My son loves riding kids battery cars.

So on this day, I had to fulfill the promise I had made two days before

I decided to take him for a ride.

He didn’t waste time pouncing on his car of choice.

But within a short time, we were disappointed.

The battery kept on stalling the car.

After a battery change, the car still had low energy.

Apparently, there were more cars than batteries.

So more time was needed to charge the batteries which meant that more cars would have stalled translating to loss of income.

Now imagine this same scenario but substitute toy cars with electric driven vehicles

HYBRID VEHICLES

Today, hybrid vehicles are all too common.

These are vehicles driven by petrol but can still use battery energy to do the same.

Still there are others that are driven exclusively by battery energy – electric vehicles.

In Kenya, electric vehicles have even infiltrated the public service transport sector.

I was positively surprised once when I stumbled onto one in our local public transport park.

In short, there’s simply no turning back on electric vehicles.

They are here to stay.

And so are the components that accompany them.

BATTERIES

Remember that toy car story I started with?

Recall how the batteries stalled due to them being in short supply?

Electric vehicles come fitted with battery parts.

But nothing stops a prospective entrepreneur from partnering with car companies to manufacture/distribute batteries that could help make the cars.

Batteries that run electric vehicles are mostly lithium ion batteries.

They made up of materials such as cobalt, carbon, manganese, vanadium etc.

Being minerals, their supply heavily depends on mining.

But what if their availability dwindles due to overexploitation?

Sooner or later, opportunities for battery recycling will start popping up.

Where will the used batteries be disposed?

If tossed in land fills, they’ll create an environmental catastrophe like no other due to leaching of these chemicals into the environment.

But come to think of it – where do we take spent batteries when our phones, laptops and tablets are replaced?

RECYCLING

As a potential entrepreneur in the battery space, if manufacturing seems a tall order, try recycling.

Sooner or later, recycled battery components might become more economical than those made from mined metals.

So there’s need for more innovators who’ll make good use of their knowledge in materials science for recycling purposes.

Recycling batteries might help re-eingineer used batteries into a form that could be used to drive toy cars or even vehicles.

And recycling need not be confined only to batteries.

Other renewable energy hardware such as solar panels could start accumulating in landfills in a couple of years if no one out there will recycle them.

IN CONCLUSION

Renewable energy provides us with unique opportunities.

Recycling is one.

It means taking what’s waste and converting it into what’s useful.

Remanufacturing to be precise.

But this can’t happen without some knowledge in materials science.

This is where the physics, chemistry and engineering could be put to good use especially by our able graduates.

Probably more entrepreneurs need to think of this space because in the long run, their effort will count.

Photo credit: Muhammed Abdelgaffar via Pexels