In 1956, M. King Hubbert published a paper on peak oil. His theory is that at some point in time, as the amount of reserves of oil decrease, the cost of raising oil would become too costly for it to be economically feasible for use. At the time, it was predicted that this would occur by 2006. The theory was quite flawed as known reserves increased drastically as well as techniques to raise oil including horizontal drilling and fracking. In addition, the costs of these procedures came down significantly and so the theory has been abandoned with predictions of oil lasting from 200 to 2000 years.
Because of the failure of the Peak Oil Theory, another misguided theory of apocalyptic anthropogenic climate change has replaced it. (Ironically, when apocalyptic anthropogenic climate change was first discussed in a work of fiction in1956, it also predicted doom by 2006.) One of the main proposals to save the planet is to switch from internal combustion engines (ICE) to electric vehicles (EV). Evs are battery driven and the main element in these batteries is lithium. The advantages of lithium is that batteries can be recharged, produce an acceptable amount of heat, and produce energy for a reasonable amount of use before recharging is necessary. Many countries including the United States would like to do away with ICE automobiles by 2035-2040, blaming them for the crisis of climate change. One of biggest promoters of the climate change theory is a country that is benefiting economically from this propaganda, while ignoring it themselves. That country is obviously China, the biggest polluter. Both solar panels and batteries for EVs, cellphones, laptop computers, and other products that require powerful battery power are manufactured in China.
As usual, the left hasn't considered the unintended consequences of lithium powered "green energy," in particular, the subject of this article. Currently, it is estimated that there are between 30-90 million tons of lithium reserves in the world. This element is found in two states, either as an ore or in liquid form in salt marshes. About 1/3 of the world's lithium is located in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina in salt marshes. There is some controversy to collecting it from salt marshes as the lithium containing salt water is forced to the surface by replacing it with fresh clean water from the local aquifers. Most of the salt marsh lithium is mined in Chile and very little in Bolivia and Argentina political, economic, and access reasons. The largest producer of lithium is Australia as ore from mines deep within the earth's surface. This ore is also rich in aluminum and requires a complex separation process. Currently extraction techniques have received pushback from environmentalists, as building mines requires removing significant amounts of overlay, destroying grazing lands and the habitat of some species of endangered plants and animals. Even though new techniques are being developed to cause less environmental damage, it is unlikely that the our government will make permitting easy, as 10% of lithium reserves are located in the United States, mostly in Nevada. Currently because of the difficulty in permitting and the cost of mining, little lithium is mined in America. Of note, is that China has partnered with Australia in mining lithium for its battery production.
About 300,000 tones of lithium is mined yearly to meet current needs, but with goals all over the world to promote EVs, this could easily go to 20xs or more of that amount. Like oil, lithium is not a renewable and although battery powered vehicles run much cleaner than ICE's, recovering the lithium and producing the batteries are not particularly clean processes. It is predicted that lithium reserves could be used up by 2035-2040. Fortunately lithium batteries are recyclable. Unfortunately, the recycling process recovers only about 50% of the lithium, though a new technique, developed in Finland, may recover as much as 80%. The recovery process requires very high temperatures, like those from carbon fired plants, so carbon based products are necessary. In addition, there is the problem of cobalt in the cathode that is toxic and also not particularly abundant. Most of it is found and mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by child slave labor controlled by, you guessed it, China. Cobalt is very toxic and of great danger during the recovery process. This is why we are told not to dispose of electronics with cobalt with other waste. Cobalt is used in the cathode to reduce the amount of heat produced as well as the effiency of the ion flow. Fortunately, a satisfactory replacement has been invented at the University of Texas in Austin, using manganese and aluminum. (Is't that where Elon Musk is moving his plant.)
To summarize, we are substituting one non renewable for another of which there are far less reserves. Though from an environmental standpoint, EVs run much cleaner than ICEs, the process to mine lithium and produce and recycle the batteries are not clean and carry significant environmental risks as well as adding to climate change, if indeed significant anthropogenic climate change is real. In the next 30 years we could reach "peak lithium" and where do we go from there? Obviously politicians need to give this some thought as to how real are the benefits of EVs environmentally, economically, and strategically, especially as China controls much of the lithium production.
