Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Neil; NYT has noticed an awful lot of toxic mineral extraction and wholesale open cut ecological destruction would be required, to satisfy President Biden’s clean electric vehicle vision.
The electric-vehicle race is creating a gold rush for lithium, raising environmental concerns.
May 7, 2021
The United States needs to quickly find new supplies of lithium as automakers ramp up manufacturing of electric vehicles.
Lithium is used in electric car batteries because it is lightweight, can store lots of energy and can be repeatedly recharged. Other ingredients like cobalt are needed to keep the battery stable.
But production of raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel that are essential to these technologies are often ruinous to land, water, wildlife and people, Ivan Penn and Eric Lipton report for The New York Times. Mining is one of the dirtiest businesses out there.
…
“Right now, if China decided to cut off the U.S. for a variety of reasons we’re in trouble,” said Ben Steinberg, an Obama administration official turned lobbyist. He was hired in January by Piedmont Lithium, which is working to build an open-pit mine in North Carolina and is one of several companies that have created a trade association for the industry.
…
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/07/business/the-electric-vehicle-race-is-creating-a-gold-rush-for-lithium-raising-environmental-concerns.html
NYT neglected to put a number on the Lithium shortage, but I’ve seen estimates that a 2000% increase in Lithium extraction rates would be required, along with a broad range of other toxic minerals such as Rare Earths (used in high efficiency electric motors). There would be no opportunity to be dainty about ramping up production on that scale – Once easily accessible Lithium brines were exhausted, Lithium miners would have to rip the countryside apart, digging up low grade Lithium containing minerals in vast open cut mines, creating enormous toxic waste dumps in their effort to feed the EV production market.
And none of this would be a one-off – the search and extract process would be ongoing.
Good thing the motive for this proposed wholesale planet wrecking is to save the environment, right?
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It isn’t quite that bad. The next likely source will be granitic pegmatites, which tend to be small operations compared to porphyry copper mines. Some forward-looking people are already developing operations. However, there are large quantities of lithium-bearing silicates in the waste-rock dumps of old mines in New England, New Mexico, California, and South Dakota. The problem will be economically separating out the lithium minerals from the rest.
The irony is that what to one generation is waste, may become valuable to a subsequent generation. But when the EPA declares a location a super-fund site, and remediates it, they complicate the legality of mining it again and increase the costs to undo the remediation.
I especially like the point that “lithium miners would have to rip the countryside apart digging up low grade lithium deposits in vast open cut mines.” Next time you get into an argument with a renewable fanatic, ask them what they feel about this.
We have to destroy the planet in order to save it lol
From the article: ““Right now, if China decided to cut off the U.S. for a variety of reasons we’re in trouble,” said Ben Steinberg, an Obama administration official turned lobbyist.”
No, we are not in trouble, we will just drive our fossil-fuel-powered vehicles. We don’t need no stinkin’ lithium!
The ones who are in real trouble are alarmists who are trying to electrify our economy and are finding it easier said than done.
Oh! We’ll just buy it from China.
where is it?
Well, just google ‘new lithium mine’
I am somewhat skeptical of a lithium shortage. The NYT has something up its sleeve.
Not just raw lithium but the whole supply chain that runs through China.
Lots of ‘rare earth elements’ in northern ON, northern PQ, and Labrador.
Price of extraction? Well, a lot in most of the locations as transportation links have to be built.