Tag Archives: Lithium

Electric Cars & Resource Wars, by Stan Cox and Priti Gulati Cox

Posted on October 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

It will be a monumental challenge to find enough cobalt and lithium to meet projected demand for these elements, which are essential for EV batteries. From Stan Cox and Priti Gulati Cox at consortiumnews.com:

Much of the excitement over the Inflation Reduction Act, which became law this summer, focused on the boost it should give to the sales of electric vehicles. Sadly, though, manufacturing and driving tens of millions of individual electric passenger cars won’t get us far enough down the road to ending greenhouse-gas emissions and stanching the overheating of this planet. Worse yet, the coming global race to electrify the personal vehicle is likely to exacerbate ecological degradation, geopolitical tensions and military conflict.

The batteries that power electric vehicles are likely to be the source of much international competition and the heart of the problem lies in two of the metallic elements used to make their electrodes: cobalt and lithium. Most deposits of those metals lie outside the borders of the United States and will leave manufacturers here (and elsewhere) relying heavily on foreign supplies to electrify road travel on the scale now being envisioned.

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In the battery business, the Democratic Republic of Congo is referred to as “the Saudi Arabia of cobalt.” For two decades, its cobalt — 80 percent of the world’s known reserves — has been highly prized for its role in mobile-phone manufacturing. Such cobalt mining has already taken a terrible human and ecological toll.

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In pictures: South America’s ‘lithium fields’ reveal the dark side of our electric future, by Maeve Campbell

Posted on August 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

Gee, nobody reckoned that our green future would be dependent on environmentally destructive mining of lithium and other minerals. From Maeve Campbell at euronews.com:

Lithium extraction fields in South America have been captured by an aerial photographer in stunning high definition.

But while the images may be breathtaking to look at, they represent the dark side of our swiftly electrifying world.

Lithium represents a route out of our reliance on fossil fuel production. As the lightest known metal on the planet, it is now widely used in electric devices from mobile phones and laptops, to cars and aircraft.

Lithium-ion batteries are most famous for powering electric vehicles, which are set to account for up to 60 per cent of new car sales by 2030. The battery of a Tesla Model S, for example, uses around 12 kg of lithium.

These batteries are the key to lightweight, rechargeable power. As it stands, demand for lithium is unprecedented and many say it is crucial in order to transition to renewables.

However, this doesn’t come without a cost – mining the chemical element can be harmful to the environment.

German aerial photographer Tom Hegen specialises in documenting the traces we leave on the earth’s surface. His work provides an overview of places where we extract, refine and consume resources with his latest series exposing the “Lithium Triangle.”

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Lithium, Cobalt, and Rare Earths, by Michael Klare

Posted on May 25, 2021 | Leave a comment

A lot of future technologies that the world is counting on to make the world a greener place rely on a handful of metals most people have never heard of. From Michael Klare at tomdispatch.com:

The Post-Petroleum Resource Race and What to Make of It

Thanks to its very name — renewable energy — we can picture a time in the not-too-distant future when our need for non-renewable fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal will vanish. Indeed, the Biden administration has announced a breakthrough target of 2035 for fully eliminating U.S. reliance on those non-renewable fuels for the generation of electricity. That would be accomplished by “deploying carbon-pollution-free electricity-generating resources,” primarily the everlasting power of the wind and sun.

With other nations moving in a similar direction, it’s tempting to conclude that the days when competition over finite supplies of energy was a recurring source of conflict will soon draw to a close. Unfortunately, think again: while the sun and wind are indeed infinitely renewable, the materials needed to convert those resources into electricity — minerals like cobalt, copper, lithium, nickel, and the rare-earth elements, or REEs — are anything but. Some of them, in fact, are far scarcer than petroleum, suggesting that global strife over vital resources may not, in fact, disappear in the Age of Renewables.

To appreciate this unexpected paradox, it’s necessary to explore how wind and solar power are converted into usable forms of electricity and propulsion. Solar power is largely collected by photovoltaic cells, often deployed in vast arrays, while the wind is harvested by giant turbines, typically deployed in extensive wind farms. To use electricity in transportation, cars and trucks must be equipped with advanced batteries capable of holding a charge over long distances. Each one of these devices uses substantial amounts of copper for electrical transmission, as well as a variety of other non-renewable minerals. Those wind turbines, for instance, require manganese, molybdenum, nickel, zinc, and rare-earth elements for their electrical generators, while electric vehicles (EVs) need cobalt, graphite, lithium, manganese, and rare earths for their engines and batteries.

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But…Then There’s Math, by Raúl Ilargi Meijer

Posted on February 21, 2021 | Leave a comment

One tiny little problem with that all electric-car future: you’re never going to be able to mine enough lithium and cobalt for car batteries, and if you could, the environmental costs would be monumental. From Raúl Ilargi Meijer at theautomaticearth.com:

Dr. D posted this as a short comment, not an article, and he’s welcome, encouraged even, to expand on it at a later date. But I think it’s important enough, and detailed enough, to in fact make it an article. We can take if from here. The blind drive towards EV’s is going to hurt, and we should prepare for that.

The idea, and the concept, that we can simply switch from one energy source to another and keep motoring and do all the other things we do, is nothing but a cheap and meaningless sales pitch. To produce 20 million Tesla’s would require 165% of the entire 2019 global lithium production, says this from mining.com:

That’s just Tesla, that doesn’t yet include the entire rest of the world’s car manufacturers who also claim they’ll go “green”. But then we’ll just raise the production of lithium! Well, there may be a problem with that…

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China, USA and the Geopolitics of Lithium, by F. William Engdahl

Posted on November 22, 2019 | Leave a comment

The US and China are in a global scramble to line up lithium supplies. From F. William Engdahl at globalresearch.ca:

For several years since the global push to develop mass-scale Electric Vehicles, the element Lithium has come intofocus as a strategic metal. Demand is enormous in China, in the EU and in the USA at present, and securing control over lithium supplies is already developing its own geopolitics not unlike that for the control of oil. 

China Moves to Secure Sources

For China, which has set major targets to become the world’s largest  producer of EVs, developing lithium battery materials is a priority for the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period. Though China has its own lithium reserves, recovery is limited, and China has gone to secure lithium mining rights abroad.

In Australia Chinese companyTalison Lithium, controlled by Tianqi, mines and owns the world’s largest and highest grade spodumene reserves in Greenbushes, Western Australia near Perth.

Talison Lithium Inc. is the world’s largest primary lithium producer. Their Greenbushes site in Australia produces today some 75% of China’s lithium demands and about forty percent of world demand. This as well as other vital Australian raw materials, has made relations with Australia, traditionally a firm US ally, of strategic importance to Beijing. As well, China has become the largest trade partner for Australia.

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Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational Firm’s Lithium Deal, by Eoin Higgins

Posted on November 13, 2019 | 2 comments

Bolivia has a lot of lithium, and who gets to profit from it is probably at the heart of the recent coup. From Eoin Higgins at commondreams.org:

“Bolivia’s lithium belongs to the Bolivian people. Not to multinational corporate cabals.”

Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni salt flats hold the largest reserves of lithium in the world.

Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni salt flats hold the largest reserves of lithium in the world. (Photo: Psyberartist/Flickr/cc)

The Sunday military coup in Bolivia has put in place a government which appears likely to reverse a decision by just-resigned President Evo Morales to cancel an agreement with a German company for developing lithium deposits in the Latin American country for batteries like those in electric cars.

“Bolivia’s lithium belongs to the Bolivian people,” tweeted Washington Monthlycontributor David Atkins. “Not to multinational corporate cabals.”

The coup, which on Sunday resulted in Morales resigning and going into hiding, was the result of days of protests from right-wing elements angry at the leftist Morales government. Sen. Jeanine Añez, of the center-right party Democratic Unity, is currently the interim president in the unstable post-coup government in advance of elections.

Investment analyst publisher Argus urged investors to keep an eye on the developing situation and noted that gas and oil production from foreign companies in Bolivia had remained steady.

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