LITHIUM mining for electric vehicles is horribly destructive to the environment and far from “green” as you can imagine.
By Paul Homewood
Nothing new here, but it serves as a good reminder that lithium mining is bad for the environment:
Electric vehicles are considered a solution to combat “climate change”. Governments are now encouraging electric vehicle production, while punishing the fossil fuel industry. However, lithium mining for electric vehicles is horribly destructive to the environment and isn’t as far away from being “green” as one might imagine. Not to mention, most of the lithium-ion batteries produced today come from China and require water-intensive mining operations to wreak havoc on the natural environment across Australia, Argentina and Chile. This process depletes groundwater, and leaves behind toxic wastewater that contaminates fields and harms wildlife. The mining process is also not without carbon dioxide. The mining process emits 15,000 kg of carbon dioxide emissions for every ton of lithium mined.
There are serious environmental risks when extracting lithium to produce lithium-ion batteries
When lithium is extracted from salt mines, 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. As the brine evaporates, it leaves behind a residue of potassium, manganese, borax, and lithium salts that need further filtration. This process contaminates nearby aquifers and lowers groundwater levels, affecting water resources in the local environment.
The lithium extraction process takes several months, deprives valuable water resources and leaves a trail of toxic wastewater in the local environment. It takes about 500,000 gallons of water to produce one ton of lithium. When miners invest in countries like Chile, they use most of the area’s water, gratuitous impact on small communities.
According to the Institute of Energy Research, Chile’s Salar de Atacama is one of the driest places on Earth, yet miners are allowed to use up to 65% of the region’s water. Once the brine is removed from the salt flats, the groundwater level automatically drops, disrupting the natural flow of water needed for wells and agriculture. These large-scale disruptions can always be blamed on “climate change“As the lithium mining industry is plunging ahead, regardless of the environmental damage caused after it.
Water quality, wildlife populations and crops are all adversely affected by lithium mining
The toxic chemicals used to extract the brine are eventually released into the local environment, where they contaminate streams, crops, wildlife, and local ecosystems. Toxic chemicals, including hydrochloric acid, leak from the evaporation pools and contaminate nearby water sources. In addition, large open-pit mines transfer arsenic into nearby rivers and streams, where it eventually settles into farmland and is absorbed by crops. This downstream pollution is also dangerous to wildlife. For example, in May 2016, the Liqi River was contaminated by the Gangizhou Rongda Lithium mine. The river emerges with dead fish, yaks and cows.
The Salar de Atacama lithium mining operation uses more than 1,700 liters of lithium-rich brine per second of operation. This causes the pools to shrink, kill the local flamingo population which depends on the basin to feed and reproduce. In Argentina, lithium mining causes Noticeable pollution of nearby streams It is used for fodder for livestock and for irrigation of crops. The residents of Salar de Hombre Muerto noticed that the groundwater flow had changed, causing the water source to disappear. They also found that freshwater is salty, destabilizing local ecosystems and negatively affecting bird migration and llama populations, which indigenous communities depend on for economic survival. economic.
“Like any mining process, it is invasive, destroying landscapes, destroying groundwater levels and polluting the earth and local wells,” said Guillermo Gonzales. who talked about the problems with lithium from the University of Chile in 2009. “This is not a green solution – it is not a solution at all”.
It is one of the great mysteries why the green movement in general is not actively campaigning against it.
Related
