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A comment on Photocatalyst splits water into H and O2 at quantum efficiency near 100%. Parent comment

Re:Photocatalyst splits water into H and O2 at quantum effic... by laumars on Saturday December 26, 2020 @11:45AM (#25544515)
I’m not going to pretend to be as well researched on this point as yourself but one thing you hadn’t mentioned is the environmental impact of disposing batteries. Isn’t that the biggest complaint against electric cars (in much the same way that fission reactors are criticised for the radioactive matter that needs to be disposed of — albeit the timescales involved are different by orders of magnitude).
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Re:Photocatalyst splits water into H and O2 at quantum effic... by DarmokJalad1701 on Saturday December 26, 2020 @12:10PM (#25544709)
> the environmental impact of disposing batteries

Why would anyone want to discard these batteries with precious minerals?

1. Their lifetime is measured in decades (first in EVs and then in grid-storage) as compared to single-use for gas.

2. They (at least the various types of Li-Ion cells) are 100% recyclable. Battery production will probably switch to "urban mining" once enough has been manufactured to supply the global fleet.

Tesla recently mentioned during their battery day presentation that they plan to do exactly this. Re-manufacturing batteries will be far cheaper than mining fresh raw materials once enough EoL batteries are available.

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Re:Photocatalyst splits water into H and O2 at quantum effic... by laumars on Saturday December 26, 2020 @12:17PM (#25544770)
That’s interesting. I wasn’t aware that was now possible with battery tech.

Thanks for the explanation.

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Re:Photocatalyst splits water into H and O2 at quantum effic... by bananabreakfast on Saturday December 26, 2020 @01:49PM (#25545444)
check out https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/

All EV batteries are 100% recyclable and this company was founded by the original CTO of Tesla to do just that.

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Re:Photocatalyst splits water into H and O2 at quantum effic... by _jahh on Saturday December 26, 2020 @11:48AM (#25544540)
if anything it's the environmental and social impact of the mining of the minerals vs the disposal.
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