From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
There’s nothing new here, but it acts as a good reminder of just bad lithium mining is for the environment:
Electric vehicles are promoted as the solution for combating “climate change.” Governments are currently incentivizing the production of electric vehicles, while punishing the fossil fuel industry. However, lithium mining for electric vehicles is incredibly destructive to the environment, and is about as far from “green” as one could imagine. Not to mention, most of the lithium-ion batteries produced today come from China and require water-intensive mining operations that ravage natural environments throughout Australia, Argentina and Chile. The process depletes ground water, and leaves behind toxic wastewater that contaminates fields and harms wildlife. The mining process is not carbon dioxide free, either. The mining process releases 15,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of lithium that is extracted.
There are serious environmental risks to extracting lithium for the production of lithium-ion batteries
When lithium is extracted from salt mines, the miners must drill into the salt flats and pump out a salty, mineral-rich brine. The brine is placed in large pools, so the water can evaporate out. When the brine evaporates, it leaves behind a sludge of potassium, manganese, borax and lithium salts that must be filtered out further. The process pollutes nearby aquifers and lowers the water table, interfering with water sources in the local environment.
The lithium extraction process takes several months, displaces valuable water resources, and leaves behind a toxic trail of wastewater in the local environment. It takes approximately 500,000 gallons of water to produce one ton of lithium. When mining companies head into countries like Chile, they use up a majority of the region’s water, unjustly affecting small communities.
According to the Institute of Energy Research, Chile’s Salar de Atacama is one of the driest places on Earth, yet the mining companies are allowed to use up 65% of the region’s water. After the brine is removed from the salt flats, the water table automatically falls, disrupting the natural flow of water that is needed for wells and agriculture. These large-scale disruptions can always be blamed on “climate change” as the lithium mining industry plunges ahead, with no regard for the environmental damage wrought in its wake.
Water quality, wildlife populations, and crops all adversely affected by lithium mining
The toxic chemicals that are used to extract the brine are ultimately discarded into the local environment, where they contaminate streams, crops, wildlife and local ecosystems. The toxic chemicals, which include hydrochloric acid, leak from the evaporation pools and pollute the nearby water supply. Additionally, the large open pit mines displace arsenic into the nearby streams and rivers, where it will eventually deposit into agricultural land and be taken up by the crops. This downstream pollution is dangerous to wildlife, too. For example, in May of 2016, the Liqi River was polluted by the Gangizhou Rongda Lithium mine. The river turned up with dead fish, yak and cows.
The lithium mining operation in Salar de Atacama displaces more than 1,700 liters of lithium-rich brine every second of operation. This causes the lakes to shrink, killing off local flamingo populations that depend on the basin to eat and breed. In Argentina, lithium mining caused noticeable contamination of nearby streams that were used to feed livestock and irrigate crops. The residents of Salar de Hombre Muerto noticed that the groundwater flow had changed, causing water resources to disappear. They also noticed that that freshwater was contaminated with salty brine, destabilizing the local ecosystems and negatively affecting bird migration and llama populations — which the indigenous communities depend upon for economic survival.
“Like any mining process, it is invasive, it scars the landscape, it destroys the water table and it pollutes the earth and the local wells,” said Guillermo Gonzales, who spoke about the issues with lithium from the University of Chile back in 2009. “This isn’t a green solution – it’s not a solution at all.”
It is one of the great mysteries why the green movement in general is not actively campaigning against this.
BFD – all mining is invasive and creates at least short environmental impacts that can be managed and minimized. Every single thing any person uses in life requires mining. Including every bit of food you eat, the medical equipment that keeps you alive, the house or building you live in, the vehicle you drive or ride in and the road you drive on, the electronics you use to read this blog and type on your device to send and receive digital data.
It’s ridiculously stupid to single out lithium as a stupid example of rank whataboutism.
Global warming extremism is the appropriate target here at WUWT, not normal essential every day used technology.
The problem is not lithium mining and processing per se, but rather the green handmade tales that force distortions in the market and technological development.
Duane I think think that most of the people that visit this site understand that mining is an intrinsic part of our modern existence.
But industrial scale solar, wind turbines, backup batteries and EV’s are all a criminal waste of raw materials. They are not fit for purpose. And sadly much of this infrastructure comes from countries that have few regulations or sidestep those they do have with corruption. In fact the whole ‘green’ industry is corrupt. The mountains of industrial and toxic waste unnecessary.
The other odd misconception about green energy, at least from its extreme proponents, is that mining will be be reduced. That many mines, particularly coal mines will be shut down due to the magic of wonderful renewables. Unicorns and fairy dust.
Mining isn’t going anywhere obviously. But the scale of the ‘green’ juggernaut brings out the greed in people and they more easily turn a blind eye to bad practices.
Ho Hum. Many eagles are dying as well. Show me one greenie that cares. That’s the thing about socialism and religion, ideology trumps everything.
Terry,
You’ve already been shown, earlier in this thread. One of the most famous ‘green environmentalists’ in the Australian parliment, was Dr Bob Brown, who is now retired.
The following ABC news item provides the details of his response to a proposed new wind farm project in Tasmania. Below is a quote from the beginning of the article.
“Former leader of the Greens, Bob Brown, has come out swinging against a giant new wind farm planned for Robbins Island, in the north-west corner of Tasmania.
He says it is in the wrong place, will ruin the view and kill endangered birds like the Tasmanian wedge-tail eagle and the white-breasted sea eagle that live on the island, and potentially migratory birds like the swift parrot and the orange-bellied parrot that travel between Tasmania and the mainland.”
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-25/bob-browns-opposition-to-wind-farm-labelled-hypocrisy/11345200#:~:text=Former%20Greens%20leader%20Bob%20Brown,view%20and%20kill%20endangered%20birds.
Yes, it’s a mistake to exercise liberal license to indulge diversity [dogma] (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry), including judging and labeling people…. persons in color blocs. Principles matter.
One thing’s for sure. If lithium extraction is very messy and in short supply in order to change the weather urgently then you don’t want to waste its lightness on stationary grid firming. Best use it wisely and equitably spread across transport eh lefties?
Toyota slams electric-car extremism | Drive
Besides what about all those EV charger resources required and the dire lack of firmed renewables to feed them already?
I’ve read that Montana has rare earth deposits that someone is trying to get permission to mine. Like Montana has a lot of water.
Gee, Paul I’m a big fan of yours but this hit piece on the mining of lithium is fraught with the same ignorance that you do battle against re manmade global warming every day. As far as hardrock mining goes Li-pegmatites are the cleanest mining that we do anywhere.
Regarding lithium brines, these come from the Alto-Plano in Chile and, in the last decade, Argentina. It is salt desert, with billions of tons of naturally occurring Na, K, Mg, and Li chloride, some with nitrates and borates. It is sparsely populated, and most of the income for these regions and community income (schools, roads, etc) is sourced from this activity. The salt aquifers are at or very near surface (years with more rain the areas can have ponded brines).
Fresh water resources are carefully located and measured and isolated from the salts (Florida even draws household water from a lense of fresh water ‘floating’ on top of seawater which lies beneath aquifers – rain recharges it ). They are renewable and recharged and and they successfully quench and wash and water 22,000,000 people. The few 10s of thousands here and there in the Alto Plano- no problem.
About 10 years ago I reviewed a very unusual deposit of rubidium (used to make a heavy liquid employed in floating drill cuttings from very deep oil and gas wells, especially in the North Sea) and thallium (to ordinary folk -rat poison) with zinc and arsenic as accessory mineralization. This ‘terrifying’ natural gift from God was formed from a hydrothermal vapor plume from volcanic activity below a thick conglomerate (fossilized sand and gravel deposit). In fact the sand and gravel was cemented together this mineralization. I researched this for processing and its economics and found it possible to treat it environmentally safely at a profit.
Please, Paul, don’t tell any environmental experts you know about the rubidium formate used in North Sea wells! The gov may cancel their fossil fuel plans!
BTW, the lithium in Chile and Argentina actually occurs in natural liquid brines. They pump the water into multi-hectare square ponds. They use 100% solar energy to evaporate the brine. It begins to precipitate (ppt) the NaCl (table salt) and this goes on until the KCl begins to ppt. They then drain the remaining brine into a smaller square pond where the KCl precipitates under the sun. Finally the remaining brine contains only the most soluble chloride, LiCl, this is drained into a final evaporation pond and is evaporated until a concentrate containing 6%Li in the ~saturated chloride. In Chlle this is sent down to Antofagasta as feed for their product plant. The “500,000t of water/ton if Li is the unpotable brine itself emitted to the atmosphere where it can help rain out the fresh water for their aquifers!! God save us from activist arts students who ‘reason’ their ‘information’ from stuff they’ve read and not understood!
They will.
Can’t have the proles moving around freely, can we?
“It is one of the great mysteries why the green movement in general is not actively campaigning against this.”
No it’s not – as far back as Orwell, people have noted the ability of the Left to hold completely opposing views at the same time. Here, in good totalitarian style, the Greens are saying “the end justifies the means”.
I.E. To save the planet, we have no choice but to destroy it.
I suspect the Green’s (and those behind them) know full well the risks and issues with mining Lithium. When the time comes they will ban that also.
If the ‘greens’ were interested in ‘environmentalism’ they would not be pushing Lithium Mining. Ergo, they are not interested in environmentalism.
What they (or rather the people behind them) are interested in is CONTROL. Green Energy, Covid, Racist and Sexist theory – none of this is about addressing real issues, but about controling the population.
The best way to control an animal is to break its spirit – this is what is done with domesticated animals. And an easy way to break a spirit is to force someone to believe in impossible things. This was exactly the method used by O’Brian on Winston Smith – he was forced to believe that 2+2 = 5. And thereafter he was no longer a threat to The Party….
2+2 “=” (politically congruent) 5
Also, babies are delivered at the age of profit or convenience (PC). In Stork They Trust
Green “=” green in the green (i.e. naive) sense.
And in the end, it should not be forgotten that the lifetime CO2 emissions reduction of an EV over an ICE vehicle is, at best, marginal. Driving an EV does not save the world from a supposed CO2 driven thermageddon.
Sodium batteries are the new alternative to lithium !
According to https://www.pv-magazine.com/2022/03/26/the-weekend-read-sodium-ion-batteries-go-mainstream/
“Sodium is a thousand times more abundant than lithium and there is practically an infinite supply of it, with the overall cost of extraction and purification far lower. Generally, Na-ion cells are quoted to be between 20% and up to 40% cheaper, but the challenge is bringing the technology to scale.”
Hubert,
There is also a reference in your link to ‘New Solar Tiles from Germany’. These tiles are BIVP, which stands for Building Integrated Photo Voltaics. In other words, instead of adding solar panels to part of an existing roof, one constructs the entire roof of a new house with solar tiles, or replace an old roof with solar tiles, thus reducing the cost and increasing the durability of the solar cells.
This new technology, combined with a storage room in the building, containing future and safe Sodium-ion batteries, might make the electricity supply for home-owners actually more affordable than a supply of electricity from fossil fuels.
Whilst I think it’s foolish to expect that renewables can completely replace fossil fuels, I think there might be a place for renewables that can slow down what would be an accelerating rate of the use of fossil fuels, that would take place if there were no scare about CO2 emissions. In the long term, this could be beneficial for the entire world economy.
It’s not such a mystery if you accept that the “green” movement isn’t really about “climate change” or “saving the planet” – it’s about control.
The IEA Global EV Outlook 2022 ‘Securing supplies for an electric future’ says
“Lithium is the most critical metal for EVs as it has no commercially available substitute at scale”
They also project that on ‘Stated Policies Scenario’ there will be 200m EVs wordwide by 2030 and on ‘Announced Pledges’ over 250m EVs worldwide by then. (To meet net zero, however, the required number would be over 350m EVs by 2030)
To meet the target of 200m EVs will require 30 new lithium mines, 41 new nickel mines and 11 new cobalt mines- a total of 88 new mines.
To meet the target of over 250m EVs will require 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines and 17 new cobalt mines- a total of 127 new mines.
There are currently over 1.4 billion ICE vehicles in the world. To replace them all with EVs will require an absolutely massive expansion of mining especially as the EV battery life is only 8 – 10 years.
Note the IEA has also said it sees potential worldwide shortages of lithium and cobalt as early as 2025 and that the price of lithium rose by over 700% between Jan 2021 and March 2022. It is still increasing today.
Exactly correct thesis but, SQUIRREL
Yep
What a disturbingly ignorant hit piece.
Please describe how green oil and gas exploration, drilling, production, refining, support , maintenance and transport infrastructure, and final Fossil fuel emissions from individual autos is.
It’s not, not at all.
What you looking at is the lesser of two evils
It’s OK, not really a problem. They purchased Carbon Credits to offset the damage to the environment
It’s OK tho these LIBERAL LEFTIST SOCIALIST MARXIST COMMUNIST DEMOCRAT AUTHORITARIANS are just making money on destroying the worlds and countries economies for companies they are making lots of money on and they love the power of controlling every aspect of your free life
It’s the way leftists have always been…symbolism over substance.
Freaking out over mines is about as moronic as freaking out over CO₂. No mine anywhere ever was a disaster beyond its short-term disturbance of sensibilities.
nice…
The issues is not mining. The issue is green mining claims by Green producers.
The only active lithium mine in the US is just outside of Silver Peak, Nevada.
I encourage you to take a Google Street View tour of Silver Peak to see what those “green jobs” provide for workers. Take a look at the sort of life it “sustains.” It looks like hell on earth.
Green energy is great for lobbyists, corporate execs, and pals politicians.
fine, allow nothing to be done
The reason the left doesn’t want to talk about this is their “out of sight, out of mind” mentality when it comes to green technology. Just offload those messy and polluting jobs to some 3rd world country. Never mind that there is little or no net reduction of CO2 as long as we can maintain the convenient fiction of “no tailpipe emission”.