Depends what you mean by "easier to solve." It's certainly not easier than not solving the externalities of fossil fuels, which is what we're currently doing. If we somehow mandated that fossil fuel externalities were solved (internalized), then perhaps we would find that solving the externalities of alternative energy sources would indeed by easier/cheaper.
You're probably right, but that ship has long sailed, I fear. In order to solve for the externalities you've got to get broad buy-in, and people are already hesitant to spend money on a small device that captures participates and emissions at the source, to say nothing of a carbon-tax. So you're stuck with a political problem.
On the other hand there is already a market for recycling of metals and batteries. So you've basically avoided the political problem entirely buy just telling people "you'll get X dollars back when you recycle your car's battery". Just practically speaking, a person has got to do something with their old battery, might as well get a few bucks.
> It's certainly not easier than not solving the externalities of fossil fuels
Sorry if I was imprecise. I meant dealing with the externalities of fossil fuels, even if 'dealing' turns out to be "change nothing and see what happens".
The point is that one of the externalities of EV materials production is CO2 emissions. Mining and processing the materials is incredibly fossil fuel intensive. By the time you have enough materials for a meaningful percentage of the world driving with EVs our CO2 footprint will be significantly worse than if we had focused on hybrid vehicles with small batteries.
Don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. A fossil fuel vehicle too takes a lot of non-renewables to get it ready to drive. Yet it also needs even more to keep it moving. And changing all their motors to electric is more work than replacing fewer power plants.
You’ve got the perfect wrong. The good is plug-in hybrid with 40 miles range and 1/8th the battery. 8 built for every electric car. Solves 90% of personal transportation needs with electric alone. The fox on full electric is criminal imho.
Whether or not they're easier to solve, we haven't spent that much time trying to solve them yet.
Compare that to fossil fuels, which have had billions of dollars of research poured into them. We know what the cheapest forms of harm reduction are for fossil fuels, and they're not cheap enough even for the budgets of multiple nations.
Lots of players are active in the battery recycling space. Tesla’s former CTO, J. B. Straubel, departed to start redwood materials in 2017 as one example. Until recently it has not been much of a problem. I suspect hybrids will be the interim solutions until we get to scale with battery recycling.
They will probably be the interim solution until the charger and power networks are up and going. Some of us have longer-haul driving in our repertoire, and carrying a charger beats the wait for (limited) charging stations. Or, perhaps, when the people we visit lack charging.
It's also (still) bloody hard to carry a bucket of electrons to get a stuck car going - we'll need portable power units to clear, say, highway mass fender-benders.
Throw a bus battery or a generator on a trailer and as long as the vehicles aren't too damaged to operate you can make quick enough progress clearing things out.
Unless I'm misunderstanding the units here, a Tesla Model 3 has a battery that holds 230 Ah, whereas a vape pen is closer to 280 mAh. So each electric car is going to have somewhere in range of 1,000 disposable vape pens.
That doesn't change the fact that disposable vape pens should be banned, but it's an interesting data point in the recycling discussion.
