Electric Vehicles have gotten a lot of media attention overthe last few years. The United States, with the rest of the developed world,have made a push to reduce emissions and improve air quality in our cities. Weuse things like O2 sensors and Air Fuel Ratio sensors, along with catalyticconverters, in order to reduce the impact that gasoline engines have on theenvironment. Recently, companies have been exploring ways to abandon gasolineconsumption all together and produce “zero emissions” vehicles in the form ofelectric vehicles, like the Nissan Leaf. Although people have thoughtfullyexplored the impact of producing the electricity needed to charge the battery,all of the green-enthusiasts are conveniently looking away from the real issue:the lithium ion battery itself.
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| Nissan Leaf |
Lithium is a soft, silver-white alkali metal with the symbolLi on the periodic table. It does not occur freely in nature; it only appearsin compounds that are usually ionic. Lithium salts are extracted from the waterof mineral springs, brine pools, and brine deposits. The metal is then producedvia electrolysis from a mixture of fused lithium chloride and potassiumchloride.
The brine is usually pumped to large pools to let the sunevaporate the salts to a high enough concentration. Then this potent solutionis pumped onto trucks and driven to processing facilities. Currently, 61% ofthe world’s lithium production occurs in Chile. Worldwide reserves of lithiumare estimated at about 13 million tonnes. Using the battery efficiency figureof 400 g of lithium per kWh, this gives a total maximum lithium batterycapacity of 52 billion kWh which, assuming it’s used exclusively for carbatteries, is enough for 2 billion cars with the same size battery as a NissanLeaf.
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| Lithium brine pools |
Problem is, only 25% of the world’s lithium goes into themanufacture of batteries (and that includes batteries for laptops and cellphones). Lithium is used for processingsilica to make glass, as a major component in high temperature grease, in airpurification systems, in nuclear weapons, and even in pharmaceutical drugs totreat bi-polar disorder. The world’s supply of lithium would be exhaustedrelatively quickly if we tried to run most of the world’s vehicles onlithium-ion batteries.
In response to this claim, many bring up the fact thatLithium batteries can be recycled, and thus diminishing the problem ofdepleting this rare metal. The problem with this is that lithium is rathervolatile at room temperature, so the entire battery has to be cooled down to-345°Fbefore it can be dismantled and recycled. Cooling batteries down to suchextreme temperatures uses a tremendous amount of energy, reducing the favorableenvironmental impact lithium ion batteries are supposed to have.
In reality, with a rapidly expanding population and ballooningconsumption of energy worldwide, there is no magic solution to solve ouremissions problems and save the world. Continuing current habits of everyindividual driving and using inefficient means of transportation, along withthe host of other issues with consumer culture, leaves little doubt that ourcurrent style of living is unsustainable. Save for the unlikely invention ofcold fusion, we are going to have to re-evaluate the way in which we travel.
