Lithium Batteries – Does it take more energy to make than you get from using?

 Every new device seems to require more power and that power comes from lithium batteries. But these batteries are made from Lithium which needs huge amounts of energy to extract and other unfriendly materials like Cobalt and Nickel. Typically, Lithium is mined in one of two ways, in the huge salt flats of Chile and Argentina by using enormous amounts of water which has disastrous effects on the local wildlife, or mined as in Australia where the ore needs to be heated to over 1000C using huge amounts of energy, then leached with acid. Even the so-called green lithium found in Cornwall needs deep bore holes to be dug and then the few parts of Lithium extracted from similar materials such as Sodium and Calcium, then extracted with dilute acid. This extraction can be done by selectively sticking the Lithium to special beads. One extracted then Lithium then needs to be turned into Lithium Carbonate and then into the pure metal. The amounts of energy required to do this is often more than the battery can store over its lifetime. One advantage of the system in Cornwall is that the water is hot from the geothermal energy so much of the power required is essentially free once the infrastructure is put in.




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