The use of the word "rare" seems to be a reliable indicator that people have been exposed to anti-renewable propaganda.

Rare-earth elements are not rare.

"Despite their name, rare-earth elements are – with the exception of the radioactive promethium – relatively plentiful in Earth's crust, with cerium being the 25th most abundant element at 68 parts per million, or as abundant as copper."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rare-earth_element

And, further, many batteries and renewable power sources don't even use any Rare-earths.

As to your question, there's lots going on in storage, it wouldn't suprise me if 1/5th of the stories on a renewable tech blog were about progress and breakthroughts in various types of storage.

The difference is that copper tends to be concentrated into minable deposits. REE tend to be spread out. Also comparing Ce with Cu is not totally fair the HREE are also important industrially and they are much rarer than the LREE - and tend to be less well concentrated into minable deposits.

A lot of the rare-earths are produced as a by-product of other mining activities. Also, as soon as supply is seriously in constraint, recycling technology for EOL products would be developed, and as the price of sourcing from mines increased, recycling rates would tend towards 100%. Ultimately, the mining product is not being destroyed in the production of something like a battery, so it is fundamentally different, and fundamentally more sustainable than burning a fossil fuel.

There was a crisis around 2010 and this did not happen.

Agree that recycling is probably going to be important (as it is already with other metals).

This is definitely not my field of expertise, I want to hear that energy is becoming cleaner, and renewable. I guess I believe that this is the right direction, and still better than just continuing on the road we've been on. But when I see articles like this

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/c...

I can't help but wonder if we still have a ways to go. Or is this anti-renewable propaganda?

It is if you act like it only applies to renewables. Coal gets mined too, killing people from the very start to the very end of its lifecycle.

I note the actual headline has an iPhone icon and the text "This is where mobile technology begins".

A similar common bait-and-switch is to talk about how EVs are bad if you generate your electricity from coal. The mental gymnastics necessary to take that data and decide "Maybe we shouldn't use EVs" rather than "Maybe we shouldn't use coal" is a wonder to behold.

So, as long as you're saying, let's do the cleanest of all the options, that's cool. Because the cleanest answer is solar, wind, EVs and storage (including lithium ion) amongst other techs and any honest approach to doing the most efficient, least destructive thing is only going to help speed them on their way.

If you're bringing it up for the same reason people bring up birds being killed by wind power, or coal powered EVs generating pollution, or how global warming isn't even a real thing etc. then yeah, it's fairly well-funded propaganda you're spreading around.

Battery prices are falling each year too https://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/15/ev-battery-prices-looki...

Maybe you don't hear as much but progress is ongoing. I thought the recent stuff on rechargeable polymer alkaline batteries sounded promising https://www.wired.com/story/bill-joy-finds-the-jesus-battery... Potentially <1/2 the price of Li Ion and without a fire / explosion risk that could make them good for bulk gird storage. Already batteries are starting to compete with gas peaker plants https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ge-digital-gas-...

Technology hasn't kept up with that line. Here are 18650 cells on the market, sorted by Wh/kg:

http://batteries.parametrek.com/index.html?size=18650&wh_kg=...

The best are still only 276 Wh/kg, no where near the 350 Wh/kg the graph would predict.

This is what I wonder, especially with Elon building the so called 'giga factory'. How sustainable really is it?

Lithium isn't terribly rare, and li-ion batteries can be recycled and all of its contents can be reused in the production of new batteries.

Lead acid car batteries are already collected for recycling at very high rates in most areas, so there's no reason why li-ion car batteries wouldn't be collected and recycled as well.

Its not the Lithium that's problematic. Its the Cobalt.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/c...

Newer forms of Lithium Ion batteries may avoid the Cobalt, but Cobalt-based Lithium Ion is still the most popular IIRC. Cobalt Mining is dangerous, toxic, and centralized in politically unstable regions (Child Labor, poor conditions, etc. etc.)

--------

Lithium itself is located in many locations around the world. IIRC, there's a bit Lithium Mine in Nevada.

They really ought to put a surcharge on Lithium batteries and convenient places to recycle them at some point. Do for Lithium what we did for aluminum. (it's also time to probably upgrade the return value for cans as well)