Originally posted by Leonhard
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For one, electric vehicles have a concerning supply chain. Cobalt, a key component of the lithium-ion batteries in electric cars, is linked to reports of child labour. The nickel used in those same batteries is toxic to extract from the ground. And there are environmental concerns and land use conflicts connected with lithium mining in countries like Tibet and Bolivia.
The elements used in battery production are finite and in limited supply. This makes it impossible to electrify all of the world’s transport with current battery technology. Meanwhile, there is still no environmentally safe way of recycling lithium-ion batteries.
https://theconversation.com/not-so-f...-its-own-94980
And while we CAN recycle the batteries, the cost to do so is more than the gain.
Unlike an old mobile phone, an electric vehicle isn’t something you’re going to put in a drawer and forget about. Electric vehicle batteries are simply too big to be kept at home and can’t be left in a landfill. A smelting process is used to recover many minerals, but it alone can’t recover the precious lithium.
After a battery is smelted, the lithium ends up as a mixed byproduct and extracting it is costly. The price of fully recycling a lithium-ion battery is falling towards €1 per kg. The problem is, the value of the raw minerals reclaimed from the process is only a third of that.
https://evrater.com/ev-battery-disposal
And while we can reuse car batteries in other places like you mentioned, eventually they will need to be disposed of. And the lifespan of the reused batteries isn't decades, it is 7 to 10 years.
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