This is lithium. Pretty soon, we’re going to need a lot of
it. Lithium is a useful metal. It spends its entire existence trying to get
rid of its one outer electron but, crucially, this reaction can be both controlled and reversed. That means, properly configured, the metal
can discharge energy when needed, take in more energy, and then discharge that energy. Essentially, it can act as a battery. It’s only been a few decades since lithium-ion
batteries reached commercial feasibility but, in that time, they have become the power source
of choice for portable electronics thanks to their perfect blend of safety and lightness. However, the latest major tech boom, the latest
infatuation of Silicon Valley and Wall Street alike, is centered around the largest consumer
electronics product to date: electric vehicles. And pretty soon, we’re going to need a lot
of them. The UK, for example, has committed to banning
internal combustion car sales by 2030. To replace its 31.5 million vehicles, about
236,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate are needed. To produce 236,000 metric tons of lithium
carbonate, every lithium mine in the world would have to devote its output to this one
use for nine months, and there are a whole lot more countries, a whole lot more lithium
applications, and a whole lot more growth in the forecast. While the industry and its issues may be complex,
the way in which battery-grade lithium is produced is not. Four countries dominate the industry—Argentina,
Chile, Australia, and China combined account for 92% of the globe’s production. The metal is extracted from the ground at
massive sites like the Greenbushes mine in Western Australia, which is the world’s
largest hard-rock lithium mine. The site was selected due to the abundance
of spodumene in the area, which is a mineral that contains large concentrations of lithium. Once the raw material is extracted from the
ground, it’s transported two and a half hours north to the Kwinana Lithium Plant near
Perth—a facility majority owned and operated by a Chinese company, Tianqi Lithium, which
is responsible for almost half of the world’s production of the metal. Once refined, lithium hydroxide and other
compounds are sold to battery manufacturers, which in about three quarters of cases means
one of three companies—LG Chem, CATL, or Panasonic. The problem, however, is the world’s solution. In addition to the UK, Iceland, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Israel, Singapore, and South Korea have each
committed to banning the sale of internal combustion passenger vehicles within the next
decade. Adding up their annual passenger vehicle sales
numbers from 2019, that means the absolute base-case demand for EVs a decade from now
will be 9.5 million per year. Just to reach that, EV production would have
to quintuple, but even the most conservative forecasters don’t dare tread anywhere close
to a number as low as 9.5 million in 2032. The market is waking up to what this means
for lithium demand. Across 2021, Seaborne lithium prices rose
from around $8,000 per metric ton to over $30,000—a 400% rise in a mere twelve months—and
lithium is hardly the only crucial metal for lithium-ion battery production—it’s just
the one in the name. Cobalt and nickel are also critical to most
commercially-available versions of these batteries, and the situation is hardly different with
them. Cobalt prices doubled across 2021, while nickel
rose to its highest price in a decade. So, the world needs a lot more metals, but
right now, it’s hard to believe the world’s going to get them. The biggest hurdle the industry faces is best
exemplified here: Thacker Pass, Nevada. Thacker Pass is located in one of the most
sparsely populated areas of the country. It’s an half hour’s drive to the nearest
store, an hour to the nearest supermarket, and three to the nearest Starbucks. The few roads that exist in the area are lucky
to see a few cars an hour, travelling to and from the various remote farms, ranches, and
communities dotting northern Nevada. That could soon change, though. 250 miles or 400 kilometers to the south is
the Silver Peak Lithium Mine. This is the nation’s only currently operating
major lithium mine, despite the fact that the US is one of the largest EV markets and
home to the world’s largest EV manufacturer. China, also a major EV market home to major
EV manufacturers, has made significant headway in building up its domestic lithium production
capacity and the country’s companies also have significant presences at the world’s
other major lithium production sites. This has come to concern those in charge in
the US. Therefore, sights are set on Thacker Pass—home
to the US’ largest lithium deposit. This site could singlehandedly propel the
US into the ranks of major lithium producers, but getting a mine up and running there has
proved… difficult. The way in which major lithium deposits are
distributed across the world is rather cruel. Overwhelmingly, they’re located in arid
regions with little water availability, like Nevada. Thacker Pass receives less than 10 inches
or 25 centimeters of rain a year. However, the extraction and processing of
lithium requires enormous quantities of water. It’s expected that operations at the proposed
Thacker Pass lithium mine would require 3,224 gallons or 12,204 liters of water per minute—roughly
equivalent to the contents of a backyard, above-ground pool. That water would be used to pump into the
ground as part of the extraction process, during refinement, and to conduct necessary
dust control at the site. To get this water the mine would have to pump
it out of the ground using wells, but every acre-foot of water in the area is strictly
allocated, given the degree of scarcity. So the mine has to buy up water rights from
others in order to gain the legal right to use it. What that means, however, is that there’s
a direct trade off between one use and another, and in this case, the other use is predominantly
ranching and farming—two key tenants to the local economy. In addition, there’s a chance the project
could do far more to further the inaccessibility of water in northern Nevada. The US Bureau of Land Management’s Environmental
Impact Study for the project found that it presented the distinct possibility of leaking
unacceptable levels of arsenic into the area’s groundwater table which could take the entire
region’s water supply offline for hundreds of years. In an area where the availability of water
undergirds almost all economic activity, that has people seriously concerned. The issues only compound on top of that. As Thacker Pass is, of course, a mountain
pass, it acts as a wildlife corridor between the Double-H and Montana mountains—two biodiversity
hotspots. Therefore, the environmental impact study
found the project likely to destroy or deteriorate thousands of acres of habitat used by the
pronghorn antelope, sage grouse, golden eagle, and other unique species. For interrelated reasons, the project also
has a number of local indigenous tribes concerned—the most vocal of which is the Fort McDermitt
Paiute and Shoshone Tribe. They say that during the era of American soldiers
rounding up and shipping indigenous people off to reservations, two of the tribe’s
families hid out in the shelter Thacker Pass provided—so they directly attribute the
continued existence of their tribe to the area. In addition, they consider the pass a sacred
site, in part because of a historic massacre they say occurred there. This assertion, however, was directly challenged
in a court case related to the mine project, and the judge rejected the claim citing a
lack of evidence. To add to their opposition, the tribe put
forward evidence linking the development of similar resource-extraction projects, which
are predominately staffed by men, to increases in the rape and murder of indigenous women
in nearby areas. Even just looking at these few headline issues,
it becomes clear that the Thacker Pass lithium mine project is mired in a nearly insurmountable
web of controversy and conflict, and it’s hardly alone in that status. Much of the evidence opponents to the Thacker
Pass mine have put forward is based on real-world experiences in the lithium triangle—the
nexus between Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia that hosts some of the world’s most productive
lithium production facilities. An area in a similar situation—a remote,
arid landscape punctuated by small communities home to a historically oppressed indigenous
population—the lithium triangle has seen an economic boon, but it’s come at the cost
of environmental and cultural devastation. Just as the issues are not confined to one
geography, they’re not even confined to lithium alone. Some 70% of the world’s cobalt, a crucial
component to current battery tech, comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo—the
8th poorest country in the world, according to World Bank figures. While a majority of the cobalt mining is conducted
by large mining companies with often shaky safety and human rights records, a concerningly
large minority is accomplished through what’s referred to as “artisanal” mining—a
term defining the illegal, informal practice of individuals mining cobalt by themselves
and selling it on to shady middlemen. The complete lack of safety standards or regulations
in the sector means child labor and deadly mine collapses are rampant. For those that aren’t directly injured or
killed on the job, long-term exposure to cobalt mines has been linked to significant health
effects later in life, and fatal birth defects for children in the region. Altogether, there’s almost no such thing
as ethical cobalt. There’s also almost no such thing as green
lithium. There’s little appetite anywhere to increasing
lithium mining in the places where it’s accessible, and little progress has been made
in the DRC in making cobalt mining less socially disastrous. As demand for EVs and their batteries increases,
getting more cobalt and lithium will be incredibly difficult. However, on top of that, getting more cobalt
and lithium that’s more ethical and green, or even as ethical and green, will be next
to impossible. But to decarbonize driving, solutions must
be found. One option, rather than finding more raw materials,
is to need less of them. Of course, the way to do that is by making
batteries better. The most promising short-term innovation that
could fulfill that mission is solid state batteries. Whereas traditional EV batteries have a liquidy,
viscous lithium-based electrolyte, solid state batteries rather use a solid, metal composition
as their ion transport mechanism. This switch has a number of benefits including
a higher safety profile that reduces the risk of fire, and therefore reduces the need for
expensive safety features. Solid state batteries can also be made without
cobalt or nickel, which eliminates two problematic and costly necessities in current battery
tech. Most significant, however, is solid state
batteries’ higher energy density. Traditional lithium ion compositions used
in EV battery packs store about 114 watt-hours of energy per pound, or 250 per kilogram. That means one pound of battery could move
a Tesla Model 3, for example, 0.4 miles, or 1 kilogram 1.3 kilometers. Meanwhile, it’s expected that solid state
batteries will be able to store between 175 and 225 watt-hours per pound or 400 to 500
per kilogram—essentially doubling battery density. That means Tesla could halve the weight of
their half-ton battery pack and not only keep range the same, but increase it as the car
would no longer need to carry the rest of the weight of the battery pack. On top of all those benefits, expert believe
that, at scale, production costs of solid state batteries could be even less than the
cheapest current lithium-ion batteries. However, the issue is getting to that scale. Battery production needs to occur at absolutely
massive quantities to reach cost competitiveness—an assertion backed up by the industry’s current
effective triopoly. The process of working down this cost curve
is long as there are few applications where battery weight matters as much as with EVs,
and EVs won’t switch to solid state batteries until their cost is competitive, but their
cost will only become competitive when the industry reaches a production capacity that
only EVs can provide. So, the industry has to wait for some level
of scale to occur through niche solid state battery applications in medical devices, race
cars, and fighter jets; then wait for consumer electronics to realize the weight savings
or battery life benefits the innovation could provide; then wait for the highest-end EVs
to incorporate the technology in order to offer super-long ranges as a luxury; before
solid-state batteries can finally reach a cost that would allow them to permeate into
what will by then be the large segment of everyday EVs. Most estimates place that enticing end-goal
more than a decade away. Even if the solid-state battery transition
reaches fruition earlier, the world will still need a whole lot more lithium. Far from the potential environmental disaster
at Thacker Pass is an existing environmental disaster—the Salton Sea. A century ago, Colorado River floodwaters
breached through an irrigation canal and accumulated, over years, in the Imperial Valley’s geographic
low-point 236 feet or 72 meters below sea level. That massive puddle still exists today, but
some of the water has slowly evaporated through time, leaving an ever saltier, dirtier accumulation
of water. Thousands more feet below, however, are a
number of underground volcanoes that superheat water to hundreds of degrees. If one brings that water to the surface, the
pressure change leads to it transforming into steam and steam, of course, is what most power
plants use to drive turbines. Traditional power plants use coal or natural
gas to heat water up into steam, but this steam is created by the earth—meaning its
carbon-free. That’s why Berkshire Hathaway Energy has
built 10 geothermal energy plants in the area, but, crucially, this superheated water is
filled with something else: lithium. Therefore, these geothermal plants are planning
on adding an extra step in their process to extract lithium from the briny steam they
use. Now, there are certainly significant technological
hurdles that stand between now and a future of commercially-competitive lithium production
at the Salton Sea, especially as the metal only represents a tiny portion of the slurry
of materials found in the water, but the lithium is there. Berkshire Hathaway Energy, as the largest
existing energy company working around the Salton Sea, is leading the charge thanks in
part to a sizable federal grant, and expects to have its demonstration facility up and
running later in 2022. A number of other competitors have already
started developing their lithium-extraction plays around the Salton Sea, meaning America’s
first lithium boom-town might already be a foregone conclusion. These are the kind of solutions needed as
the world transitions to electric mobility. Electric vehicles, due to their reliance on
batteries, are just dirtier than internal combustion vehicles to produce. That being said, the vast majority of emissions
from cars, including from EVs themselves, come not from the production of vehicles but
from driving them. The science on the issue is sound—electric
vehicles, from production to use to scrapping, are responsible for about 75% less emissions
than their internal combustion counterparts, even on current, fossil-fuel based electric
grids. Anyone who argues the opposite is either misinformed
or attempting to disinform, and that gap will only widen as grids continue to decarbonize. However, there can be better alternatives
to better alternatives. In the coming lithium gold-rush, corners can
and likely will be cut. The question the world will have to grapple
with is whether it’s worth destroying pristine environments like Thacker Pass in the name
of environmentalism—whether slowing the issue on a global level is worth accelerating
it on a local level. Then, when the answer inevitably gravitates
towards yes, the world will have to grapple with who must confront that local devastation. If the answer continues to be to place the
burden on the world’s most vulnerable, then even if the steady march of climate change
is curbed, will the world have truly succeeded in stopping its effects? Is it worth sending teenagers to die in a
war to prevent the propagation of terrorist organizations? Is it worth depressing an economy to slow
the spread of a pandemic? It it worth allowing individuals to own guns
for self-protection even if it allows easier access for bad actors? Determining what is an acceptable sacrifice
has historically led to some of the most contentious, perennial political issues in history. Here, it’s happening again: the public needs
to decide, with the fate of the world on top of them, how much bad should be allowed for
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