By: Zoe Crimmel
Photo by Kumpan Electric on Unsplash
When we go to the source of the batteries required to run EV vehicles we have to go to the beginning, lithium mining. The first bump in the road of environmental sustainability. Lithium is pulled out of the earth from deposits that can be found worldwide. Continental brine deposits also known as salt lakes/flats are the most common form of lithium deposit to mine from. 66% of these deposits are located in Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile. Another place to find lithium is in geothermal deposits which is when hot water that contains lithium is pumped out from underground. These mines make up 3% of lithium mining. The final way for lithium to get mined is from oil fields which accounts for another 3% of lithium mining just like geothermal deposits.
Once the lithium is found the process of beginning to mine it starts. In brine deposits that are closer to the surface, a pump is installed through the layers of rock to reach the deposit. Once the pump is installed they begin pumping out the brine into evaporative ponds where it evaporates over 12 - 18 months. It is then taken to a recovery plant that uses soda ash (precipitated lithium carbonate) to treat it and after it is shipped all over the world.
Lots of words and nonsense to most but the only reason I write this part is for one little part. Oil for gasoline is pumpedout of the ground and then pollutes our air, lithium is pumped out of the ground and then goes back to pollute it. This is the part of EV vehicles that is not properly displayed to the public. When you go and buy a Tesla you may not see the exhaust coming out of the back because it's running from a battery but that battery needs to be replaced every 8 years or 300,000- 500,000 miles. That may still seem irrelevant until you look at the scale of batteries this requires. Almost 2 million Teslas were sold in 2023, that is 2 million batteries that will need to be replaced in 2031. Where are we gonna be putting these batteries you may now be asking yourself because we can’t just put them in our local landfill. That is the conversation that needs to be had soon because already there are hundreds of millions of car batteries out in the world and already millions are polluting the ground we need to grow food, families, and lives on.
Sources:
https://www.geologyforinvestors.com/brine-lithium-deposits/#
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43017-022-00387-5#:~:text=Currently%2C%20lithium%20extraction%20is%20exclusively,%2C9%2C10%2C11.
https://mineralseducationcoalition.org/minerals-database/lithium/#:~:text=Mining%20for%20Lithium%3A,source%20material%20for%20lithium%20carbonate.
https://ev-lectron.com/blogs/blog/how-long-does-a-tesla-battery-last#:~:text=Tesla%2C%20one%20of%20the%20world's,or%20around%201%2C500%20battery%20cycles.
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