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Can Flow Batteries Finally Beat Lithium?
(spectrum.ieee.org)
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this post was submitted on 24 Dec 2023
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Cobalt: https://earth.org/cobalt-mining/
There is zero cobalt in a lithium iron phosphate battery.
Is that the most commonly used type of batteries in EVs?
I'm not sure on the global percentage, but they're becoming far more common. Most of the top selling EVs where I live (Tesla Model Y/3, BYD Atto 3, BYD Dolphin, MG ZS EV) all use lithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries.
They have a somewhat lower energy density so they've been avoided, but they're way safer and better eco wise to the point that they're getting uptake
This is irrelevant. First, there are chemistries not using cobalt, as explained already. Second, elemental cobalt is infinitely recyclable as all elemental metals, thus we don't need to mine that much more, just like we don't mine as much iron ore as we did centuries ago (relative to overall consumption). Yes, we still mine a lot of iron ore, but we recycle a lot as well.
This cobalt must be mined first to be recycled later, and being infinity recyclable doesn't mean it will be, for example if it's cheaper to mine new cobalt instead of recycling.
It was already mined, it only needs to be recycled if we continue using old battery chemistries. Which is unlikely.