Comment by carra

2 days ago

We are also going to need a breakthrough in how batteries are produced and disposed of. Otherwise the environmental impact of the many millions of batteries themselves may prove unsustainable too.

That would be nice indeed, but shouldn't prevent us from prioritizing reducing CO2 emissions first.

Maybe better disposal practices. Regulations standardizing batteries would also do a lot of good.

But really, we simply need a lot of virgin batteries regardless because we don't have enough. Recycling and disposal will only really take off once the market is mostly saturated (which we don't appear to be anywhere near).

I'd also point out that modern LiPo batteries are 90% recyclable with no special techniques needed. That's because by weight, the batteries are mostly iron and nickel. Recycling them is really as simple as just melting them down. It only gets tricky if you want to collect the lithium, silicon, and other trace materials (and there are already recycling plants that are handling that).

Funny how no one seems to consider the environmental impact of digging up fossil fuels when they discuss solar.

It's similar to how you can identify Real Bird Lovers. They stay silent when they see pictures of oil-covered birds after an Exxon Valdez or a Deepwater Horizon. Show them a windmill and boy do they get passionate about bird safety and welfare.