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While some carmakers have started building cobalt-free batteries—many Tesla batteries now rely instead on lithium phosphate—the demand for the hard, lustrous gray material is only likely to increase. The same is true for lithium, nickel, and other materials inside these batteries, which are mined in Russia, Indonesia, and other places where environmental oversight is often poor, labor standards are often lax, and where mining companies have been known to fuel conflicts with local communities.
“I’ve visited lots of plants in some fairly far-flung parts of China where they grind the battery down to what they call black mass, which then enables them to extract all of the precious metals, starting with the lithium, but then moving on to the nickel and the cobalt.” Redwood can already recapture usable quantities of metals at a cost lower than conventional mining, Straubel recently toldThe International Energy Agency estimates that the world currently has enough capacity to recycle 180,000 metric tons of spent EV batteries annually. This is nowhere near enough: recycling experts estimate that the EVs bought in 2019 alone will eventually generate 500,000 metric tons of battery waste.
carltonreid There’s huge demand for used batteries from crashed EV for electric car conversions. Second hand batteries conversions go for £4,000 to £15,000 which means they are mainly cost effective for elecclassiccars No fossil burner LotusElon is lighter, silent & free fuel: PV/Tesco👌
It's good that the batteries aren't significantly shortening the life of the vehicles. But even if something else fails first, the batteries still need to be recycled. The need may be a couple of years later than expected, but it'll still happen.
Next headline, people wasting less food means mice and rats are starving at landfills.
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