What is the Biggest Issue to 100% Adoption of Electric Vehicles?

This is lithium. Pretty soon, we are 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 most extensive consumer electronics product to date: electric vehicles.

Electric vehicles need a whole lot of lithium.

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. So there are a lot more countries, a lot more lithium applications, and a whole lot more growth in the forecast.

While the industry and its issues may be complex, how battery-grade lithium is produced is not. Four countries dominate the sector—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, the world’s largest hard-rock lithium mine. The site was selected due to the abundance of spodumene in the area, a mineral containing 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 means the absolute base-case demand for EVs a decade from now will be 9.5 million per year.

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. Finally, 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.

Is The US Trying to Improve Lithium Production? What Hurdles Are There?

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 a half hour’s drive to the nearest store, an hour to the nearest supermarket, and three to the nearest Starbucks. The few roads in the area are lucky to see a few cars an hour, traveling to and from the various remote farms, ranches, and communities dotting northern Nevada.

That could soon change, though. 250 miles to the south is the Silver Peak Lithium Mine. This is the nation’s only currently operating major lithium mine, despite the US being 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. The country’s companies also have a significant presence at the world’s other major lithium production sites.

Getting beat at lithium production has concerned those in charge in the US. So naturally, 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.

How significant 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 of rain a year. However, the extraction and processing of lithium require enormous quantities of water.

It’s expected that operations at the proposed Thacker Pass lithium mine would require 3,224 gallons 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 the 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 to gain the legal right to use it.

However, what that means 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 a place 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 several local indigenous tribes concerned—the most vocal 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, partly 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.

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 boom. Still, 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 limited to lithium alone.

According to World Bank figures, 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.

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. In addition, 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 congenital disabilities 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 increase lithium mining in the places where it’s accessible, and little progress has been made in the DRC to make cobalt mining less socially disastrous.

As demand for EVs and their batteries increases, getting more cobalt and lithium will be incredibly difficult. However, 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.

How Can GM Plan An Electric Future With So Many Limitations?

Rather than finding more raw materials, one option is to need less of them. But, 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 use a solid metal composition as their ion transport mechanism. This switch has many 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, eliminating two problematic and costly necessities in current battery tech. Most significant, however, is solid-state batteries’ higher energy density and faster charging times.

Traditional lithium-ion compositions used in EV battery packs store about 114 watt-hours of energy per pound. That means one pound of battery could move a Chevrolet BOLT EV, for example, 0.4 miles. Meanwhile, it’s expected that solid-state batteries will be able to store between 175 and 225 watt-hours per pound—essentially doubling battery density.

That means GM 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, experts believe that, at scale, the 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 in 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. Still, 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 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.

Is There Any Ethically Sourced Lithium?

Far from the potential environmental disaster at Thacker Pass is an existing ecological disaster—the Salton Sea.

A century ago, Colorado River floodwaters breached through an irrigation canal and accumulated, over the years, in the Imperial Valley’s geographic low-point 236 feet 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.

However, thousands more feet below are several 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 into steam, but this steam is created by the earth—meaning it’s carbon-free.

That’s why Berkshire Hathaway Energy has built ten geothermal energy plants in the area, but, crucially, this superheated water is filled with something else: lithium.

Therefore, these geothermal plants are planning to add an extra step to extract lithium from the briny steam they use. However, there are undoubtedly significant technological hurdles that stand between now and a future of commercially-competitive lithium production at the Salton Sea, primarily as the metal only represents a tiny portion of the slurry of materials found in the water, but the lithium is there.

As the largest existing energy company working around the Salton Sea, Berkshire Hathaway Energy 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.

Some 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 solutions needed as the world transitions to electric mobility. Unfortunately, due to their reliance on batteries, electric vehicles are just dirtier than internal combustion vehicles to produce. Lithium can be recycled, but the process needs to advance to make it truly viable. 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.

If Lithium Mining Is So Bad Why Change to Electric Vehicles at All?

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, technologies will have to adapt to supply shortages and hopefully lead to a greener future. One that sees ethically and humanely sourced lithium and battery components. An important note to remember when discussing mining is natural gas is also mined and has numerous questionable methods to acquire it. The most critical aspect of natural gas is that experts expect us to run out of gas in the next 50 years at our current consumption rate. 

We have seen some arguments about the current grid not supporting charging electric vehicles. While there seems little doubt that EVs will increase the nation’s grid load, “The transition … will be slow,” contends Pat Romano, CEO of ChargePoint, one of the nation’s largest public charging companies. The primary reason for his optimism is his expectation that 80% of EV owners now charge their vehicles at night, mostly from home, taking advantage of a general surplus of off-peak generating capacity. ChargePoint’s business model is based on the expectation that will remain the case as we advance.

But, even in off-hours, the already creaky grid is likely to become still more stressed, requiring plenty of upgrades, on top of new generating capacity — whether fossil-fueled or renewable, experts agree. In the US, updating a power grid that hasn’t seen significant change since the early 50s probably won’t be a bad thing. 

TLDR: Lithium, Cobalt, and Nickle have significant sourcing and ethical problems that will need to be addressed to meet future battery demands. The US is looking at improving our production. Still, environmental concerns at Thacker Pass, Nevada, and technology concerns at the Salton Sea may delay the US from becoming a major player in lithium production. Future solutions will make electric vehicles genuinely viable such as solid-state batteries, but economies of scale will need to be achieved before they become commercially viable. We need to replace gas-powered vehicles to limit emissions and decrease our dependence on finite resources. Still, significant changes must be made to our infrastructure before that vision can become a reality. 

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