This x 1000! Also a point to make. How do the batteries get charged? How it the electricity created? I'll run my chainsaw with about an 1/8th gallon of gas and be done with what the poster pictured. How much fuel will be used charging the 2 batteries for a week?
Those are some great questions. I am on grid power, paying about 12 cents per Kwh. My electric power is supplied by about 80% coal burning, with about 20% coming from renewable sources. Our electric company is slowly building up renewable energy sources, but it still costs more for them to provide electricity using solar or wind. We don't have nuclear power on the grid where I live, at least, none that I know of.
I have a separate thread where I looked into getting a small solar panel kit to recharge my tool batteries for "free." Turns out the solar panel kits, which is currently on sale for $169.00, in not a bargain for me. I took out my Kill-A-Watt Meter and actually measured how much electricity I used to recharge my batteries. Turns out, a 40v 4Ah battery costs me less than 3 cents to charge from empty to full. It costs me less than 1 cent to recharge my 18v tool batteries. Assuming I would recharge on average 1 tool battery per day (which is more than I currently use), it would take over 23 years to break even on that solar panel kit.
My ~20 year old Ni-Cad batteries are probably sitting in some landfill. But every Li-Ion battery I have purchased in the last ~10 years is still in service. I agree that building batteries and disposing of them is an issue to consider in terms of pollution. My hope is that better, less polluting batteries, will be available in the future.
On the other hand, I used to have to buy a new gas weed trimmer every 2-3 years because the carbs would gunk up and it was cheaper to buy a new machine than get the old one fixed up. In comparison, I am still using my first battery grass trimmer I purchased ~15 years ago, just had to buy new batteries along the way. I was also replacing my gas chainsaws every 4-5 years because they would cost too much to maintain or repair compared to buying a new chainsaw with warranty. I imagine those discarded units polluted the environment in both the building process and now sitting in some landfill.
I still have a 16 inch gas Sthil chainsaw sitting in my shed. I just don't use it anymore now that I have a battery chainsaw. It is just so much easier for me to slap in a fresh battery in the electric chainsaw and pull the trigger. If I have to use the gas chainsaw, then I need to buy fuel and hope I can get the gas chainsaw started. Since I so seldom use that gas chainsaw, I buy that fuel in a bottle with stabilizers and cleaners built in. But that costs about $26.00 per gallon at that price.
I have used gas chainsaws most of my life. However, I no longer normally need a chainsaw for felling trees or cutting up wood for burning anymore. So, the smaller battery chainsaws are a better option for me, for what I need. I only use a chainsaw a few times a year, and maintenance on a gas chainsaw that rarely gets used has been the downfall of most of my gas chainsaws. The battery chainsaws, on the other hand, only need a fresh battery and they don't care if they have been siting for that last 10 months.
