Electric vehicles drive up demand for 'green metals'
In December 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order requiring the 600,000-vehicle federal fleet to shift to zero-emissions by 2035 as part of an effort to leverage government buying power to “catalyze America’s clean energy economy.” The massive federal purchase is meant to help manufacturers move away from internal combustion engines and toward electric vehicle production.
If Biden has his way, half of the 17 million cars and trucks sold in the United States in 2030 will be electric. And even if his order is overturned by a later administration, the International Energy Agency predicts that market-driven demand will lead to similar numbers of new electric vehicles on the road, substantially decreasing tailpipe emissions, urban pollution and overall greenhouse gas emissions — as long as fossil fuels don’t dominate the grids charging the cars.
But it will also substantially increase the demand for the so-called energy transition minerals that go into electric vehicles, their batteries and the charging infrastructure — lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel and rare earth elements. Currently, these minerals are largely mined outside of the U.S., in China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Indonesia and so on. But with the expected electric vehicle-manufacturing surge on its way, officials from both the auto and mining industries are calling on the federal government to streamline mine permitting in order to bring the supply chain closer to home. The projected demand and the rise in metal prices are breathing new life into Western copper mines and spurring dozens of proposals for new mines from Wyoming to Oregon and Nevada to Arizona.
These minerals, which are also used in wind turbines and solar panels, are sometimes called “green rocks.” But more often than not, their extraction is anything but green. Copper ore is gouged from vast open pits, visible from space as intricate scars on the landscape. All metal mining tends to facilitate a chemical reaction that causes acid mine drainage, which can sully rivers and harm fish and other aquatic life. Cobalt mining can release radioactive and carcinogenic particles, while lithium extraction sucks billions of gallons of water from the ground and the wastewater disposal can contaminate drinking water aquifers.
Read more: https://www.hcn.org/issues/54.2/infographic-energy-industry-electric-vehicles-drive-up-demand-for-green-metals
(High Country News)
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