| ▲ | 7777777phil 5 hours ago | |
The replaceable battery yes.. but the buried lede imo is the material recovery targets. EU imports basically 100% of its lithium and cobalt (https://rmis.jrc.ec.europa.eu/rmp/Lithium). Mandating high recycling rates for exactly those materials is industrial policy in an environmental costume. Same pattern as their payments regulation (https://philippdubach.com/posts/europes-24-trillion-payment-...), frame sovereignty as consumer protection and nobody fights you on it. Clever, honestly. | ||
| ▲ | peterfirefly 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | |
> EU imports basically 100% of its lithium We don't have to. There's a large spodumene resource in Portugal. > and cobalt Finland alone could cover all of the European Union's need for cobalt even with zero recycling. https://www.lyellcollection.org/doi/full/10.1144/geoenergy20... Not that I am against recycling of lithium and cobalt -- it's just that it isn't actually needed when we could fairly easily mine both if we wanted to. Lithium recycling is commercially viable as far as I know so there's no need for the EU to legislate anything. Cobalt recycling from bigger batteries probably is, other kinds of cobalt recycling probably isn't. | ||
| ▲ | danaris 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | |
I mean, it's not really a costume. This is a case where a shrewd industrial policy genuinely goes hand-in-hand with what's best for the environment. Win-win. | ||