6 ms·

Sadly lithium still isn't scarce enough to make it uneconomic to produce a perfectly good rechargeable battery and sell it as single-use https://www.youtube.com

by ris 9y ago

Sadly lithium still isn't scarce enough to make it uneconomic to produce a perfectly good rechargeable battery and sell it as single-use https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5korWqCcsHE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5korWqCcsHE I can tell you where you're going to be able to find those vast lithium deposits soon - landfill sites.

danmaz74 9y ago
I wonder how can this be economically viable...
- nickparker 9y ago
  This is paraphrased from last time it came up so I apologize for any inaccuracy: They're reject cells from the manufacturing process. In manufacturing you have a specification your products must meet or exceed for you to sell them with a certain rating. Some fraction of the cells a factory produces don't meet that specification, so they're either thrown out or used in unimportant applications like this.
- imaginenore 9y ago
  It's 3£, which is $3.88. For a 600mAh battery. You can buy an 8-pack of 2800mAh batteries (each) for $15 on Amazon. So the manufacturer is definitely making money. The recycling part is potentially interesting. Whoever figures out how to get a ton of these discarded can make money by making power packs.
  - rahimnathwani 9y ago
    You can only compare capacity in mAh if the batteries you're comparing have the same voltage. If not, you need to convert to mWh. A 600mAh 3.7V battery holds the same amount of energy as a 1500mAh 1.5V battery.
    - Dylan16807 9y ago
      We're talking about lithium ion batteries. They are all about the same voltage.
      - rahimnathwani 9y ago
        Except the comment to which I replied was talking about '8-pack of 2800mAh' from Amazon. I'm pretty sure they're talking about 1.5v Ni-MH AA batteries.
        Dylan16807 9y ago
        Oh, maybe I shouldn't have given them the benefit of the doubt. Why would they talk about incompatible batteries? Weird. You can get a four pack of 2800mAh lithium ion batteries for that price, though.
throwaway9980 9y ago
Every time I throw an aluminum can in the trash I tell myself that I’m incentivizing the future mining of landfills. One man’s trash...
- alephnil 9y ago
  The earth's crust is 13% aluminium by weight, so there is no chance there ever will be a shortage. The thing with aluminium is rather the amount of energy needed to produce it compared to the energy needed to recycle it, which is about 20:1. Once a can has been put into a landfill mixed with other stuff and with time also oxidized, that advantage is mostly gone.
  - jessriedel 9y ago
    > Once a can has been put into a landfill mixed with other stuff and with time also oxidized, that advantage is mostly gone. What is the typical oxidization rate? (Average by mass, I guess.) I thought oxidation was mostly negligible because, unlike rust, aluminum oxide forms a protective layer. I would think this is fairly effective in a dump. Nimble robots and better image recognition will eventually drive the cost of landfill retrieval way down.
  - waterhouse 9y ago
    > The earth's crust is 13% aluminium by weight I found this astonishing, and looked for sources. It looks like they[1][2] say it's more like 8.2% aluminum by weight. That's still quite high, though, and also it's the third highest behind oxygen and silicon. (If you exclude oxygen, I think it goes up to 15.4% aluminum.) Very interesting. [1] http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele013.html http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele013.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - zeckalpha 9y ago
baddox 9y ago
Honest question: is there a better option for non-rechargeable batteries for portable electronics? Where "better" means some combination of lower cost, higher energy density, more recyclability, more safety, or similar.
- gh02t 9y ago
  Plain lithium batteries (non-rechargeable) are cheaper and have higher capacity than lithium ion. Other factors are basically similar. I think the only reason to use lithium ion when you don't care about recharging is if you have a lot of extras, say manufacturing rejects or have some serious economies of scale going on.
  - wlesieutre 9y ago
    Disposable lithium batteries (lithium iron disulfide) can hold a charge for 20 years in storage and have a greater temperature tolerance compared to alkaline. They're ideal for uses like an emergency flashlight that you leave in the glove compartment. They're also 1.5v which makes them suitable as a replacement in for alkaine AA/AAA batteries. Lithium ion is 3.7v so it only works in devices made for it.
    - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
      They're also lower weight, which makes the fact that they have higher total power and peak current even more impressive. They're ideal for not just emergency flashlights because of their longer storage time, but also for anything where you care about weight and power like a backpacking headlamp or bike light. It's just amazing chemistry. It surprises me that alkaline batteries are holding on as well as they are. If something with the performance difference between alkaline and lithium ion disulfide came along for rechargeable lithium ion cells, every manufacturer would be on it just as fast as they could possibly pivot their supply chains. I guess people just don't care about primary cells as much.
      - benlorenzetti 9y ago
cmurf 9y ago
In all the towns I've lived in, it's illegal to put fluorescent bulbs and lithium batteries in the trash. They're supposed to be disposed of as hazardous waste.
- micv 9y ago
  It's not like they can really inspect the contents of your bin before the machinery dumps it all into the truck. You'd have to do something really dumb to get caught. Those rules really depend on most people not being dicks about it.
  - _coldfire 9y ago
    Most garbage collection in Australia has a camera to inspect bin contents and catch people abusing the recycling system. It's been in place for a decade now. https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/waste-truck-watching-you-garbage-council-removal/577961/ https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/waste-truck-watching-you-g...
    - micv 9y ago
      That's interesting. The non-recyclable waste is normally packaged up into black bags here in the UK and it's often pretty noxious. They're not gonna slice them open so a camera can have a look, so people can put almost anything in them so long as it fits.
  - jacobr 9y ago
    My batteries and bulbs are picked up together with the rest of my trash, I just put it in a little box hanging on the bin. There's no reason what so ever to not put them in the right place. So everyone does.
- j3097736 9y ago
  Most supermarkets where I live have a battery bin near the entrance, and I've seen many times various packs or even sealed lead acids crammed in.
- 9y ago

by ris 9y ago

danmaz74 9y ago

I wonder how can this be economically viable...

nickparker 9y ago
This is paraphrased from last time it came up so I apologize for any inaccuracy: They're reject cells from the manufacturing process. In manufacturing you have a specification your products must meet or exceed for you to sell them with a certain rating. Some fraction of the cells a factory produces don't meet that specification, so they're either thrown out or used in unimportant applications like this.
imaginenore 9y ago
It's 3£, which is $3.88. For a 600mAh battery. You can buy an 8-pack of 2800mAh batteries (each) for $15 on Amazon. So the manufacturer is definitely making money. The recycling part is potentially interesting. Whoever figures out how to get a ton of these discarded can make money by making power packs.
- rahimnathwani 9y ago
  You can only compare capacity in mAh if the batteries you're comparing have the same voltage. If not, you need to convert to mWh. A 600mAh 3.7V battery holds the same amount of energy as a 1500mAh 1.5V battery.
  - Dylan16807 9y ago
    We're talking about lithium ion batteries. They are all about the same voltage.
    - rahimnathwani 9y ago
      Except the comment to which I replied was talking about '8-pack of 2800mAh' from Amazon. I'm pretty sure they're talking about 1.5v Ni-MH AA batteries.
      - Dylan16807 9y ago
        Oh, maybe I shouldn't have given them the benefit of the doubt. Why would they talk about incompatible batteries? Weird. You can get a four pack of 2800mAh lithium ion batteries for that price, though.

throwaway9980 9y ago

Every time I throw an aluminum can in the trash I tell myself that I’m incentivizing the future mining of landfills. One man’s trash...

alephnil 9y ago
The earth's crust is 13% aluminium by weight, so there is no chance there ever will be a shortage. The thing with aluminium is rather the amount of energy needed to produce it compared to the energy needed to recycle it, which is about 20:1. Once a can has been put into a landfill mixed with other stuff and with time also oxidized, that advantage is mostly gone.
- jessriedel 9y ago
  > Once a can has been put into a landfill mixed with other stuff and with time also oxidized, that advantage is mostly gone. What is the typical oxidization rate? (Average by mass, I guess.) I thought oxidation was mostly negligible because, unlike rust, aluminum oxide forms a protective layer. I would think this is fairly effective in a dump. Nimble robots and better image recognition will eventually drive the cost of landfill retrieval way down.
- waterhouse 9y ago
  > The earth's crust is 13% aluminium by weight I found this astonishing, and looked for sources. It looks like they[1][2] say it's more like 8.2% aluminum by weight. That's still quite high, though, and also it's the third highest behind oxygen and silicon. (If you exclude oxygen, I think it goes up to 15.4% aluminum.) Very interesting. [1] http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele013.html http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele013.html [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- zeckalpha 9y ago

baddox 9y ago

Honest question: is there a better option for non-rechargeable batteries for portable electronics? Where "better" means some combination of lower cost, higher energy density, more recyclability, more safety, or similar.

gh02t 9y ago
Plain lithium batteries (non-rechargeable) are cheaper and have higher capacity than lithium ion. Other factors are basically similar. I think the only reason to use lithium ion when you don't care about recharging is if you have a lot of extras, say manufacturing rejects or have some serious economies of scale going on.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  Disposable lithium batteries (lithium iron disulfide) can hold a charge for 20 years in storage and have a greater temperature tolerance compared to alkaline. They're ideal for uses like an emergency flashlight that you leave in the glove compartment. They're also 1.5v which makes them suitable as a replacement in for alkaine AA/AAA batteries. Lithium ion is 3.7v so it only works in devices made for it.
  - LeifCarrotson 9y ago
    They're also lower weight, which makes the fact that they have higher total power and peak current even more impressive. They're ideal for not just emergency flashlights because of their longer storage time, but also for anything where you care about weight and power like a backpacking headlamp or bike light. It's just amazing chemistry. It surprises me that alkaline batteries are holding on as well as they are. If something with the performance difference between alkaline and lithium ion disulfide came along for rechargeable lithium ion cells, every manufacturer would be on it just as fast as they could possibly pivot their supply chains. I guess people just don't care about primary cells as much.
    - benlorenzetti 9y ago

cmurf 9y ago

In all the towns I've lived in, it's illegal to put fluorescent bulbs and lithium batteries in the trash. They're supposed to be disposed of as hazardous waste.

micv 9y ago
It's not like they can really inspect the contents of your bin before the machinery dumps it all into the truck. You'd have to do something really dumb to get caught. Those rules really depend on most people not being dicks about it.
- _coldfire 9y ago
  Most garbage collection in Australia has a camera to inspect bin contents and catch people abusing the recycling system. It's been in place for a decade now. https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/waste-truck-watching-you-garbage-council-removal/577961/ https://www.news-mail.com.au/news/waste-truck-watching-you-g...
  - micv 9y ago
    That's interesting. The non-recyclable waste is normally packaged up into black bags here in the UK and it's often pretty noxious. They're not gonna slice them open so a camera can have a look, so people can put almost anything in them so long as it fits.
- jacobr 9y ago
  My batteries and bulbs are picked up together with the rest of my trash, I just put it in a little box hanging on the bin. There's no reason what so ever to not put them in the right place. So everyone does.
j3097736 9y ago
Most supermarkets where I live have a battery bin near the entrance, and I've seen many times various packs or even sealed lead acids crammed in.
9y ago