From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
There’s nothing new right here, nevertheless it acts as a great reminder of simply dangerous lithium mining is for the atmosphere:
Electrical autos are promoted as the answer for combating “local weather change.” Governments are at the moment incentivizing the manufacturing of electrical autos, whereas punishing the fossil gasoline trade. Nonetheless, lithium mining for electrical autos is extremely damaging to the atmosphere, and is about as removed from “inexperienced” as one may think about. To not point out, a lot of the lithium-ion batteries produced in the present day come from China and require water-intensive mining operations that ravage pure environments all through Australia, Argentina and Chile. The method depletes floor water, and leaves behind poisonous wastewater that contaminates fields and harms wildlife. The mining course of will not be carbon dioxide free, both. The mining course of releases 15,000 kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions for each ton of lithium that’s extracted.
There are critical environmental dangers to extracting lithium for the manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries
When lithium is extracted from salt mines, the miners should drill into the salt flats and pump out a salty, mineral-rich brine. The brine is positioned in giant swimming pools, so the water can evaporate out. When the brine evaporates, it leaves behind a sludge of potassium, manganese, borax and lithium salts that have to be filtered out additional. The method pollutes close by aquifers and lowers the water desk, interfering with water sources within the native atmosphere.
The lithium extraction course of takes a number of months, displaces helpful water assets, and leaves behind a poisonous path of wastewater within the native atmosphere. It takes roughly 500,000 gallons of water to provide one ton of lithium. When mining corporations head into nations like Chile, they burn up a majority of the area’s water, unjustly affecting small communities.
In accordance with the Institute of Vitality Analysis, Chile’s Salar de Atacama is among the driest locations on Earth, but the mining corporations are allowed to make use of up 65% of the area’s water. After the brine is faraway from the salt flats, the water desk robotically falls, disrupting the pure move of water that’s wanted for wells and agriculture. These large-scale disruptions can at all times be blamed on “local weather change” because the lithium mining trade plunges forward, with no regard for the environmental injury wrought in its wake.
Water high quality, wildlife populations, and crops all adversely affected by lithium mining
The poisonous chemical substances which might be used to extract the brine are in the end discarded into the native atmosphere, the place they contaminate streams, crops, wildlife and native ecosystems. The poisonous chemical substances, which embrace hydrochloric acid, leak from the evaporation swimming pools and pollute the close by water provide. Moreover, the massive open pit mines displace arsenic into the close by streams and rivers, the place it would ultimately deposit into agricultural land and be taken up by the crops. This downstream air pollution is harmful to wildlife, too. For instance, in Could of 2016, the Liqi River was polluted by the Gangizhou Rongda Lithium mine. The river turned up with lifeless fish, yak and cows.
The lithium mining operation in Salar de Atacama displaces greater than 1,700 liters of lithium-rich brine each second of operation. This causes the lakes to shrink, killing off native flamingo populations that rely on the basin to eat and breed. In Argentina, lithium mining brought about noticeable contamination of close by streams that had been used to feed livestock and irrigate crops. The residents of Salar de Hombre Muerto seen that the groundwater move had modified, inflicting water assets to vanish. Additionally they seen that that freshwater was contaminated with salty brine, destabilizing the native ecosystems and negatively affecting hen migration and llama populations — which the indigenous communities depend on for financial survival.
“Like all mining course of, it’s invasive, it scars the panorama, it destroys the water desk and it pollutes the earth and the native wells,” mentioned Guillermo Gonzales, who spoke concerning the points with lithium from the College of Chile again in 2009. “This isn’t a inexperienced answer – it’s not an answer in any respect.”
It is among the nice mysteries why the inexperienced motion on the whole will not be actively campaigning towards this.
