this post was submitted on 26 Aug 2024
596 points (98.2% liked)
Technology
59271 readers
3936 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
When you “mine” natural gas and burn it for heat, it’s gone. It disappears (and produces harmful GHG in the process) You have to keep doing this to get more output.
When you mine materials for batteries, you end up with a physical thing that persists, can be used over and over and can be recycled into new batteries at end of life.
This means the amount of mining required for renewables + batteries is proportional to only the addition of new capacity, whereas the amount of “mining” for fossil fuels is proportional to the total gross energy output (including significant heat losses)
We’re mining a lot of battery materials now, but that’s because we’re adding a crapload of capacity.
Health and Environmental Concerns
Despite the positive outlooks on battery recycling, negative effects also have been shown to impact developing nations that recycle batteries, especially those with lead and lithium.
Lead is a highly toxic substance, and processing it can result in pollution and contamination of people, resulting in long-term health problems and even disability.[59][33] According to one ranking, lead-acid battery recycling is, by far, the most deadly industrial process, globally, in terms of Disability-adjusted life years lost—costing between 2,000,000 and 4,800,000 estimated lost years of individual human life.[60]
Since 2015, developing nations like Vietnam have increased their battery processing capacity as global demand for batteries has grown. The process for recycling batteries often leads to toxic metals being introduced into the environment. In many of these nations, there are little protections available for workers working with the batteries.[3] In nations like Indonesia, it was reported that over a span of four years, battery recycler's blood lead levels almost doubled.[61] Lead exposure to workers can also be transmitted to family members away from work, ultimately leading to lead poisoning. [62]
More studies continue to be conducted to gather an understanding of environmental impacts. Studies show that most lithium-ion batteries contain Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). PFAS accumulates in humans and wildlife, often leading to immune and thyroid disfunctions, liver diseases, and other issues relating to homeostasis inside of the body.[63] Lead contamination of neighborhoods has resulted from the process of recycling lead batteries. In 1992, the EPA reported 29 lead-recycling sites were on the EPA's Superfund clean-up list, 22 of them on their "National Priority List."[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling#Lithium_ion_batteries