Abstract
Considering the quest to meet both sustainable development and energy security goals, we explore the ramifications of explosive growth in the global demand for lithium to meet the needs for batteries in plug-in electric vehicles and grid-scale energy storage. We find that heavy dependence on lithium will create energy security risks because China has a dominant position in the lithium supply chain and both Europe and North America seek to curtail reliance on China throughout their supply chains. We also find that efforts to expand lithium mining have been much less successful in Chile, the United States, and Europe than in Australia. Local communities resist licensing of new lithium mines due to a variety of environmental, social, and economic concerns. There are alternative technologies that may make lithium mining more sustainable such as direct lithium extraction, but the timing of commercialization of this process is uncertain. Progress is also being made in battery recycling and in alternative battery designs that do not use lithium. Such advances are unlikely to attenuate the global rate of growth in lithium demand prior to 2030. We conclude that tradeoffs between sustainability and energy security are real, especially in the next decade.
Highlights
Sustainable development (SD) and energy security (ES) are well-recognized concepts.Beginning with the 1987 report of the Bruntland Commission, SD was defined as an obligation to meet the current needs of society without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same
We complement this research by exploring the socioenvironmental impacts of lithium development, especially as they relate to local community acceptance/support of the processes of lithium extraction and processing
The market trends for plug-in electric vehicles and grid-scale energy-storage systems are set to increase the global demand for lithium substantially in the decades ahead
Summary
Beginning with the 1987 report of the Bruntland Commission, SD was defined as an obligation to meet the current needs of society without compromising the ability of future generations to do the same It is the “overarching paradigm of the United Nations”, recognized in official frameworks on climate change, biodiversity, disaster risk reduction, and sustainable consumption and production [1]. It is defined as the “uninterrupted availability of energy sources at an affordable price” and is the central challenge of the International Energy Agency [2]. We explore some technological strategies that might attenuate the sustainability and security risks of lithium mining/processing and their barriers to implementation. The article provides both a narrow and broad intellectual contribution. We draw from—and build upon—a fledgling literature on lithium that is rarely framed in the context of SD and ES [10]
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