The True Cost of Lithium Ion Batteries

Don't expect to see much coverage in the US media. From The Guardian: Child labour, toxic leaks: the price we could pay for a greener future

Our green energy comes with environmental devastation, and large side-order of child labor. (And dead children.)

First up there is the child labor in Africa.

Metals such as lithium and cobalt provide examples of the awkward issues that lie ahead, said Herrington. Both elements are needed to make lightweight rechargeable batteries for electric cars and for storing power from wind and solar plants. Their production is likely to increase significantly over the next decade – and that could cause serious ecological problems.

In the case of cobalt, 60% of the world’s supply comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo where large numbers of unregulated mines use children as young as seven as miners. There they breathe in cobalt-laden dust that can cause fatal lung ailments while working tunnels that are liable to collapse.

The US .gov just shut down plans for a cobalt mine in Minnesota (or Wisconsin - but I think it was MN) because it would be bad for the environment. They are apparently happy to have dying children in The Congo provide our cobalt.

And lithium mining is not the greatest, either.

Then there is the issue of lithium mining. World production is set to soar over the next decade. Yet mining is linked to all sorts of environmental headaches. In the so-called Lithium Triangle of South America – made up of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia – vast quantities of water are pumped from underground sources to help extract lithium from ores, and this has been linked to the lowering of ground water levels and the spread of deserts. Similarly in Tibet, a toxic chemical leak from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium mine poisoned the local Lichu river in 2016 and triggered widespread protests in the region.

That isn't all, of course. Copper will be required in huge quantities.

“You need tens of kilograms more copper for an electric car compared with one with a petrol engine,” said Herrington. “That means, if you want to turn all the UK’s 31m cars into electric vehicles you would require about 12% of the world’s entire copper output – just for Britain. That is an unrealistic demand, given that we are hoping to be making electric cars only within a decade.”

You would need 12% of WORLD output for Britain to have electric cars. Right.

There is more; click thru. (Hat tip to Pirate's Cove)