Climate Forward
E.V.s will bring down emissions, but the materials needed to build them have other environmental costs. We explain why, and talk about ways to limit the harm.
We got some big news from California this week: Officials there set into motion a plan that’ll ban the sale of new gasoline-powered cars by 2035. The decision is expected to accelerate the global transition to electric vehicles.
That’s because California is the largest auto market in the United States, and more than a dozen other states typically follow its lead when setting their own auto emissions standards.
That’s good news for the climate. But what about the environmental footprint of all those electric vehicles? While E.V.s are definitely better than cars that run on fossil fuels, they do have their own problems.
Today, I’ll take a look at those issues by focusing on a crucial part of the batteries that power electric cars: lithium. It’s a soft, white metal and, because of its physical and chemical properties, lithium is very good at storing energy.
Demand for the stuff, sometimes called “white petroleum,” is expected to grow more sharply than demand for any of the other key metals needed for car batteries. The International Energy Agency, for instance, has projected that demand will grow by over 40 times by 2040 if the countries of the world stick to their Paris Agreement targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Where lithium comes from
Today, most lithium comes from one of two sources: rocks and brine. The extraction methods are quite different.
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