Wildly under-appreciated point. Many of those batteries die out quicker than you might think, and hold way less energy density than gasoline. Plus the environmental costs (much nastier stuff than CO2) of extracting rare earths and elements like lithium are huge. Since most of us on HN don't live in the global south or northwest China, we've never seen the breathtaking environmental devastation that brings us these "green" technologies.

Seriously? For real? Lead acid batteries are extremely clean to recycle when done properly, and even though they have a short (~5-8 year life, depending on depth of discharge and cycle count) life, you simply drop into your local auto supply store to recycle them and pick up new ones.

We are literally pumping hundreds to thousands tons per day of CO2 in the atmosphere with coal, not to mention mercury and radium, and people are worried about batteries?

Tesla's Powerwall uses Lithium Ion batteries, so even if you are right, it doesn't apply in that case.