Lithium’s relative abundance is one of the reasons physicists believe the universe formed out of a massive explosion, the Big Bang, 13.8 billion years ago. The lithium atom is the smallest metallic element and was formed together with hydrogen and helium in the Big Bang. Not least because of its size, lithium has become a key element of the energy transition. Reaching the highest energy capacity, lithium-ion batteries are used in electric vehicles, electronic devices, aerospace applications (Boeing 787, military drones, satellites), etc. Currently, the best-selling electric vehicles in Europe, the Teslas Y and 3 and the Volkswagen ID.4, use lithium-ion batteries. The rise of electric vehicles (in Europe, Germany is the largest market and producer) will account for more than 90% of lithium demand by 2030, according to Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. Demand for lithium is expected to skyrocket as the price has risen by as much as 600% over the past year. Securing lithium supplies is becoming the modern version of oil geopolitics.
Although lithium deposits are distributed across the planet (mainly in natural salt pans), the extraction and refining processes are complex, expensive and highly polluting. And here begins the first problem: China controls more than half of the world’s lithium processing and refining, according to the International Energy Agency, and has three-quarters of the world’s mega battery factories. Over the years, American, Japanese, and French companies transferred their intellectual property in metallurgical technologies to China, which had lower production costs due to cheap labor, lax environmental regulations, and generous government subsidies. China saw an opportunity to master the future of electricity and seized it. Europe has almost no lithium mining or processing capacity and one of the fastest growing electric vehicle markets. Major European lithium mining projects have been abandoned (due to popular disapproval of the environmental impact), including a mine in Jadar, Serbia, proposed by Rio Tinto and another in Portugal, planned by Savannah Resources.
Elon Musk and Ukraine
Against this background, Ukraine also emerges. Ukrainian researchers have speculated that the country’s eastern region (the very region occupied by Russia) contains about 500,000 tons of lithium oxide. If this preliminary assessment holds up, Ukraine could be home to one of the largest lithium reserves in the world. When tycoon Elon Musk, Vladimir Putin or German Olaf Scholz talk about Ukraine, lithium must not be forgotten in order to understand its context. There is also no effective technology for recycling, the infrastructure to achieve the circular economy of lithium in Europe is not in place, but battery waste in Europe is already starting to worry. There will be a great temptation to export the scrap to countries like China or South Korea for recycling.
The main motivation for this global commitment to lithium is to reduce emissions caused by road, air and marine transport (COSCO, the Chinese company that will control 24.9% of the Port of Hamburg, is also the dominant company at the manufacture of electric ships ), but worryingly, a growing body of research indicates the likelihood that the widespread replacement of conventional cars by electric vehicles will have a relatively small impact on global emissions. And the result may even increase emissions.
China controls more than half of the world’s lithium processing and refining
Although an electric car emits nothing while driving, around 80% of its total emissions come from “grey energy” from the battery manufacturing processes and the generation of electricity to power the vehicle. This relationship is reversed in a conventional car, where approximately 80% of emissions come directly from the fuel burned while driving. Almost all the details of the fuel cycle of conventional automobiles are well known. In contrast, any embodied emissions calculation for a battery is an estimate based on several assumptions. Analyzes estimate that between two and six barrels of oil (in energy equivalents) are needed to make a lithium battery, which can only store the energy equivalent to 4 liters of gasoline. As of today, nobody can measure the CO₂ consumption of today’s electric vehicles or predict that of tomorrow.
A typical car battery weighs 500 kilos and contains about 15 kilos of lithium, 30 kilos of cobalt, 65 kilos of nickel, 95 kilos of graphite and 45 kilos of copper. According to today’s average values, the amount of ore mined for a single battery is approximately: 10 tons of lithium brine, 30 tons of ore for the extraction of cobalt; five tons for nickel; six tons for copper; and a ton of ore for graphite. Making a single battery can require digging and removing a total of about 250 tons of earth. After that, a total of about 50 tons of ore will be transported and processed to separate the ores. The International Energy Agency warns that current plans for electric vehicles, along with plans for wind and solar power, will require a 300% to 4000% increase in global mining production for the required key minerals, which they mostly find in Africa. Russia, China and Latin America. It is estimated that the use of electric vehicles would save only about 15% of global oil consumption. A very disturbing example of the current situation: The Wagner Group, Russia’s bloodthirsty mercenary army, is plundering natural resources in a dozen countries in Africa and committing gross human rights abuses to pay for Moscow’s war machine.
Stopping the climate emergency is not just about getting rid of fossil fuels. We must build an entirely new system of energy production and consumption, which in itself carries enormous dangers if not done correctly and ethically and with consideration for the entire planet and all of its inhabitants. Perhaps the greatest risk is that resources like lithium, which offer a complex hope for our survival, will turn the world into a hopeless geopolitical dystopia. There is no doubt that science plays a role in improving technologies (nanotechnology and biotechnology play a fundamental role in this field) and in quantifying processes. But like most of the problems we face in the 21st century, solving them requires modern methods that take into account the depth of human relationships with the planet and nature, we need honesty, humility, democratic science and collaborative strategies that enable us to do so enable you to face the complexity of reality. Economic or political ideologies will not save us.
Sonja Contera She is Professor of Physics at the University of Oxford, having built her academic career in Japan, China, Germany and Russia, among others. She is an expert in nanotechnology and author of the book “Nano comes to life”.
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