The 40% electricity is emissions free, but it has more adverse effects on environment than fossil fuels. Solar panels, once they break down its difficult to dispose of them without harming the environment. The metals in batteries like lithium, cobalt etc are very harmful for people and environment when they are mined. So not something much to be happy about. We need more innovation.
While ground and water pollution are bad, air pollution is critical. Let's worry about reducing air pollution now and worry about ground and water pollution secondarily.
Nonsense, solar panels are recyclable and mostly consist of silicon. Batteries are recyclable and are in fact being recycled. Even lead batteries are recycled. And lithium batteries are a lot more valuable to recycle. Cobalt free batteries are now quite common.
Compared to the staggering amounts of emissions, pollution, and environmental destruction; and indeed countless of people whose health is destroyed by that caused by the fossil fuel industry, mining related to batteries is nothing. It doesn't register as anywhere near similar in scope or impact. Most mining and mineral extraction is coal. Then you get a bit of iron ore and other metals. And then some long way into the long tail of mining you'll find lithium extraction. The amount of lithium mined per year is measured in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes. The amount of coal mined per year is billions of tonnes. All of that is burned. The lithium on the other hand is nearly 100% recyclable. Once extracted, it stays useful.
