13 hours ago, FishTax said:

This is now $239 for Black Friday. Are you still happy with it? Seems like any awesome deal, I just happened to click your link and realized it was one I looked at earlier today when researching. 

Will Prowse has a YT video on it.  He says it's a decent one.  I'd trust his opinion as much as the next guy.  

And I think we're getting to a point where most all of them are pretty similar.  I mean, they've been around for a while now, and I haven't really heard a lot of people complaining about any of them.  

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/12/30/breaking-news/cargo-ship-carrying-burning-lithium-ion-batteries-reaches-alaska/

 

🚢 🔥 

On 12/31/2023 at 8:42 AM, TnRiver46 said:

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/12/30/breaking-news/cargo-ship-carrying-burning-lithium-ion-batteries-reaches-alaska/

 

🚢 🔥 

 

3 hours ago, MN Fisher said:

Back for a moment - and something to think about...

 

 

Again, these are referencing lithium-ion batteries, not lithium iron phosphate, which are the batteries you'd use in boats for trolling motors and such.  Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries are much less likely to explode and catch fire (about as safe as lead acid or AGM) and don't require nasty metals such as cobalt and manganese.  

 

And, the unfortunate truth is, if you want to mine any metal, it's going to be nasty and ugly.  Metals just don't appear in giant chunks by themselves on earth.  So to extract any metal, you're going to have to destroy a lot of land and there's going to be hundreds, thousands, maybe millions of times more waste material than the metal you want.  Which means you're going to have to refine it, a process that creates tons of pollutions, both in the air and in the water.  And lead, from the lead acid batteries, is one of the most environmentally destructive metals you can mine.  Which is one reason why you pay a core charge, to encourage you to recycle some of that lead to slow down the rate at which we mine lead and keep that lead in the garbage from leaking into our water supply. 

 

Lithium batteries, both lithium ion and lithium iron phosphate (or any metal battery really) can also be recycled.  We just don't do it because they're relatively new and the infrastructure needed to do that at a scale to make it profitable hasn't seen much investment yet.  That'll change in the future as more EV's get old and wind up in the scrap heap.  We don't generally do it for phones and such, because it's very time consuming to dismantle the phone and get that tiny battery out.  Newer phones don't like to let you have access to the battery.  So it's not profitable to recycle lithium today.  

 

It's kind of a darned if you do, darned if you don't situation.  There's just not a good solution that doesn't involve some level of compromise with this stuff.  If there was a perfect solution, it wouldn't be something we'd discuss because we'd all just know the answer.  Like breathing air.  No one's running around saying we should inhale dirt or water.  Air is the perfect solution to the breathing problem.