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And unlike oil, Lithium can be recycled indefinitely

• mimsee 9y ago
  "As of 2017, the recycling of Li-Ion batteries generally does not extract lithium since the many different types of Li-Ion batteries require a different extraction process." Source: "Battery Recycling > Lithium ion batteries" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battery_recycling
  • mikeash 9y ago
    This would change if there was a shortage. Nobody recycles it now because it's cheaper to mine more.
• dredmorbius 9y ago
  Material recycling has not to date been particularly effectively developed. The most-recycled metal in the United States is lead, and only about 40% of it is recovered. That means that the useful amount in use decreases by over half with each use generation. Even with high recovery rates, per-generation losses mean that new mining or other recovery is constantly required. And the amounts of lithium required for widespread energy storage are truely vast.