[rbx]

Zinc is very important in the diet and its deficiency is very common. Our food is already becoming scarce in zinc, potentially needing supplements from mined minerals. But these are not projected to last very long either [1]. This doesn't make me very excited for using it for batteries at all.

[1] https://www.iatp.org/documents/scarcity-of-micronutrients-in...

[wolfi1]

i wouldn't worry about Zinc, men need 11 mg/day, women even less. The common battery, the Leclanché element, already consist of Zinc, but it is not advisable to recharge them (danger of explosion). In the 90s people even claimed the could safely recharge the Leclanché element, so I could imagine the have overcome these problems

[jandrese]

A kilogram of Zinc costs about $2.50[1] and is enough for an adult man for three months. There is no zinc crunch in the foreseeable future. Plus if it really became a problem you could recycle the zinc out of old batteries.

[1] https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/zinc-price

[onemoresoop]

1 kg for 3 months? Maybe 3 lifetimes..

[jandrese]

Bah, you're right. I put in a KG instead of G in my calculation, so 3000 months instead of 3 months. In any case I am not worried about running out even if we go whole hog on these batteries.

[logfromblammo]

To show the math:

1 kg Zn * 1000 g / kg * 1000 mg / g * 1 day / 11 mg Zn * 1 year / 365.2425 day * 1 male lifespan / 76.04 years = 3.27 lifetimes.

The amount of Zn in one US post-1982 penny is 2.5 g (ignoring the copper cladding), which is 0.62 of a year's requirement.

[BubRoss]

What relevance does this have? Do you think zinc is scarce?

[whyfy]

In addition, eating foods that contain zinc makes this point moot. Meat, shellfish, nuts, even dairy