Technology
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The problem is no what happens to lithium afterwards. The problem is what the environmental cost of getting the lithium out of the earth.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/14/electric-cost-lithium-mining-decarbonasation-salt-flats-chile
But once it's out, it's out. It can then be recycled and reused "forever".
You extract oil once and burn it once; then that carbon is stuck in the atmosphere "forever". Now you have to extract more oil and do it all over again.
That's the big difference, EVs don't consume lithium; they borrow it.
That's not how recycling works.
Most recycling today is PR anyway. Recycled stuff gets dumped into some poor third world country.
lithium and cobalt are highly recyclable. The problem is not recycling them the problem is getting all the recyclable batteries into the circular manufacturing process.