![]() The lithium extraction process uses a lot of water-approximately 500,000 gallons per metric ton of lithium. The battery of a Tesla Model S, for example, has about 12 kilograms of lithium in it grid storage needed to help balance renewable energy would need a lot more lithium given the size of the battery required. Part of that phenomenal demand increase dates back to 2015 when the Chinese government announced a huge push towards electric vehicles in its 13th Five Year Plan. The lithium ion battery industry is expected to grow from 100 gigawatt hours of annual production in 2017 to almost 800 gigawatt hours in 2027. Lithium prices doubled between 20 due to exponentially increasing demand. After the second incident in 2013, officials closed the mine, but fish started dying again when it reopened in April 2016. ![]() It was the third incident in seven years due to a sharp increase in mining activity, including operations run by China’s BYD, one of the world’ biggest supplier of lithium-ion batteries. Cow and yak carcasses were also found floating downstream, dead from drinking contaminated water. In May 2016, dead fish were found in the waters of the Liqi River, where a toxic chemical leaked from the Ganzizhou Rongda Lithium mine. Mining and processing of lithium, however, turns out to be far more environmentally harmful than what turned out to be the unfounded issues with fracking. Now Biden is planning to transition the transportation sector to electric vehicles that are powered by lithium batteries and require other critical metals where China dominates the market. During the Obama-Biden administration, hydraulic fracturing was accused of causing a number of environmental problems-faucets on fire, contamination of drinking water, etc.-but the administration’s own Environmental Protection Agency could not validate those accusations.
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