It's irrelevant how long they last unless is starts to substantially exceed human lifespans though. 10 years or 20, eventually every product you put out there is replaced and you enter the steadystate waste phase of X tons per year.

Personally of course, I don't think this matters at all: old lithium batteries degrade into salt and don't contain harmful chemicals. There's no real indication we'd ever have a problem dealing with them, even if it was just throwing them all into a big hole till the hole looks enough like a natural lithium source to mine again.

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tonyedgecombe 4 days ago | parent [-]

>It's irrelevant how long they last unless is starts to substantially exceed human lifespans though

If a product has twice the lifetime then you are going to have half the waste. I'm not sure how that is irrelevant.

	▲	XorNot 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		Or you'll have twice the product in circulation because you might be far below satisfying actual demand. For batteries this is definitely true: we're not even close to storing weeks worth of every yet, and the more you can store the more flexible and useful they become.