{"id":390106,"date":"2025-07-21T10:59:25","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:59:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=390106"},"modified":"2025-07-21T10:59:27","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T08:59:27","slug":"lithium-the-new-environmental-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=390106","title":{"rendered":"Lithium: the New Environmental Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\u00a0Sallust<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The BBC (of all outlets) has an extended piece on how\u00a0green tech is feeding another environmental crisis<\/a>. It seems that while the better off indulge their desire to feel good by running EVs and can now look forward to a taxpayer-funded\u00a0\u00a33,750 grant<\/a>\u00a0towards the cost, they\u2019re actually helping to wreck the planet in a whole new way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in the Bad Old Days when the wealthy started to enjoy the fruits and freedoms of the Industrial Revolution with steam trains and coal-fired ocean-going liners, the damage to Britain was all too apparent in the coal mines, open-cast mines, the filthy air and disgusting rivers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today the solution is simply to relocate the devastation somewhere else. The Chelsea Tractor EV comes with its own consequences. The problem is lithium for batteries and the skyrocketing demand for it, which requires the use of vast evaporation pools in Chile, the world\u2019s second-largest source after Australia:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Raquel Celina Rodriguez watches her step as she walks across the Vega de Tilopozo in Chile\u2019s Atacama salt flats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a wetland, known for its groundwater springs, but the plain is now dry and cracked with holes she explains were once pools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore, the Vega was all green,\u201d she says. \u201cYou couldn\u2019t see the animals through the grass. Now everything is dry.\u201d She gestures to some grazing llamas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For generations, her family raised sheep here. As the climate changed, and rain stopped falling, less grass made that much harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it worsened when \u201cthey\u201d started taking the water, she explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u201d are lithium companies. Beneath the salt flats of the Atacama Desert lie the world\u2019s largest reserves of lithium, a soft, silvery-white metal that is an essential component of the batteries that power electric cars, laptops and solar energy storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the world transitions to more renewable energy sources, the demand for it has soared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, about 95,000 tonnes of lithium was consumed globally \u2013 by 2024 it had more than doubled to 205,000 tonnes, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2040 it\u2019s predicted to rise to more than 900,000 tonnes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most of the increase will be driven by demand for electric car batteries, the IEA says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Chile\u2019s government has been encouraging the industry, but it comes at a price:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Mining companies predominantly extract lithium by pumping brine from beneath Chile\u2019s salt flats to evaporation pools on the surface.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The process extracts vast amounts of water in this already drought-prone region.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There has already been a visible impact on the fauna and flora, because the underground water is a finite resource and does not natural replace itself at the same rate the miners are removing it:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Faviola Gonzalez is a biologist from the local indigenous community working in the Los Flamencos National Reserve, in the middle of the Atacama Desert, home to vast salt flats, marshes and lagoons and some 185 species of birds. She has monitored how the local environment is changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe lagoons here are smaller now,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen a decrease in the reproduction of flamingos.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said lithium mining impacts microorganisms that birds feed on in these waters, so the whole food chain is affected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She points to a spot where, for the first time in 14 years, flamingo chicks hatched this year. She attributes the \u201csmall reproductive success\u201d to a slight reduction in water extraction in 2021, but says, \u201cIt\u2019s small.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, the mining companies are allegedly listening, and planning to extract lithium directly from brine:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

At one of their plants in Antofagasta, Valent\u00edn Barrera, Deputy Manager of Sustainability at SQM Lithium, says the firm is working closely with communities to \u201cunderstand their concerns\u201d and carrying out environmental impact assessments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He feels strongly that in Chile and globally \u201cwe need more lithium for the energy transition.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The locals are, understandably, less than convinced:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Sara becomes tearful when she speaks about the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe salt flats produce lithium, but one day it will end. Mining will end. And what are the people here going to do? Without water, without agriculture. What are they going to live on?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe I won\u2019t see it because of my age, but our children, our grandchildren will.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She believes mining companies have extracted too much water from an ecosystem already struggling from climate change.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Conversely:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

There is a common argument from people who support lithium mining: that even if it damages the environment, it brings huge benefits via jobs and cash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daniel Jimenez, from lithium consultancy iLiMarkets, in Santiago, takes this argument a step further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He claims that environmental damage has been exaggerated by communities who want a pay-out.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

As ever, whether it\u2019s \u2018green tech\u2019 or any other development in history, whichever you spin it, if you want to understand it, just follow the money. Next time you get lectured by a smug \u2018I\u2019m doing the right thing\u2019 EV owner, just point them to this article. Perhaps one day they\u2019ll be vilified by the eco-righteous of the hair-shirted future just as those who own diesel and petrol cars are now. It\u2019s certainly looking that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Worth reading in full<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The BBC (of all outlets) has an extended piece on how\u00a0green tech is feeding another environmental crisis. It seems that while the better off indulge their desire to feel good by running EVs and can now look forward to a taxpayer-funded\u00a0\u00a33,750 grant\u00a0towards the cost, they\u2019re actually helping to wreck the planet in a whole new way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":390110,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818389,691819012,691818558,691829907,691818266,691836708],"class_list":{"0":"post-390106","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-bbc","9":"tag-chile","10":"tag-evs","11":"tag-green-tech","12":"tag-lithium","13":"tag-underground-water","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/0AQPrx9tgvIk6AO6ozob8CYduM4mfhTCBuHJaoK-MsNurtxBpgwJVIYh3-U9Cxp6V_8xJG5GYIunSk6uUiH1ZX1agBpM8-N0XUC9Fl559KXwnGDieg0j2Tq2lqXUwmrkg6fs9cCh2-TcjQ2Fd8zypLNGy5w9isg-1.jpeg?fit=1280%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Du2","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":332316,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=332316","url_meta":{"origin":390106,"position":0},"title":"Green 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