Ethical sources for lithium batteries?

[Garald]

I'm considering getting batteries in addition to a set of solar panels. A friend of mine sends me this link:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01735-z

 

I'd heard before of problems associated to lithium batteries (pollution, sourcing in the DRC with all that implies, etc.). I suppose a cell phone doesn't make that much of a difference, but storing energy from a set of PV panels is on a different scale altogether.

 

What do people do about this question? Refurbished batteries maybe? Some sort of fair-trade sourcing?

[Cooeyswell]

6 minutes ago, Garald said:

I'm considering getting batteries in addition to a set of solar panels. A friend of mine sends me this link:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01735-z

 

I'd heard before of problems associated to lithium batteries (pollution, sourcing in the DRC with all that implies, etc.). I suppose a cell phone doesn't make that much of a difference, but storing energy from a set of PV panels is on a different scale altogether.

 

What do people do about this question? Refurbished batteries maybe? Some sort of fair-trade sourcing?

 

This article refers to Lithium-Ion batteries. While these are used in some battery systems many others use Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LFP) batteries.

LFP batteries do not use cobalt or nickel and are seen as a "cleaner" chemistry type albeit with a reduced energy density.