I believe that most of the lead used today is a by-product or co-product of mining other more valuable metals like Zinc and silver. Lead is quite abundant in the Earth's crust and found in easy to access deposits.
I think >80% of the current industrial use of lead is for batteries. It's probably still in the top ten most mined metals by dollar value and definitely by mass.
The mineral containing Zinc is called Sphalerite, which is based on a greek etymology for "deciever" because it commonly occurs with Galena (which has Lead and Silver) and looks similar.
I think >80% of the current industrial use of lead is for batteries. It's probably still in the top ten most mined metals by dollar value and definitely by mass.