With so much demand for lithium for electric car batteries, we are on the verge of a new pollution problem

No one doubts the need to reduce CO₂ emissions. In transport, the solution goes through the battery electric car. At least, that is how the governments of half the planet seem to have decided to a greater or lesser extent, leaving a glimmer of hope for hydrogen electrics. However, with the need to reduce CO₂ emissions through the massive use of lithium-ion batteries, we could be creating another problem, just as harmful or more so.

Lithium is essential for electric car batteries and the demand in the next decade is huge. Lithium is present in small amounts in the anodes and cathodes of the cells that make up the battery. And an electric car battery has an average of 160 grams of metallic lithium per kWh (manufacturers do not usually disclose this information). In a 50 kWh battery, that's 8 kg of lithium.

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As Hazel Southwell recalls in The Drive, the forecasts of General Motors, the Daimler group and the Volkswagen Group point to the manufacture of batteries with a total capacity of 240 GWh per year each within a decade. Each of them will need up to 38,400 tons of lithium.

If we add Tesla, Stellantis, Toyota, Chinese manufacturers, etc. to the equation, it is clear that there is currently no fast, effective and efficient way to supply that amount of lithium. And one of the reasons is that lithium is pretty hard to come by. On the one hand, like oil, it is not found in all regions of the world. And on the other hand it is found in places whose inhabitants may not want their environment and ecosystem to be destroyed.

Lithium is often found in fragile ecosystems. It is true that there are large deposits in Chile, in the Atacama desert, and in the Uyuni salt flat, in Bolivia, as well as in the province of Salta, Argentina (which is already the third largest producer in the world). In these cases, the extraction is quite simple and a priori with low impact in an area that is already arid. And yet it takes about two million liters of water to produce a ton of lithium.

In the Atacama desert or the Salar de Uyuni, about two million liters of water are needed to produce a single ton of lithium.

This enormous consumption of water not only affects the surrounding ecosystems, but also has a huge impact on local farmers. According to the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation ("Lithium Extraction in Argentina" 2019), which interviewed the ten communities that live near two salt mines, Sales de Jujuy and Minera Exar, critics of the mine say they are concerned about the impact to long term of lithium in the environment, starting with the lowering of the water table, stating that the cattle in the region have already begun to die.

The consequences of mining on the ecosystem have also been seen in other regions of the world. In May 2016, hundreds of protesters threw dead fish into the streets of Tagong, a city located on the eastern edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

They had been pulled from the waters of the Liqi River, where a toxic chemical leak from the Ganzizhou Rongda lithium mine had wreaked havoc on the local ecosystem. And it could go further: research in Nevada, where lithium is also mined, found impacts on fish up to 150 miles downstream from a lithium processing operation.

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Lithium mines: from the Arctic Circle to Extremadura

Lithium mine project in Extremadura

Now, the entire industry is counting on the new deposits inside the Arctic Circle. The Russian state mining company Rosatom (which incidentally also extracts lithium for nuclear weapons) is studying the possibility of opening a mine on the Kola Peninsula by 2030.

This site, called Kolmozero, is located within the Arctic Circle. In addition, also in the Arctic Circle, the Swedish company Artic Minerals AB has reserved other mineable land.

According to Jari Natunen, a mining expert at the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, mining in the Arctic would be catastrophic. He says that the difficult extraction of lithium from the frozen earth would generate 50,000 tons of toxic waste for 1,000 tons of lithium produced.

The Arctic Circle has already borne much of the cost of materials for electric vehicles, as the Norilsk nickel mine - the most polluted place in the world - provides the material that is replacing the troublesome cobalt and has done nothing but generate a new problem.

But not only is the Arctic Circle in danger. Further south in Europe they also want to start up mining projects. In Spain, the Phi4Tech project for a gigafactory in Extremadura (where the second largest lithium deposit in Europe is located) includes the extraction of lithium at the Las Navas mine (Cáceres) as well as the extraction of nickel, gold and cobalt. Although the factory is viewed favorably, the mining operation is not.

Raw Nickel Block

The city council of Cáceres and part of the citizens are opposed, stating, among other arguments, that they do not want a plunder "that sacrifices the development of the city" to promote "the industrial growth of other areas of the country" where the material extracted here is worked.

In addition, as Santiago Márquez, co-spokesperson for the platform Salvemos la Montaña de Cáceres, recalls, the mine "is 800 meters from the town center and Cáceres is a UNESCO world heritage city."

In the UK, there is the Cornish Lithium project, still in the preliminary phase, in Cornwall. His plan is to mine large deposits of lithium for batteries in the south of the UK. The planned process will involve extracting mica from granite and blasting it with water.

Raw stone block

It is what has been fracking to extract lithium. Then, essentially the same soluble method of lithium extraction would be used as in the Atacama, by evaporation in ponds with huge amounts of water.

Electric mobility and a neutral future in CO₂ emissions is a very complex question that does not have a single answer, as some manufacturers would have us believe.

possible alternatives

Nobody doubts here the environmental benefits of the electric car if the energy that feeds it is clean. However, we run the risk of generating a new problem, much worse than CO₂ if we only look at one part of the equation, that of car exhaust.

The journal Nature itself warns that lithium-ion batteries must be cleaner and more ethical. There are solutions, still in the embryonic phase, for the extraction and processing of lithium that are cleaner than the current ones.

Recycling batteries and the lithium they contain is another. Political initiatives, such as the one by the EU that wants 4% of the lithium in new batteries manufactured in the EU to come from recycled material by 2030, a proportion that would increase to 10% by 2035, or private initiatives, such as the circular economy factory of Renault, in Flins, and Tesla's goal of recycling 92% of its batteries, are starting now.

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Nor can we forget about hydrogen to contain the demand for lithium. A fuel cell car or truck (fuel cell technology) needs a much smaller battery, and therefore with fewer materials and rare earths inside, than a 100% electric car battery.

For example, the battery of a Toyota Mirai is 1.6 kWh, while that of an average electric car varies between 60 and 100 kWh. Industrially, more of the same. A Hyundai Xcent, like those already circulating in Switzerland, has a 72 kWh battery, while that of a Tesla Semi is expected to be 500 kWh.

In the end, quoting Nature, we must be clear that “batteries are crucial for the low-carbon future of the Earth. It is in everyone's interest that they are clean, safe and sustainable”.

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