- The grid where I am is 90% non-CO2 emitting; nuclear and hydroelectricity with natural gas supplimenting it. We phased out the last of the coal plants 15 years ago. More places should, the air quality in the whole province improved markedly after.

- I drive a car with a small 14kWh battery, and a backup ICE for when I need it. 90% of my miles are electric. I don't understand why this model isn't more popular. I see no need to drag around a 60kWh battery "just in case" I need that extra range.

- Lithium isn't the huge environment/social problem really. Basically big evaporation ponds in desert areas. There's even some work being done to pull lithium out of abandoned oil wells in some locations. Some of the other components are a problem, such as Cobalt in some formulations. But all these formulations can be played with. And they are one-time for the whole vehicle, rather than requiring continual extraction. And can be recycled. Can't recycle petroleum or hydrogen.

Meanwhile the only practical sources for producing hydrogen require fossil fuels, typically natural gas, and end up emitting CO2. Emitting CO2 is not necessary for EV usage. But most practical sources of hydrogen do. And the efficiency is far lower.

There is no fundamental physics reason to use lithium, it's just the current best technological node. There are many technologies that are very promising in the lab, like carbon nanotubes, iron and sodium ion, aluminum-air etc. There is massive research in this area and if none of these technologies turn out to be economically superior to Li-ion in the near future, then they will certainly be available if, for environmental reasons, lithium becomes expensive.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/130380-future-batte...

It’s times like these that people should realize that fuel cells are a type of battery. You can call them hydrogen-air batteries.

That's not really accurate since the "electrolyte" changes phase requiring external storage (H2O -> gaseous H2) and the re-oxygenation step cannot be performed (yet) in the same device as the electrolysis.

It's not an electrochemical battery but I can agree with seeing it in a general sense as the an energy storage device, in the same way a dam is a "gravitational battery".

You can perform both steps in the same device. It's just more efficiency to have a dedicated electrolyzer doing that elsewhere.