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A bigger environmental problem is that many solar use mandates having batteries. The average armchair environmentalist loves to ignore the thousands of tons of
by _red 10y ago
A bigger environmental problem is that many solar use mandates having batteries.
The average armchair environmentalist loves to ignore the thousands of tons of earth that must be mined to get enough rare earth minerals for a single battery to be constructed.
- greglindahl 10y agoLithium isn't a rare earth element. Batteries don't use rare earth elements. Some electric motors do, but that's a choice; Tesla's doesn't. If you mean to say that lithium mining is a bad thing, then you might want to try to come up with a better measure of environmental impact than the number of tons of earth moved.
- DenisM 10y agoI can't find any evidence that Powerwall, for example, has any rare earths in it. Can you?