this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
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Eh...
Batteries take "rare earth metals" like cobalt.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-24/cobalt-mining-in-the-congo-green-energy/100802588
There's an environmental cost, and a huge cost on a personal level to the people who mine it.
It's like if your house is burning down, but then a flood comes and puts out the fire.
Sure, the fire is out, but now your house is underwater. We're just switching one problem for another, not really solving anything
Edit:
Not sure why so many people think this comment is pro fossil fuels...
But I'm not going to repeatedly explain the very basic concept that with two bad things, one is sometimes less bad.
I really really thought people would already know that...
Current Li-ion batteries have numerous issues, but fortunately there are several alternatives too. Bringing a new battery chemistry to production scale hasn’t been easy, but we’re taking small steps like that every year.
We may still need lithium, nickel or manganese in the near future, but the demand for cobalt (per cell) has been decreasing gradually. Who knows which alternative ends up dominating the market after a few decades
Eventually I hope we end up with sodium batteries.
But that's probably a long way off still
Not that far off actually, China started producing the first sodium ion battery powered car in series this year
Nice.
The whole sodium story is how we should be going about shit.
We didn't focus on making the best battery and came up with sodium.
A couple college students instead looked for the most abundent and easily accessible thing we can make batteries out of.