I know very little of chemistry and how batteries are produced, so from that level I'm imagining that once a battery is deemed to have reached end-of-life, it will have to get shipped somewhere, be recycled/refurbished for which presumably we will need some new material which needs to be mined, shipped, etc. All that requires water, produces waste that may or may not be toxic, the metals may come from places lacking human rights, and takes energy which may or may not be clean [1]. So all this could in the end have a considerable amount of negative externality somewhere.

What I like that I'm hearing about this CO2 battery, whether true will have to be seen, is that it might rely on off the shelf components, that's great, means the supply chain can be simple, and has longer life in the first place. And that while potentially even cheaper?

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSzh8D8Of0k

This is cool, but one thing to consider is that you're not going to be getting that CO2 from the atmosphere, but from captured emissions. When that plant is decomissioned, the path of least resistance is to just vent it.