costly battery because some of those little ones have failed? The cost of testing and replacing individual cells makes wholesale replacement more practical... but we’re supposed to be talking ecology and surely it’s better for the planet to employ a man to recondition one of these batteries than a whole industry to make a new one.
I’ve only ever replaced one plug-in drill – but four cordless, mainly battery failure. As usual, ‘convenience’ has seduced us. You may use no more electricity charging than plugging-in but that balance topples when you factor in battery wastage –especially if it takes the drill with it.
People dream of a future where power is provided by sun, wind or wave, but it’s no good without storage, which means batteries - the grubby side of ‘clean’ power and I wonder if one day our present battery mania will be looked back upon as a great mistake.
Maybe we should all think about going back to plugs and extension leads, saving cordless for when it’s really needed. After all, if convenience is the priority, we may as well stick with petrol vehicles….