[Mikeb85]

Who's comparing coal to batteries? We're talking the lifetime energy cost of producing batteries from the ground to the recycling depot.

Coal production is terrible and I'll never support it.

[jnsaff2]

You compared them to coal. You put out 100 Billion tons of waste number. Biggest share of that is from mining coal.

So why are you attributing the coal mining waste to lithium then?

If you actually look at the numbers the benefits of mining for lithium FAR outweigh its downsides.