Last week's poll: Will battery boost benefit Britain?

The UK's Faraday Challenge — the quarter-billion pound investment announced last week by business secretary Greg Clark — was generally welcomed by the 507 respondents to last week's poll. The largest group of respondents, 41 percent, agreed with Clark's hopes that the project would help to drive advances in renewable energy and electric vehicles, while another 17 percent thought it would keep the UK at the forefront of battery technology development. However, a fairly large group, 34 percent, was concerned that the investment was to little and too late. Another 8 percent of respondent declined to pick an option.

The comments section for this poll was typically lively, with several readers expressing concern about how batteries would be disposed of at the end of their lives. This is a valid concern, as research published last year raised the possibility of emissions of fluorine-containing gases from batteries, resulting from the release of LiPF6 from the battery electrolyte.