Is Lithium the new gold?

I learnt all about lithium batteries so you don’t have to, here are the basics:

• Lithium ion - used in phones, laptops, wearable tech & disposable vapes and can store a lot of energy in small space but it’s bad for environment, dangerous and hard to dispose of

• Lithium iron phosphate - used in boats, solar systems & electric cars, larger than lithium ion but still lightweight. It’s said to be good for the environment as they contain no heavy metals and rare metals, non-toxic and non-polluting

Lithium iron phosphate batteries hold charge for longer and don't explode as much as Lithium ion. They last longer in general hence the new battery of choice for electric vehicles (Tesla made the switch from Lithium ion to Lithium iron phosphate recently). More science on the differences here but long story short Lithium iron phosphate is the new found sustainable answer to the battery problem, both require mining & extracting lithium and other raw materials to produce them and as a result of this:

• The global demand for Lithium is now so high by 2050 we would need to increase supply by a factor of 15-20 to meet the demand for 200 million electric vehicles an increase of almost 500% in production

• The environmental impact of extracting lithium and the raw materials to create it can include oil degradation, water shortages, biodiversity loss, damage to ecosystem functions and an increase in global warming

• Mining Lithium has all manner of ethical problems, the biggest suppliers are Australia, Chile, Argentina, China, Namibia, Zimbabwe, there’s no guarantee these countries are making sure no one is being taken advantage of in the supply chain. We have been aware of children mining cobalt for lithium ion for many years and Chile is using so much water to extract lithium it is leaving local communities in drought 

• It takes five years of driving an electric vehicle to offset the carbon footprint created of mining the lithium and raw materials for the battery

Ultimately, Lithium iron phosphate = good and will pay off in the long run

However they need to figure out how to extract/mine in a sensible way without damaging the environment and making sure local communities are also protected during this Lithium rush. The electric vehicle (EV) industry is young & as the space develops should resolve some of these problems as well the bigger questions of disposing and recycling Lithium batteries, these unresolved problems are million, possibly billion dollar questions. (Get you or your kids on project Lithium asap!!)

In other ESG news:

Jaguar Land Rover plans to be an all electric business by 2025

EY and IBM have decided to collaborate on developing ESG solutions

Deloitte has introduced GreenLight Solution, an enterprise decarbonisation Software as a Service (SaaS) platform

Jeremy Hunt announced in last week's budget that the UK is allocating £20 billion to carbon capture technology technology, as well as increasing nuclear capacity.

This chaotic YouTube review of a Tesla