The Tesla Model S, the Toyota Prius, the Volkswagen e-Golf...what do all three have in common? That’s right - they’re all hurting the environment.
Not by being driven, though. Electric cars are hurting the planet by mining the materials necessary for building the “e” components of their engines, by manufacturing them, and even by recycling some of the materials after they are no longer useful.
Those of us who care about the state of the environment are wary of air pollution. That’s part of the reason why so many people have invested thousands of dollars into such machines - the engines in electric and hybrid cars don’t burn as much, if any gasoline, so they cut down on the amount of carbon dioxide being released into the air. In theory, this makes them better for the environment. In theory, a lot of things work - in practice, electric and hybrid cars hurt the environment in other ways. This is because they rely on lithium-ion batteries, which are not easy to produce. In fact, many renewable energy solutions - including wind and solar power - rely on these batteries, too. Then of course, there’s also the rising popularity of smartphones and cell phones, which are also powered by lithium-ion batteries.
This is not to say that fossil fuel motors are superior to “clean” energy motors. The toxins they release into the atmosphere are still definitely a grave threat to the health of our planet, and thus, humankind in general. When it comes to poisoning the atmosphere though, electric cars have their own drawbacks that should be addressed when it comes to determining manufacturing policies and environmental regulations. For example, the Tesla Model S is powered by an engine that uses no less than 7,000 lithium-ion batteries. To make those batteries, Tesla needs raw and artificial materials consisting of lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and other metals.
Tesla gets most of its graphite from the top graphite producer in the world, which produces 780,000 tonnes (that’s over 859,000 U.S. tons) of graphite annually: China. While the country’s president, Xi Jinping, has been making a push for clean air initiatives of late, China currently sits as one of the biggest contributors to global air pollution.
On the other hand, nickel mining is not only a necessity for the production of lithium batteries - it is also a massive environmental and public health concern in its own right. Nickel mining produces toxic gas, and smelting nickel produces slag, which has to be disposed of very carefully. Obviously, it’s also an extremely dangerous substance for workers to be around. Most of the world’s supply of nickel is mined from only a few countries, including the Philippines; last year, the government of the Philippines shut down 17 nickel mining operations due to severe environmental and public health concerns.
Then there’s cobalt, which also isn’t the easiest substance to get a hold of. Like nickel, mining cobalt creates a myriad of environmental and public health issues. Almost half the world’s supply comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country known to employ child labor in its mining efforts. And you better believe such operations are not required by law to provide adequate protective gear or safety education - in 2016, Amnesty International published a report about cobalt mining operations in the DRC, citing horrific human rights abuses.
Besides low or no emissions, lithium-ion batteries have another environmental issue that needs to be more widely addressed - disposal. Disposing of used batteries in landfills just means that within six years or so, when those batteries begin to decompose, one of two things will happen: best case scenario, they’ll leech into the soil, contaminating it and, eventually, any nearby water supplies, with toxic chemicals. Worst case scenario, they’ll leech into the soil and then combust, causing a garbage fire.
Not a phrase anyone wants to hear - “garbage fire.”
The other option is to recycle used batteries, but here’s the thing: recycling batteries also harms the environment. For one thing, dead batteries need to reach recycling centers somehow - ironically, the vehicles used to transport them there tend to run on fossil fuels. Besides this, recycling batteries is expensive, and the process releases sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere, which the EPA considers a “major air pollutant.” Plus, extracting precious metals from used batteries requires tremendous amounts of energy.
While renewable and low-emission energy solutions are still preferable from a long-term, environmental standpoint, from the looks of it, the current problems with lithium-ion batteries are only going to get worse as they become more widely-produced. A market research report by Roskill earlier this year concluded lithium demand is probably going to double by 2027. While this will drain less than 1 percent of the required precious metal reserves in the ground, production demands for these materials will likely increase up to 16 percent.
Some, like the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) have already begun taking proactive steps toward countering the growing environmental issues caused by increased lithium-ion battery adoption, as well as mining the materials necessary for their production. In July, the CSIRO released a report saying that Australia’s lithium-ion battery waste is growing by 20 percent annually - despite 95 percent of those waste products being perfectly recyclable. The report called for the collaboration of academic, government, and industrial entities to develop more effective solutions for dealing with lithium-ion battery waste. On the other side of the globe, scientists at Stanford University have developed a new type of battery called a flow battery - a battery that stores energy using liquid solutions - which do not require the use of metals like cobalt or lithium. Supposedly, these batteries could be much cheaper to produce as well.
Fossil fuels are seeing less and less use, and with good reason - they’re finite, they’re high in environmental pollutants, and they are becoming less popular with the general public as these issues become more widely known. There seems to be a consensus among the global scientific community, as well as certain industries, that developing low-emission and renewable energy is indeed the right path forward for our energy needs. We’re not quite there yet, but we’re on the right track...as long as manufacturers and lawmakers take note of the current shortcomings of lithium-ion batteries and make prudent measures to mitigate them. Otherwise, these problems won’t just stick around - they’re going to increase by sixteen percent or more.
(Originally published in Electrical Apparatus Magazine. Print only.)