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Comment by vlovich123 | Hacker News Reader

Can you clarify about reuse? At least as far as batteries go, right now once it's in a battery it gets used up & then ends up in the trash [2]. There's no efficient / cost-effective way to extract lithium from spent batteries for reuse in new batteries. We might in the future but it would require some scientific advances + expensive commercialization to scale up. Even if in the future we do develop a mechanism, it could remain very expensive & not be practical until mining costs have gone up enough. Similarly, all batteries that have been consumed until that point are likely irrecoverable as they're in the waste stream & finding & collecting those batteries is unlikely to ever be economical.

[1] https://americanbatterytechnology.com/lithium-costs-a-lot-of...

[2] https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a42417327/li...

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2023/11/02/redwood-...

> In 2024, a quarter million aging electric vehicles will be ready for dismantling and recycling. That could be more than a 30% jump from 2023 — and Redwood Materials, which aims to be the country's leading EV battery recycler, is ramping up its operations to prepare for the coming onslaught.

> The company created by Tesla cofounder JB Straubel, which also makes components for new batteries from materials it recovers from old ones, expects some 250,000 aging Tesla Model S sedans, Nissan Leaf hatchbacks, Toyota Priuses, Prius plug-ins and other hybrids, to turn up at dismantler lots in 2024 — with more coming every year after. That’s up from between 150,000 to 200,000 this year. To ensure it gets as many of those old batteries as possible, it’s launched a web portal to quickly give auto dismantlers purchase offers and schedule trucks to haul them away for recycling.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/deals/redwood-inks-long-term... ("Redwood inks long-term EV battery materials supply deal with Toyota")

Redwood Materials is currently operational, processing the waste stream. Ford and Volvo are also partners. They'll also accept EV packs that are damaged, defective or recalled (DDR) on an ad hoc basis if you open a ticket with their team.

https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/auto-recyclers-battery-port...

(have shipped them old Leaf and Tesla packs)

Check out Jeffrey "JB" Straubel's new company, Redwood Materials[1][2]. They recycle lithium-ion batteries. He was Tesla's former chief technology officer.

They are essentially a lithium mine that's using a very high quality ore, ground-up batteries.

There are other companies doing this as well. [3]

1. https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/

2. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/battery-recycling-redwood-mater...

3. https://li-cycle.com/technology/

> There's no efficient / cost-effective way to extract lithium from spent batteries for reuse in new batteries. We might in the future but it would require some scientific advances + expensive commercialization to scale up.

It's already 95% efficient.

No fundamental scientific advances are needed.

It's already being scaled commercially.

One example:

https://li-cycle.com/

Basically zero EV or HV batteries make it into the trash. They're recycled and already have a pretty good scrap value.

I was thinking mostly about phones, laptops, power banks etc. I couldn’t find any source online that expressed what percentage of lithium goes to different kinds of applications.

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