Scrutable

Electric cars are being promoted as a way to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and so reduce climate change, but the lithium needed for their batteries comes with a high environmental price. I listened to this BBC podcast on lithium mining in Argentina last year and I've just read this piece in the Guardian about lithium mining in Portugal. It feels like it's always the poorest communities who get screwed over and while I'm in no way advocating for us sticking with fossil fuels, I do worry that, to use the cliché, we're jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

On the one hand, lithium mining is at least smaller scale than fossil fuel mining, and the pollution is more localised than from combusting fossil fuels - maybe a few watersheds become toxic, but not the entire atmosphere of the planet.

On the other, efforts to decarbonise will solve at best one problem: that of carbon emissions. Things like environmental protections and social justice are separate, but interlinked, battles, and unfortunately there's a huge amount of inertia to be overcome in systems like governance, business and I'm increasingly realise simply societal expectations: people are conditioned to accept being shat on as their parents and grandparents were before them.

Fishnut wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 5:10 pm Electric cars are being promoted as a way to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels, and so reduce climate change, but the lithium needed for their batteries comes with a high environmental price. I listened to this BBC podcast on lithium mining in Argentina last year and I've just read this piece in the Guardian about lithium mining in Portugal. It feels like it's always the poorest communities who get screwed over and while I'm in no way advocating for us sticking with fossil fuels, I do worry that, to use the cliché, we're jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.

The best thing we could do is reduce personal car use, reduce the number of cars while making those we keep electric. Mining for lithium will inevitably destroy some hills which isn’t good, but this is like mining for any mineral. If we are also closing coal mines and oil wells then there is probably a net benefit. There are also some places where lithium can potentially be extracted from brines - including in Cornwall - which will be a very low impact way of mining. I hope we find more of these hot lithium springs, it’s certainly the way Tesla are hoping to go although in their case they’re going to inject water and hope to extract brine, which is unproven. It’s not even proven that you can do it economically from a naturally occurring spring yet.

To some extent, meh. We have to make things out of stuff and the stuff has to come from somewhere, so there we will always be an environmental impact. Is a few square kilometres of lithium mine worse than the natural environment destroyed by 120,000 square kilometres of land used to grow corn for bio fuels in the USA? How about the 2 billion tonnes of iron ore extracted from the ground each year, or the 8 billion tonnes of coal, both generally from massive open cast mines. The scale of the problem is tiny in comparison to the problems caused by other things we do. Concentrating on the problems caused by renewables and not comparing it scale to the problems caused by other things strikes me as pearl clutching. Especially when renewables will shut down many of the other things causing bigger problems. I’m not accusing Fishnut of pearl clutching, but many of the people who promote this stuff definitely are. Perfect being the enemy of the good and all.

That said, all mining should be responsible, with appropriate safe guards and post extraction mitigation.

Yes, there certainly is the knowledge to do things like mining in ways that are minimally polluting.

Unfortunately there's very little oversight of the supply chain, and most producers seem not to give a sh.t about things like conflict minerals and illegal mining (the two go hand in hand - loads of indigenous people in the Amazon are killed by miners, for example, with the approval of the current government of Brazil).

So there's certainly room for improvement - for instance, wealthy countries might like to demand a low-pollution, conflict-free supply chain for all goods sold in their market.

Very much so. Sometimes the case can be overstated though. For example the widely reported case of cadmium being mined by children in the Congo. It happens, it’s evil, but it’s also less than 1% of the worlds supply. Which is an argument for better supply chains as you say.

One thing where I do think it might be worth it - but politically very difficult would be some of the proposed Severn Barrage schemes.

If they really could supply 20% of the UK's electricity needs and in a predictable manner - the loss of wetland might be outweighed by the improved carbon footprint.

jimbob wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:39 pm One thing where I do think it might be worth it - but politically very difficult would be some of the proposed Severn Barrage schemes.

If they really could supply 20% of the UK's electricity needs and in a predictable manner - the loss of wetland might be outweighed by the improved carbon footprint.

The loss of wetland is hard to bear for me. Wind farms at sea may have a protective effect to mitigate the damage done to the sea floor by installation, is there any such mitigation from the Severn barrage?

bjn wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:32 pm Very much so. Sometimes the case can be overstated though. For example the widely reported case of cadmium being mined by children in the Congo. It happens, it’s evil, but it’s also less than 1% of the worlds supply. Which is an argument for better supply chains as you say.

And cadmium is used in desulphurising fossil fuels, which is another handy counter to the claim that EVs lead to child labour.

bjn wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:32 pm Very much so. Sometimes the case can be overstated though. For example the widely reported case of cadmium being mined by children in the Congo. It happens, it’s evil, but it’s also less than 1% of the worlds supply. Which is an argument for better supply chains as you say.

I thought it was cobalt in the Congo?

More than 70 percent of the world’s cobalt is produced in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and 15 to 30 percent of the Congolese cobalt is produced by artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM).

https://www.cfr.org/blog/why-cobalt-min ... -attention

Some interesting ideas on fixing supply chains in that article anyway.

jimbob wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:39 pm One thing where I do think it might be worth it - but politically very difficult would be some of the proposed Severn Barrage schemes.

If they really could supply 20% of the UK's electricity needs and in a predictable manner - the loss of wetland might be outweighed by the improved carbon footprint.

It's not just 'politically difficult', it would be a nightmare for biodiversity. It would involve destroying one of the UK's last-remaining large and important wetlands, in breach of all sorts of international conventions. Wetlands are much more effective at sequestering carbon than forest, and the UK should be aiming to restore and expand them rather than submerge them.

It would be good if solutions to the climate emergency don't accelerate the biodiversity crisis IMHO.

Gah, yes, cobalt. Brian fail.

bjn wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 2:54 am Gah, yes, cobalt. Brian fail.

Likewise, I was led astray your honour.

Bird on a Fire wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 10:29 pm

jimbob wrote: Thu Dec 10, 2020 8:39 pm One thing where I do think it might be worth it - but politically very difficult would be some of the proposed Severn Barrage schemes.

If they really could supply 20% of the UK's electricity needs and in a predictable manner - the loss of wetland might be outweighed by the improved carbon footprint.

It's not just 'politically difficult', it would be a nightmare for biodiversity. It would involve destroying one of the UK's last-remaining large and important wetlands, in breach of all sorts of international conventions. Wetlands are much more effective at sequestering carbon than forest, and the UK should be aiming to restore and expand them rather than submerge them.

It would be good if solutions to the climate emergency don't accelerate the biodiversity crisis IMHO.

You guys need to read up on the preferred options, which are much smaller self-contained tidal lagoons that don't cut off the whole channel.

And you all need to read e.g. Mark Lynas and bone up on the EcoModernism movement which points out that without ongoing and extensive interference with the natural world we'd all drown, starve and murder each other. Therefore we've got to accept that the compromises are real and get out of these stupid silos of "business vs environment" or "nature vs people" or whatever.

Otherwise we'll just repeat the non-successes of the traditional environmental movement over the last century or so.

plodder wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:47 am And you all need to read e.g. Mark Lynas and bone up on the EcoModernism movement which points out that without ongoing and extensive interference with the natural world we'd all drown, starve and murder each other.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

"Save the environment" seems to mean "maintain the environment in such a way that it remains comfortable for humans to inhabit" whereas I think the best thing for the environment is for humans to f.ck off out of it.

Eventually, yes, sort of. Actually, no. IABMCTT.

We've made such a mess / had such a huge influence that the environment actually needs active management in many cases in order to stop things getting worse. An easy example is pumps that prevent toxic mine contaminants getting into aquifers. It's a good idea if people keep an eye on landfill gas to stop them exploding and potentially causing significant pollution. It's a good idea to inspect and maintain oil storage facilities, old oil wells, uranium mines etc.

You can't just rewild that sh.t and expect the birds and bees to thank you, you'd end up with toxic wastelands. The hippy thinking that says the earth would be perfectly fine without us is bollocks, we're in much deeper sh.t than that.

shpalman wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:00 pm

plodder wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:47 am And you all need to read e.g. Mark Lynas and bone up on the EcoModernism movement which points out that without ongoing and extensive interference with the natural world we'd all drown, starve and murder each other.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

"Save the environment" seems to mean "maintain the environment in such a way that it remains comfortable for humans to inhabit" whereas I think the best thing for the environment is for humans to f.ck off out of it.

You first.

bjn wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:22 pm

shpalman wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 12:00 pm

plodder wrote: Fri Dec 11, 2020 11:47 am And you all need to read e.g. Mark Lynas and bone up on the EcoModernism movement which points out that without ongoing and extensive interference with the natural world we'd all drown, starve and murder each other.

You say that like it's a bad thing.

"Save the environment" seems to mean "maintain the environment in such a way that it remains comfortable for humans to inhabit" whereas I think the best thing for the environment is for humans to f.ck off out of it.

You first.

Well, for example, I haven't created any more humans.