Re:Ten years left to redesign lithium-ion batteries?
by ajross on Friday July 27, 2018 @02:25PM
(#17628000)
> The opposite is true; removable batteries almost entirely end up in landfills.
That's because they have near-zero value, the component elements still being much cheaper to produce from ore than from recycling. That flips around once we start running out of ore.
Basically, economics takes care of this for us. At the end of the day, battery reagents are unconsumed resources, so we'll be fine (at some price equilibrium probably higher than their price today) so long as the number of people and their need for power storage remains bounded.
That's because they have near-zero value, the component elements still being much cheaper to produce from ore than from recycling. That flips around once we start running out of ore.
Basically, economics takes care of this for us. At the end of the day, battery reagents are unconsumed resources, so we'll be fine (at some price equilibrium probably higher than their price today) so long as the number of people and their need for power storage remains bounded.