In pictures: #SouthAmerica's 'LithiumFields' reveal the dark side of our electric future

By Maeve Campbell
Published on 01/02/2022

"Lithium extraction fields in South America have been captured by an aerial photographer in stunning high definition.

"But while the images may be breathtaking to look at, they represent the dark side of our swiftly electrifying world.

"Lithium represents a route out of our reliance on #FossilFuel production. As the lightest known metal on the planet, it is now widely used in electric devices from mobile phones and laptops, to cars and aircraft.

"#LithiumIon batteries are most famous for powering electric vehicles, which are set to account for up to 60 per cent of new car sales by 2030. The battery of a #Tesla Model S, for example, uses around 12 kg of lithium.

"These batteries are the key to lightweight, rechargeable power. As it stands, demand for lithium is unprecedented and many say it is crucial in order to transition to #renewables.

"However, this doesn't come without a cost - mining the chemical element can be harmful to the environment.

"German aerial photographer Tom Hegen specialises in documenting the traces we leave on the earth's surface. His work provides an overview of places where we extract, refine and consume resources with his latest series exposing the '#LithiumTriangle.'

"This region rich with natural deposits can be found where the borders of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia meet. And roughly a quarter is stored in the Salar de Atacama salt flats in northern Chile."

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/02/01/south-america-s-lithium-fields-reveal-the-dark-side-of-our-electric-future

#EVs #LithiumAlternatives #RecycleLithium #NoLithiumMining #NoMiningWithoutConsent #LithiumProcessing #WaterIsLife #NatureIsLife #HydrogenFuelCells #SodiumIonBatteries

#SodiumBatteries offer an alternative to tricky #lithium

Lithium is relatively scarce and mostly refined in China. Sodium is neither

Oct 26th 2023

Excerpt: "Fortunately, lithium is not the only game in town. As we report this week, a clutch of firms are making batteries based on sodium, lithium’s elemental cousin. Since sodium’s chemical properties are very similar to those of lithium, it too makes for good batteries. And sodium, which is found in the salt in seawater, is thousands of times more abundant on Earth than lithium and cheaper to get at. Most of the companies using sodium to make batteries today are also Chinese. But pursuing the technology in the West might be a surer route to energy security than relying heavily on lithium.

"Besides its abundance, sodium has other advantages. The best lithium batteries use #cobalt and 3nickel in their electrodes. Nickel, like lithium, is in short supply. #Mining it on land is #environmentally destructive. Proposals to grab it from the #seabed instead have caused rows. A good deal of the world’s cobalt, meanwhile, is extracted from small mines in the Democratic Republic of #Congo, where child labour is common and working conditions are dire. Sodium batteries, by contrast, can use electrodes built from iron and manganese, which are plentiful and uncontroversial. Since the chemical components are cheap, a scaled-up industry should be able to produce batteries that cost less than their lithium counterparts.

"Sodium is not a perfect replacement for lithium. It is heavier, meaning sodium batteries will weigh more than lithium ones of an equivalent capacity. That is likely to rule them out in some cases where lightness is paramount. But for other applications, such as grid storage or home batteries, weight is irrelevant. Several Chinese carmakers are even beginning to put sodium batteries in electric vehicles.

"Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of sodium batteries is their late start. #LithiumIon batteries were first commercialised in the 1990s and have benefited from decades of investment. But the rest of the world is behind China on both fronts anyway. America and the European Union have announced enormous programmes of green industrial subsidies. If they are determined to bankroll batteries, some of the pot should go to sodium."

Read more:
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/10/26/sodium-batteries-offer-an-alternative-to-tricky-lithium

Archived version:
https://archive.ph/7x6JX#

#SolarPunkSunday #DeepSeaMining #NoLithiumMining #LeaveItInTheOcean #LeaveItInTheOcean #LithiumAlternatives #SodiumBatteries #RenewablesNow

#Diné Youth at #WorldWaterWeek in Sweden 2024

#BlackMesa youth travel to Stockholm, Sweden, for World Water Week to share the need to protect our water in the face of #FalseSolutions and #ClimateChange.

by Adrian Herder, Media/Community Organizer, #CensoredNews
[email protected]

FLAGSTAFF, Arizona – "On Friday, August 23, 2024, members of #TóNizhóníÁní traveled to Stockholm, Sweden, for World Water Week 2024, an international leading conference on global water issues organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute. Earlier this year, Tó Nizhóní Ání was invited to attend World Water Week 2024 and asked to be on a panel on #GreenColonialism. The #Sámi national youth organization, #Sáminuorra, organized this panel. Given this panel's #Indigenous youth focus, Tó Nizhóní Ání took this opportunity to fund raise and send a delegation of Diné (#Navajo) youth from the Black Mesa region to represent and speak on this topic.

"During the panel on Green Colonialism, #JarenNumkena, Diné youth from Black Mesa, spoke on his upbringing as a farmer, the history of his family as a #coal-impacted community member, and the proposed projects on and near Black Mesa, such as the #BlackMesaPumpedStorageProject and the #HydrogenPipeline. As our nation moves to alternative forms of energy, we must do so in a way that does not use or impact our water on the #NavajoNation, which is why we need #solar and #wind energy."

Read more:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/09/dine-youth-at-world-water-week-in.html

#WaterIsLife #WaterProtectors #RenewablesNow #Greenwashing #NoMiningWithoutConsent #RecycleCopper #LithiumAlternatives #PeabodyCoal #PeabodyEnergy #CorporateColonialism #ProtectTheSacred #ProtectMotherEarth #ReaderSupportedNews