[xyzzyz]

Are you suggesting we know how to extract lithium from a random mix of many minerals, but getting it out of the used battery is beyond our capabilities? That’s not very believable.

The real issue is that, just as you hint, it’s actually cheaper to get lithium from mineral rich dirt, than to set up collection, disassembly and recovery operation for existing batteries. We can do it, it’s just not most economically efficient way to get raw lithium. If lithium goes up in price, it might become viable.

[justinator]

> That’s not very believable.

Can you point me to a recycling facility that's doing this?

[ajross]

No, because it's far cheaper to mine it. As mentioned above, you've been fooled by the name of the technology and are looking at the wrong part of the periodic table.

[justinator]

> No, because it's far cheaper to mine it.

OK, question answered.

> As mentioned above, you've been fooled by the name of the technology and are looking at the wrong part of the periodic table.

I asked about lithium recycling. How am I being fooled?

[ajross]

Because who cares about lithium recycling? We don't need recycled lithium to maintain battery production. Realistically it's one of those resources like iron or aluminum or phosphorous which we can't meaningfully "run out of".

(Though I threw that last one in deliberately: we're pulling P out of rocks and throwing it into the biosphere at an unsustainable rate right now, and are going to have to radically adjust the way we do agriculture fertilization in the coming decades. But even then there's going to be plenty of P around, we just have to change the sources we use to extract it.)

[justinator]

Because then this is pretty much a false statement:

> Unlike petroleum, batteries are almost 100% recyclable.

Although they can be, they're not.

That's a big point in electric cars, that I think gets swept under the rug in the green-washing of electric cars: the main widget that makes electric cars electric cars is discarded as hazardous waste.

It's too costly and impractical to recycle them. We essentially want to replace a billion gasoline cars with electric ones, and the tech. to recycle those future billion batteries doesn't really exist.

Just a point I wanted to be cleared up.

[xyzzyz]

the tech. to recycle those future billion batteries doesn't really exist.

You're still missing the whole point, which is why you are being downvoted. The technology to recycle the future billion batteries exists today, and will improve in future. The issue here is that at a current price point it is simply not competitive compared to extracting raw lithium from ground. As the most accessible and profitable fields run out of the material, and as the demand for lithium grows, the price will go up, which might make the battery recycling economically viable.

Compare it to our current wood usage: the wood we use for furniture production is usually recyclable. You could take a wardrobe, disassemble it, and after some recutting and sanding you might use the wood for some other project. However, doing this in the end costs much more than using new materials, because collecting used furniture for recycling purposes, and labor needed to disassemble it and prepare wood for reuse is simply too much for it to be worth it, especially as it cannot be manufactured in a process as automated as making plywood, MDF, 2x4s or hardwood flooring is these days. Same with getting lithium from batteries: we could do it, but you'd have to pay extra for it.

[gepi79]

Thanks for the discussion. I assume that those who down vote do not reply.

But I disagree that recycling is a big point regarding solar panels and batteries.

IMO lack of recycling and toxic waste are very lame and ignorant and misleading excuses (by the main stream media) to refuse the solar power industry, the battery industry and the electric car industry.

The threat and harm of climate change is catastrophic and very real and change is very urgent.

The fight against climate change must not be a debate of wrong priorities (waste vs climate change) and short term profitability of companies.

No foolish austerity and no local (and needless) poisoning by solar panels and batteries is worth the harm of climate change.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2017/0...

https://truthout.org/articles/release-of-arctic-methane-may-...

http://www.climate-change-emergency-medical-response.org/2-d...

http://globalwarming.berrens.nl/globalwarming.htm

For more links:

https://lustysociety.org/ethics.html#climate

[ajross]

OK. The linked article was about resource exhaustion, not "hazardous waste". My "100% recyclable" point was that the limiting resources in battery production can be sustainably sourced from old batteries, not that literally every atom was going into a new batter. I mean, one doesn't complain that the plastic housing or IC controllers aren't recyclable.

FWIW, though: Li isn't particularly hazardous.