[qsera]

>countries where enforcement is lax

As an Indian this is exactly one of the reasons why I am afraid of EV boom. All of that bad stuff, which we are mostly unfamiliar with (in terms of how to handle it properly, because battery tech is always changing) is going to dumped in places like India. And would silently sustain the bad effects for many decades or even more, until it (the bad stuff) somehow reaches some developed country (probably never).

[cogman10]

Well let me ease some of your fears.

Lithium batteries are less toxic than most other battery chemistries (including lead acid batteries). The major toxic portion of lithium batteries comes in the form of production, but not the actual materials involved in the battery.

The battery tech also isn't changing as much as you might think. Don't get me wrong, it is getting better, but a lot of that isn't really by changing the underlying formula for the batteries, but rather tweaking the processes for creating the structure of the battery.

That's not to say that you want to inhale the smoke of a burning lithium battery. But these batteries don't have any heavy metals in them. The materials they do have tend to already be in abundance in the environment. A major part of the reason for that is these batteries do need to be cheap. Heavy metals drive up the price.

[qsera]

You paint a happy path. But the devil is in the details that often come to light only much later.

Sure, we could end up with a tech that have really no pollution potential. But there is much higher chance that we would end-up with something bad, that would go into production with a promise of "proper handling and re-cycling", but would never end up getting done...

[cogman10]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there was no pollution potential or problems.

My point was primarily that the chemicals within the lithium ion batteries are themselves pretty common on the surface and not forever poisons like lead.

My other point was that the major issue around these was primarily the chemicals used to purify and refine. Those can be nasty especially if not treated well.

But all things considered, the risks and potential damage from mishandling the recycling and production of LiPos is a lot lower than the risks that surround things like recycling lead acid batteries.

[qsera]

But scale matters too. I wouldn't be too worried if we are not going to eventually replace all fossil fuels with batteries.

That is a lot of batteries..

[cogman10]

By volume, there will necessarily be less batteries than there is oil extracted and burned in a week.

I think if you are worried about pollutants, you should be worried about the fumes released every time you start up a fossil fuel engine.

Yes, it's a lot of batteries, but they are batteries with 10 to 20 years of service life as opposed to ~1 week worth of fuel transported, refined, and burned.

When it comes to energy, there's no perfect solution. IMO, LiPos are the best of bad options. Yes they pollute, but they pollute a lot less, particularly over their lifetime.

[qsera]

> you should be worried about the fumes released every time you start up a fossil fuel engine...

I am worried about both. Why are you picking sides? At lease fossil fuels started slow. Here we are switching to an unknown solution(s) on a massive scale..

>but they are batteries with 10 to 20 years of service life as opposed to ~1 week worth of fuel transported, refined, and burned. Yes they pollute, but they pollute a lot less, particularly over their lifetime.

CO2 at least have a natural mechanism by which it gets removed. And the affects of CO2 accumulation is not as acute. I am not sure about the materials that potentially could be used.

Also you say they pollute less. But as I said, the devil is in the details. Remember that the lead that used to get added to gas turned out to be very bad. So may be it is something like that that would be added to the battery chemistry to make it last longer or work better in cold or what not...

It is disturbing that people are just handwaving such possibilities away. I think that was exactly how we got here. But now doing the same could end up a lot more worse...

[pacija]

As a Serb, I currently live in a dictatorship actively supported by everyone involved in EV boom. Those who want to profit from mining lithium in Serbia have determined my country should be a mining colony, and they do everything in their power, including financing corrupt murderous regime protested by hundreds of thoudands of Serbs for years, in order to poison our rivers and aral land and extract lithium.

https://friendsoftheearth.eu/news/lithium-in-serbia-people-p...

So far we have been able to pause it, but evil never sleeps. Hopefully we overthrow traitors on next election. Won't be easy as all media turned into propaganda brainwashing machine, protesters are being run over by cars driven by pro-government thugs who are being pardoned by president, and instead of being jailed for attempted murder they get promoted, are being given high political functions, and celebrated as defenders of the nation.

Polluted cities getting cleaner for some. Clean rivers and beautiful forests getting poisounous ore pits for others.

[qsera]

>Polluted cities getting cleaner for some. Clean rivers and beautiful forests getting poisounous ore pits for others.

Yes, that is how it goes.

Right now all the "intellectuals" and "thought leaders" are in EV apologetic mode. This is a window of opportunity for the corporate to maximize bad stuff to maximize profits selling EV.

[lostlogin]

A depressing thread.

We replace the evil of oil with the same behaviour but in new places.

I wonder how long it takes for a country to recover from its oil industry?

[worldsayshi]

> places like India

I had the impression that India is quickly turning rich enough to say no to things like this.

[anal_reactor]

Never underestimate the poverty of India. India is huge and while in some places there are bubbles of wealth, it's still a third-world country.

[orwin]

India is a lot like Russia in that its people and standards of living are very different from place to place. China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India, especially once you go in more remote areas.

(this is not a diss on India, i think that make the country much more interesting)

[lostlogin]

> China, despite a larger size and similar population is more culturally uniform than India

If rumour is to be believed, this isn’t a coincidence and had been done by the regime.

[willy_k]

Yes but this sentiment has held true since before the CCP.

[iberator]

who cares? India is very dirty even without any kind of manufacturing - awful mentality of just throwing trash and shit around.

[hgoel]

That attitude is exactly how to prevent things from ever getting better.