I’m confident I wasn’t the only one who squealed with delight when I heard the news that Norfolk is to take delivery of seventy, yes 70, brand new electric busses to replace the diesel guzzling, pollution spewing old fashioned busses that we have become so used to. And whilst this news and the eventual roll out is most welcome, it prompted me to have a little look deeper at EV’s and in particular, the materials required to make the batteries. And more so, what other nations are doing to eliminate diesel and petrol engines.
In Shenzhen, a city of 12,000,000 people in China where the worlds biggest battery manufacturer BYD is based, they really have taken EV’s to heart. In 2021, they had a total of 16,000 electric busses and 22,000 electric taxis. No public transport in that city uses fossil fuel to propel them.
And as I’m writing this, I’m mindful that people who read right wing, climate denying newspapers and scroll through Facebook will be reminded of a picture of an open cast mine where lithium and cobalt (minerals used for batteries) are extracted, is widely circulated and shared at every opportunity. So, this month’s column will concentrate on Lithium, one of the most abundant elements on the planet.
An electric car doesn’t actually need very much lithium to run. A 300-kilogram battery (50 kWh) of a mid-sized model only contains around eight kilograms of the light metal. An 18kw residential lithium battery has around 3kg of lithium in it.
Lithium, often referred to as “white gold” due to its market value and silver colour, is actually abundant in the earth’s crust, but is very finely distributed. Researchers estimate the amount of the light metal in the world’s oceans at around 200 billion tons.
Deposits in rocks and salt lakes on land are believed to add up to 98 million metric tons, 26 million of which would be economically mineable in the coming decades.
In 2022, 47% of global lithium demand was met by mining solid rock in Australia’s open-pit mines, 35% from South America’s salt lakes, 15% from China, and just under 1% each from Zimbabwe, Portugal, and North America
The world’s largest lithium deposits are found in the underground salt lakes of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile, which are estimated to hold 42 million tons of the metal. According to preliminary figures from the US Geological Survey, about 45,000 tons were mined there in 2022.
In a few decades, lithium could also be extracted as a by-product at desalination plants, and fill supply gaps.
At present, this extraction method is not deemed profitable. But neither was solar energy just 15-20 yrs. ago and look at us now!
So, the average electric car has the same amount of lithium as 8 bags of sugar. And that lithium is used day after day, year after year, unlike petrol and diesel which is burned and used once. We don’t need to go to war for lithium like we do oil which gives us diesel and petrol and every KG of lithium is reusable.
Personally, our 10 yr. old all electric car which had a 110-mile range when brand new, now gives us 95 miles 10 yrs. later. But Jim’s shop in Watlington is only a mile away, as is the Dr’s and it’s only 6 miles to either King’s Lynn or Downham Market so never get close to draining the battery as every time we get home, we treat our car like a mobile phone and just plug it in and let the Sun charge it up.