The not so “Green” Lithium Batteries

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The recent trend in going towards green source of energy for motor vehicles is not very environmentally conscious and has its host of issues. In order to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, greenhouse gases from carbon dioxide emissions, and having clean source of energy has led to rise of lithium-based batteries. Lithium-derived batteries are found in cell phones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. As you may know, lithium batteries are electro-chemical batteries using lithium coupled with to other minerals or complexes like carbonate to make lithium-based batteries as energy power source.

The push towards having latest mobile devices or smart phones drive greater demand for lithium that has to be extracted in ways that are inefficient, damage the environment, and don’t prominently use green energy sources to remove lithium from the Earth. This demand is further increased by production of so-called green vehicles or electric cars by companies like Tesla, Ford, GM, and other automotive companies who are going full board into this direction. However, the negative environmental impact, high energy costs, and restricted availability of minerals like lithium to certain parts of the world that can create geo-political risks.

The primary source of lithium can be found in South American countries of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina which account for more than half of the world’s (~70-75% of reserves) known sources. The lithium mineral is present below the salt flats region of these countries that expend huge of water to extract lithium-rich brine to surface. Then, these salty brine further processing to isolate lithium that takes 12-18 months to yield lithium carbonate, the complex used as source in various batteries including electric cars. For every ton of lithium, ~500,000 gallons of water are used to extract it from underground reserves in the salt flats. The excess use of water diverts water from farming, raising of domesticated animals, and affecting nature’s wildlife in these areas. The problem is so pervasive, that many natural rivers, under surface and surface water tables are dried up or going to become waterless in the near future.

The second major problem is that mining of lithium and processing to obtain lithium mineral or salts whether by extraction of salt flats or traditional mining of rock formation is the direct environmental damage. The mining and extraction of causes contamination of soil, rivers or water beds, and air by release of toxic chemicals like hydrochloric acid used to process lithium and by-products made during evaporation of salty, extracted brine. The chemical pollution leads to dead fishes, inviable plant life, loss of cows or domesticated animals and wildlife from contaminated water including lithium toxicity of water by leaching of this mineral.  There are reports of repeated environmental damage in areas of Rio Grande delta in Bolivia, Tibetan plateau in China, Salar de Hombre Muert, Argentina, Australia, U.S.A. and elsewhere were dead animals, lower crop or no crop yields in farmlands, and water pollution has led to protests between locals or residents and mining company or lithium processing plants. Even though current methods to mine for lithium are cheap and effective, it comes with huge, immeasurable cost to the environment, infertile farmlands, and loss of ecosystem and uncontaminated fresh water sources.

The third primary issue with greater demand for lithium results from ineffective, wasteful, and disposal of lithium-containing devices like cell phones, laptops, and yet to be recycled electric cars’ lithium batteries. It is not efficient to recycle lithium ions from lithium batteries since are based on electro-chemistry whereby the exact end life of lithium cathodes is not easy to determine and not cost efficient to be used in new lithium batteries. Hence, most of them end in the landfill or end up as molten metallic mixture that is not subject to further lithium ions processing. The metals from the lithium cathodes and metallic fluids from the electrolyte can released into the environment. It is estimated worldwide only 2-5% of lithium ion waste is recycled for new lithium battery production.

Hence, having processes in place that can recycle lithium-ion batteries efficiently through their whole lifecycle, preventing leaching of lithium ions waste from lithium-ion batteries or not allowing chemicals from old batteries to do environmental damage so that excessive lithium mining around the world is NOT necessary to meet expected growing demand for lithium batteries in various consumer electronics and electric cars.

The era of “green energy revolution” which envisions green vehicles or electric cars as major component of such changes are short sighted in terms of drastic environmental damages, excessive and inefficient use of energy input to extract usable lithium ions, and lack of systematic global processes in place for lithium recycling that place corporate profits ahead of long-term, sustainable, and environmentally neutral or enhancing endeavors to solve energy,  personal communications, and private transportation needs. Thus Apple, Tesla, Samsung, Ford, and host of other companies have sophisticated products thanks to crude exploitation of Mother Earth.

The recent trend in going towards green source of energy for motor vehicles is not very environmentally conscious and has its host of issues. In order to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, greenhouse gases from carbon dioxide emissions, and having clean source of energy has led to rise of lithium-based batteries. Lithium-derived batteries are found in cell phones, tablets, laptops, and electric vehicles. As you may know, lithium batteries are electro-chemical batteries using lithium coupled with to other minerals or complexes like carbonate to make lithium-based batteries as energy power source.

The push towards having latest mobile devices or smart phones drive greater demand for lithium that has to be extracted in ways that are inefficient, damage the environment, and don’t prominently use green energy sources to remove lithium from the Earth. This demand is further increased by production of so-called green vehicles or electric cars by companies like Tesla, Ford, GM, and other automotive companies who are going full board into this direction. However, the negative environmental impact, high energy costs, and restricted availability of minerals like lithium to certain parts of the world that can create geo-political risks.

The primary source of lithium can be found in South American countries of Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina which account for more than half of the world’s (~70-75% of reserves) known sources. The lithium mineral is present below the salt flats region of these countries that expend huge of water to extract lithium-rich brine to surface. Then, these salty brine further processing to isolate lithium that takes 12-18 months to yield lithium carbonate, the complex used as source in various batteries including electric cars. For every ton of lithium, ~500,000 gallons of water are used to extract it from underground reserves in the salt flats. The excess use of water diverts water from farming, raising of domesticated animals, and affecting nature’s wildlife in these areas. The problem is so pervasive, that many natural rivers, under surface and surface water tables are dried up or going to become waterless in the near future.

The second major problem is that mining of lithium and processing to obtain lithium mineral or salts whether by extraction of salt flats or traditional mining of rock formation is the direct environmental damage. The mining and extraction of causes contamination of soil, rivers or water beds, and air by release of toxic chemicals like hydrochloric acid used to process lithium and by-products made during evaporation of salty, extracted brine. The chemical pollution leads to dead fishes, inviable plant life, loss of cows or domesticated animals and wildlife from contaminated water including lithium toxicity of water by leaching of this mineral.  There are reports of repeated environmental damage in areas of Rio Grande delta in Bolivia, Tibetan plateau in China, Salar de Hombre Muert, Argentina, Australia, U.S.A. and elsewhere were dead animals, lower crop or no crop yields in farmlands, and water pollution has led to protests between locals or residents and mining company or lithium processing plants. Even though current methods to mine for lithium are cheap and effective, it comes with huge, immeasurable cost to the environment, infertile farmlands, and loss of ecosystem and uncontaminated fresh water sources.

The third primary issue with greater demand for lithium results from ineffective, wasteful, and disposal of lithium-containing devices like cell phones, laptops, and yet to be recycled electric cars’ lithium batteries. It is not efficient to recycle lithium ions from lithium batteries since are based on electro-chemistry whereby the exact end life of lithium cathodes is not easy to determine and not cost efficient to be used in new lithium batteries. Hence, most of them end in the landfill or end up as molten metallic mixture that is not subject to further lithium ions processing. The metals from the lithium cathodes and metallic fluids from the electrolyte can released into the environment. It is estimated worldwide only 2-5% of lithium ion waste is recycled for new lithium battery production.

Hence, having processes in place that can recycle lithium-ion batteries efficiently through their whole lifecycle, preventing leaching of lithium ions waste from lithium-ion batteries or not allowing chemicals from old batteries to do environmental damage so that excessive lithium mining around the world is NOT necessary to meet expected growing demand for lithium batteries in various consumer electronics and electric cars.

The era of “green energy revolution” which envisions green vehicles or electric cars as major component of such changes are short sighted in terms of drastic environmental damages, excessive and inefficient use of energy input to extract usable lithium ions, and lack of systematic global processes in place for lithium recycling that place corporate profits ahead of long-term, sustainable, and environmentally neutral or enhancing endeavors to solve energy,  personal communications, and private transportation needs. Thus Apple, Tesla, Samsung, Ford, and host of other companies have sophisticated products thanks to crude exploitation of Mother Earth.

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