Goal 13 of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals calls for action against climate change through cutting greenhouse gas emissions by increasing the use of renewable energy sources. But, in order to make renewable energy sources—such as wind, solar, or geothermal power—viable for widespread use, rechargeable batteries are needed to store the energy produced. Lithium-ion batteries are the most commonly used rechargeable because of their high energy density, low maintenance, and high power delivery. Two of the most used materials in the production of lithium-ion batteries are lithium and cobalt. Despite mining for minerals like lithium and cobalt having lower carbon emissions than burning fossil fuels, mining often leads to pollution and environmental degradation.
The push towards renewable energy sources as the solution to climate change hides the darker side of resource extraction needed to produce this technology. In an effort to avert the climate change crisis through technology developed from lithium-ion batteries, a new environmental crisis may be starting from the mining needed to produce them. The mining needed to produce lithium-ion batteries primarily occurs in developing countries where the economic benefits of mining are often put before the environmental harms. Two areas that reflect this ongoing environmental and social crisis resulting from lithium and cobalt mining are the Atacama Desert in Chile and Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Chile is the second largest producer of lithium in the world, behind only Australia, and one of the world’s biggest deposits of lithium is located under the salt flats in Chile’s Atacama Desert. To mine the lithium below the desert, lithium brine is mixed with groundwater and brought to the surface. This mixture is left to evaporate to then be collected and used in lithium batteries. The extraction of groundwater for the mining process has led to a drought in the region and many wetlands in the area have dried up as well.
The area surrounding the Atacama Desert, which is home to many indigenous communities, have been impacted by the water shortages as a direct result of lithium mining. In an interview about lithium mining with BBC, Faviola Gonzalez, a biologist living in an indigenous community in the Atacama Desert, said, “Who are the electric cars going to be for? Europeans, Americans, not us. Our carbon footprint is much smaller. But it’s our water that’s being taken. Our sacred birds that are disappearing.” Indigenous communities like the Colla and Lickanantay have seen the rivers they get their water from dry up. These communities now rely on tankers to bring water to them and are powerless in doing more to stop the mining since mining companies have control over the land and water resources.
Despite the harmful damage done to communities and resources surrounding the Atacama Desert, the Chilean government and mining companies have planned to increase lithium mining in response to increasing demands for lithium batteries. The government launched a National Lithium Strategy to increase production and expand private investment in lithium mining in 2023. There have also been talks by government officials to increase lithium mining by up to 70%. Additionally, the Chilean state-run mining company launched a partnership with a private Chilean mining company, Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile (SQM), for a 30 year lithium mining partnership starting in 2031. SQM has announced plans to reduce water use by 60% when it begins mining in 2031. However, it may be too late to implement these changes to protect the surrounding environment due to already widespread drought conditions and dried up wetlands.
Similarly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) produces nearly 70% of the world’s cobalt, having the highest concentration of cobalt deposits in the world. Cobalt mining, as well as copper mining, has led to toxic mining runoff—polluting rivers that provide water to many of the DRC’s largest cities. While speaking about the stream near his home with Kuwait Times, Heritier Maloba, resident of Lubumbashi in the DRC, said, “In this stream, the fish vanished long ago, killed by acids and waste from the mines.” The water now poisons nearby communities as the high concentrations of metals and acids in the polluted water have led to respiratory illnesses, birth defects, and metabolic disorders. The runoff is also poisoning the land around the mines and has been connected to the killing of crops and worms which are indicators of soil health. Cobalt mining has also been threatening forests in the DRC, which serve as carbon sinks. Mining in the DRC specifically has led to a decrease in over 13,000 hectares of forest since 2001.
The people of the DRC have been exploited for decades to mine the valuable minerals located in the country. Following the colonization of the area that is now the DRC by King Leopold II in 1876, the Belgians set up a system of resource extraction while forcing the people that lived there to work on plantations and mines through brutal violence. Minerals including cobalt from the DRC were used to fuel the Industrial Revolution in Europe and to produce the weapons used in the World Wars, while workers who mined them worked under inhumane conditions. This exploitation continues today because of the increasing demand for cobalt.
The majority of the cobalt mines in the DRC are no longer locally controlled due to a deal signed in 2009 by then-President Joseph Kabila with the Chinese government, where the DRC gave China mining rights for infrastructure funding. Now, 15 out of the 19 largest cobalt and copper mines in the DRC are owned by Chinese companies, meaning much of the economic wealth generated by these mines is not going back to the local communities being directly harmed by them. Although China does provide infrastructure funding to the DRC in exchange for mining rights, the DRC ranked 180th out of 193 countries on the Human Development Index. Chinese mining companies have also been accused of using mining revenue to meddle in DRC elections and continue to perpetuate poor working conditions in cobalt mines.
We must recognize that many of us living in the Global North are far removed from the devastating environmental and human consequences of the mining required to make the products we use on a daily basis, beyond just renewable energy. Can you imagine going through your day without using your phone and laptop or not using an electric scooter or electric vehicle to get around? I know I use my phone and laptop regularly throughout the day and many students at UCLA use their electric scooters to commute to class. With this in mind, we must recognize our demand for such products is contributing to the accelerating environmental degradation in many areas of the world. The negative effects of mining for minerals used in the production of lithium-ion batteries is a problem that is not going away any time soon.
It must be also recognized that the solution to climate change can’t be just switching from burning fossil fuels to mining nonrenewable minerals. Communities living near the mines have no say in stopping the mining process since the mines are often owned by the government or by private mining companies. Change needs to be made by governments and the private sector to prevent any further irreversible damage to human health, natural resources, and biodiversity. While one solution could be improving the mining technology used to be less destructive, the more permanent solution may be to find more sustainable, less resource intensive rechargeable batteries that can replace lithium-ion batteries. One sustainable alternative is the sodium-ion battery, which uses sodium instead of lithium, since sodium can be more easily obtained from sources such as seawater.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons.
