[shadilay]

Unlike oil you can recycle lithium. There is only so many new batteries needed and at some point most of the demand will be fed with recycled lithium.

[jjoonathan]

Exactly. You don't burn lithium into the atmosphere. Even depleted cells still have all the lithium they were created with.

The process of getting lithium out of depleted cells and ready for new cells is a rapidly scaling industry at the moment.

[shadilay]

Furthermore refining old battery material into new feedstock is far less energy intensive than getting it out of the ground in the first place.