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Originally Posted by RM7
WTF do we do with this plastic is not the same as WTF can we get more lithium.
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Ofcourse they have a different process, but the economic factors still apply:
Just as economic factors can make the case for recycling batteries, they also make the case against it. Large fluctuations in the prices of raw battery materials, for example, cast uncertainty on the economics of recycling. In particular, the recent large drop in cobalt’s price raises questions about whether recycling Li-ion batteries or repurposing them is a good business choice compared with manufacturing new batteries with fresh materials. Basically, if the price of cobalt drops, recycled cobalt would struggle to compete with mined cobalt in terms of price, and manufacturers would choose mined material over recycled, forcing recyclers out of business.
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Metals are the easiest and most widely recycled materials in the world. You are recovering an element and not a degrading molecule
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Most of the batteries that do get recycled undergo a high-temperature melting-and-extraction, or smelting, process similar to ones used in the mining industry. Those operations, which are carried out in large commercial facilities—for example, in Asia, Europe, and Canada—are energy intensive. The plants are also costly to build and operate and require sophisticated equipment to treat harmful emissions generated by the smelting process. And despite the high costs, these plants don’t recover all valuable battery materials.
But very little recycling goes on today. In Australia, for example, only 2–3% of Li-ion batteries are collected and sent offshore for recycling, according to Naomi J. Boxall, an environmental scientist at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The recycling rates in the European Union and the US—less than 5%—aren’t much higher.
“There are many reasons why Li-ion battery recycling is not yet a universally well-established practice,” says Linda L. Gaines of Argonne National Laboratory. A specialist in materials and life-cycle analysis, Gaines says the reasons include technical constraints, economic barriers, logistic issues, and regulatory gaps.
https://cen.acs.org/materials/energy...lithium/97/i28
It's nice to see somebody has stepped up and built it, I'm concerned it's going to be viable and is clearly not yet scaled up to meet the supply of current and future stock.
The "build it and they will come" philosophy seems to not be working well on this part of the solution, and there might be a good reason why. Lithium batteries have been commercially available for over 30 years, and we still don't have a good process for recycling them. They aren't "easy".
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Concern for Recycling/Battery Waste Overhyped
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I disagree, and have quantifiable reasons for my belief.