Science

NNadir

(34,012 posts) Wed Jul 17, 2024, 08:57 PM Jul 17

Lithium Pollution and Its Associated Health Risks in the Largest Lithium Extraction Industrial Area in China

The paper I'll discuss briefly in this post is this one: Lithium Pollution and Its Associated Health Risks in the Largest Lithium Extraction Industrial Area in China Xuezhi Yang, Haonan Wen, Yin Liu, Ying Huang, Qun Zhang, Weichao Wang, Haiyan Zhang, Jianjie Fu, Gang Li, Qian Liu, and Guibin Jiang Environmental Science & Technology 2024 58 (26), 11637-11648.

As I often point out, despite an intractable generally held belief - one can hold beliefs in things that are not true, even if one is relatively sophisticated - that energy storage is "green." Scientific laws are not, however, subject to beliefs, whether the beliefs in question are religious or merely a question of wishful thinking.

This unsupportable belief that storing energy is "green," is a function of the lie that most of the world's energy comes from the reactionary impulse to return to the 19th century and make energy dependent on the weather, precisely at the time we have destabilized the weather by burning fossil fuels because we couldn't depend on the weather. Solar and wind, in particular, are neither sustainable nor are they significant forms of energy. Almost all of the world's batteries are charged using electricity overwhelmingly generated - at a huge thermodynamic cost - by burning fossil fuels and dumping the waste into the planetary atmosphere.

The second law of thermodynamics, particularly in a fossil fuel powered world in which we continue to live, precludes energy storage from being "green." This is because storing energy wastes energy. The word "green" is thrown around in an increasingly sloppy way, so much so that it's basically degenerated into nothing more than a meaningless marketing slogan. It's attached to very dirty scams that act more or less for the dangerous fossil fuel status quo, for instance, "hydrogen," and, of course, the topic here, batteries.

A Giant Climate Lie: When they're selling hydrogen, what they're really selling is fossil fuels.

Besides their energy cost, both embodied and operational, batteries have a material cost. In some sense, I believe they run the risk of being more like the wonderful invention of tetraethyl lead in gasoline which solved the awful problem of "engine knock" with the minor risk of distributing lead through all the world's ecosystems.

I wrote on the "miracle" of tetraethyl lead here: For my 30,000th post...

Regrettably, I won't have much time to dig into the details of the paper cited at the outset, but a few excerpts and comments are warranted:

Under the background of the “carbon neutrality” target, there is a surging demand for lithium (Li) in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). (1−4) Currently, LIBs are considered one of the most promising solutions for energy storage in power grid and electric vehicles. (5−7) The global number of electric vehicles has witnessed significant growth, increasing from a few thousand in 2010 to 11.3 million in 2020, with a projected increase to 142 million by 2030. (8) According to the report of the International Energy Agency (IEA), the proportion of Li used in electric vehicles and energy storage sectors has risen from less than 0.1% in 2010 to 29% in 2020, (9) and this percentage is expected to rapidly rise to 92% by 2040 under the stated policies scenario (SPS). (9) Furthermore, the global demand for Li is anticipated to increase from 73.4 to 1160.7 kt/year (∼40 times) in the SPS from 2020 to 2040. (1) In comparison with the natural processes in the upper Earth’s crust, which account for a global Li flux of 226 kt/year, (10) the anthropogenic input of Li into the environment will have an unprecedented impact on the global Li cycle during the implementation of the carbon neutrality strategy.

Currently, Li is exclusively extracted from hard-rock ores and continental brines. (11,12) Although brine resources contain more abundant Li than Li ores, the extraction process for brine is typically slow due to the lengthy concentration time required through open-air evaporation, ranging from 10 to 24 months depending on the deposit, which is not responsive to rapid changes in market demand. (11) Consequently, the global production of Li from hard-rock ores is rapidly increasing to meet the rising demand for Li to achieve the “carbon neutrality” target. It is estimated that the global Li resource reserve is 22 Mt (metal), with 34% sourced from hard-rock Li ores. (13−15) In recent years, the share of the world’s supply of Li resource from hard-rock ores has reached approximately 44%. (15) Geographically, Li ore resources are concentrated in Australia and China. (16−18) Currently, the leading countries of Li resource mining are Chile, Australia, the USA, Argentina, and China. Among them, China serves as the primary destination for global Li minerals and boasts the largest global yield of Li chemicals, including lithium carbonate (Li2CO3), lithium hydroxide (LiOH), lithium chloride (LiCl), etc. (15) In details, the total production of Li minerals (including ores and brines) and Li chemicals (including Li2CO3, LiOH, and LiCl) in China was 15.0 kt Li carbonate equivalent (LCE) and 61.2 kt LCE, respectively, accounting for 8.7 and 35.4% of the global production of Li minerals and Li chemicals, respectively. (15)...

There is absolutely zero evidence that the growing enthusiasm for batteries, other than in faith based chanting, has anything at all to do with "carbon neutrality." The rapid expansion of the use of batteries is taking place during an unequivocal increase in the rate of atmospheric degradation because of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide. Still we hear this unsupportable association mentioned even in the primary scientific literature. We can lie to each other and lie to ourselves, but numbers don't lie:

A New Record Concentration for CO2, 427.98 ppm Has Been Set for the Mauna Loa CO2 Observatory's Weekly Average.

Things are getting worse faster:

...Of the top 50 highest readings of the difference between weeks of the year with those of the previous year out of the 2517 such data points, 16 have taken place in the last 5 years of which 8 occurred in 2024, 36 in the last 10 years, and 44 in this century. Of the six readings from the 20th century, four occurred in 1998, when huge stretches of the Malaysian and Indonesian rainforests caught fire when slash and burn fires designed to add palm oil plantations to satisfy the demand for "renewable" biodiesel for German cars and trucks as part of their "renewable energy portfolio" went out of control...

(Since April 28, the number of "highest readings" of week to week increases taking place in 21st century has risen by one to 45.)

...I keep a 52 week running average of comparators between the reading of a current week with that of 10 years previous. As of this morning, that average is 24.91 ppm/10 years, the highest such average ever observed. In 2000, when antinuke rhetoric was embraced world wide in favor the reactionary return to the early19th century dependence on the weather for energy, which is what so called "renewable energy" is, that average was 15.21 ppm/10 years.

So much for "carbon neutrality" and battery worship.

Some accounts of the environmental and health risks:

As an emerging and potentially toxic element, Li has been found to be widely distributed in various environmental media, including air, water, and soil. (25−27) It poses potential harm to microorganisms, plants, animals, and humans when present in environmentally relevant concentrations. (27−31) For example, recent research found that even environmentally relevant concentrations of Li can have significant effects on plant development (e.g., soybean) through metabolic reprogramming. (32,33) Additionally, Li has been found to reduce the growth and reproduction of zooplankton (e.g., Daphnia magna) and cause oxidative damage to invertebrates (e.g., earthworm). (34−36) Furthermore, the presence of Li in drinking water can impact human health by inducing abnormalities and dysfunctions through multiple metabolic pathways. (37−42) The US Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) has proposed a provisional reference dose (p-RfD) of 2 μg kg–1 day–1 and a health-based screening level of 10 μg/L for Li in drinking water. (26,43) To regulate the exposure to Li, the Eurasian Economic Union has established a limit of 30 μg/L for Li levels in packaged drinking water, including natural mineral water. (44) Furthermore, there have been widespread reports on the toxicity of other associated toxic elements such as F, Rb, Cs, Zn, and Tl. (42,45−47) Considering their potential toxicity and health effects, it is crucial to investigate the impact of Li extraction activities on the levels of Li and associated components in the environment.

So much for "green."

A graphic on risk in the mining areas:

The caption:

Figure 5. Health risk assessment of Li exposure via multiple exposure pathways. (a) Schematic diagram showing the anthropogenic emission of Li into the river and multiple exposure pathways of Li pollution. (b) Total Li intake via water, fish, and vegetables in different sampling sites. (c) Target hazard quotients (THQs) for Li exposure in different sampling sites. More detailed exposure parameters for human health risk assessment are shown in Table S8.

We have a lot of problems on this planet, but the root of them is selective attention coupled with a big, big, big, big dollop of wishful thinking and denial.

Have a nice day tomorrow.