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Meeting the ambitious targets necessary to avert climate catastrophe will require scaling up our use of low-carbon energy sources. These solar, wind, and battery technologies, including electric vehicle (EV) batteries, currently rely on minerals such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, graphite, and rare earths which are almost exclusively mined or extracted from the ground at great cost to the environment and communities.
A new report from the Rocky Mountain Institute challenges claims that the energy transition is yoked to more mining, which just replaces one harmful form of extraction with another. Their research affirms what Earthworks and allied organizations have been saying for several years: that a just and rights-based energy transition is not only essential, but eminently achievable, ensuring the benefits of low-emission transport are equitably shared and do not disproportionately impact vulnerable communities.
In order to achieve this, we must transition from our current, fossil fuel-based linear model of extract, burn, repeat, to a circular model built around efficiency and recycling. And as the RMI report indicates, such a closed loop model could indeed end the need for new mineral extraction for renewable energy technologies by 2050. Success will require improvements in battery technology, vehicle efficiency and non-car transportation, along with—critically—the buildout of the infrastructure necessary to reuse, repurpose and recycle EV batteries. In turn, recycling and disassembly must be done responsibly, respecting the health and safety of communities and workers and minimizing toxicity.
In such a system, battery minerals can be reused almost indefinitely, unlike fossil fuels. But it will only work if we focus on bending that linear model into a circle.
RMI’s research reinforces and expands on the findings of the 2021 report by the University of Technology, Sydney’s Institute for Sustainable Futures that found that a significant portion of the lithium, nickel, cobalt and copper needs for EV batteries globally could be met by secondary sources. According to that research, effectively recycling end-of-life batteries could reduce global EV mineral demand 55% for newly mined copper, 25% for lithium and 35% for cobalt and nickel by 2040一even with the most ambitious 100% renewable targets worldwide.
RMI’s report goes one step further. It finds that by 2050 we can eliminate our need for new mined minerals for batteries altogether. It won’t necessarily be easy—we have a lot of work to do to get there—but it’s encouraging to see hard numbers showing it can be done. What happens between now and 2050? The answer to this question is of huge significance for the thousands of communities living near mine sites around the world, in particular Indigenous communities, given that half of all battery minerals are likely to be extracted from the lands and territories of Indigenous Peoples.
We must ensure that the lands, sacred sites, languages, livelihoods, water, food systems, medicine and cultures of Indigenous Peoples and communities living near mining operations do not become sacrifice zones in the name of mining or electrified transit. The only way to do that is to build a system in which the majority of our minerals needs come from the re-use and recycling of minerals, greater materials efficiency, and a closed-loop, circular materials system. What minerals are newly extracted would meet stringent environmental and social requirements, such as those laid out by the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance. It’s the only way to guarantee our clean energy economy is truly clean一as well as just and sustainable.
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