[dv_dt]

Don't get on such a high horse about US regulatory effectiveness.

This is recently (2010) in California even: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exide_lead_contamination

Still, the overall benefit might be seen as positive for lithium from shifting widespread air pollution from combustion engines to more localized pollution. Though obviously the world needs to work on better processes for the local pollutants.

[dtech]

The "advantage" is that in contrast to heavy metals like lead lithium is a lot less toxic as far as we know. Not 0, but not in the same league.

[Danox]

Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources, and if you don’t recognize upfront that, be it the military, companies or government, you have to be prepared to clean up your mess, in short, factor in cleanup and the cost of using rare earths or any other item you can dig up on land or pump from the sea or land, but worldwide, mankind is still not quite there in terms of recognizing all of the ramifications up front, short-term thinking is the curse of mankind.

One example I can give of that is the fact that Alaska is home for the largest salmon fishery in the world, a fishery that is more valuable as a food resource than any gold you can extract from the headwaters of Lake Iliamna.

[cogman10]

> Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic, particularly to water resources

Not really true. There are plenty of non-toxic elements in the ground.

The actual issue with mining is that the elements we are after are often surrounded by the likes of arsenic. Gold is a great example of this as veins of it are often right along and in arsenic.

That said, I do agree about being conscious of what sort of undesirables get leached out from the stuff we pull from the ground. For example, I recently learned that the reason we have to be worried about mercury in ocean fish is because mercury is a major part of the pollutants spewed from coal plants.

[iso1631]

> Anything that you can dig/pump out of the ground is toxic

Carrots?

[lostlogin]

Everything has a fatal dose. But I’m not sure the LF50 for carrots has been established yes.

[ufocia]

Poison hemlock is a carrot. Socrates and I would consider it toxic.

[dv_dt]

but here again, shifting from fossil fuels usage lifecycle - which is literally extract to refine and burn is a much more polluting lifecycle than a 20 year extract, use, recycle lifecycle for lithium or solar or any renewable approach. And its an improvement in both intensity and sheer tonnage of material extracted.

[ufocia]

There are other toxic substance like phosphorus in "lithium" batteries. Some "lithium" battery chemistries, though reportedly not LFP, contain cobalt, a very toxic heavy metal. Besides, there isn't a clear definition of what is a heavy metal. Even iron and copper, used in LFP, are considered heavy metals by some.

BTW, lithium itself is highly toxic too.

[cogman10]

> cobalt, a very toxic heavy metal

Cobalt is neither particularly toxic nor a heavy metal. In fact, it's a part of vitamin B12. You might be thinking of Cadmium, which is indeed a very toxic and nasty metal.

In LiPos the heaviest metals are Iron and Nickel. That's by design. Heavier metals tend to be more expensive to procure.

In trace amounts, by both weight and volume lithium batteries are mostly nickel and/or iron.

> There are other toxic substance like phosphorus in "lithium" batteries. Some "lithium" battery chemistries

...

> BTW, lithium itself is highly toxic too.

Both phosphorous and lithium are fertilizers. Yes, taking in a very large dose of both is poisonous, but the same is true of salt.

[themaninthedark]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobalt Toxicity The LD50 value for soluble cobalt salts has been estimated to be between 150 and 500 mg/kg. Thus, for a 100 kg person the LD50 would be about 20 grams.[209] Cobaltism (cobalt poisoning) is rare but has resulted from the fabrication of tungsten carbide.[210] Another source is from wear and tear of certain metal-on-metal hip prostheses.[211]

Chronic cobalt ingestion has caused serious health problems at doses far less than the lethal dose. In 1966, the addition of cobalt compounds to stabilize beer foam in Canada led to a peculiar form of toxin-induced cardiomyopathy, which came to be known as beer drinker's cardiomyopathy.[212][213]

Cobalt metal is suspected of causing cancer (i.e., possibly carcinogenic, IARC Group 2B) as per the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Monographs.[214]

It causes respiratory problems when inhaled.[215] It also causes skin problems when touched; after nickel and chromium, cobalt is a major cause of contact dermatitis.[216]