Comment by triceratops

Another important takeaway: the "we need to mine for batteries" argument against renewables is complete bunk and always has been. Because:

1. Battery recycling will eventually provide all the minerals we need for new batteries. This is already true for lead-acid car batteries. We just don't have enough old lithium batteries around for lithium battery recycling to be a big industry yet.

2. We burn fossil fuels, which means we constantly need to dig out more and more. Any amount of mining we will do for batteries and panels is a small fraction of what we do for oil and coal.