Talk:Environmental impacts of lithium-ion batteries

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 24 August 2021 and 17 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Vita Gu.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:51, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 October 2021 and 9 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Amber MWY.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:51, 18 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The claim in Extraction: "It is estimated that 500,000 gallons of water is used to mine one metric ton of lithium." is grossly incorrect in more than one ways.
 * First, the reference for that figure contains this: "Approximately 500,000 gallons are used to produce one tonne of lithium. In Chile's Salar de Atacama, mining activities consume 65% of the area’s water. In a region where annual rainfall is less than 15 millimetres per year, the activity depletes already scarce water resources that local communities and species depend on."
 * First, lithium mining in the Atacama desert uses 'brine' which cannot be used for for consumption or agriculture.  Note that the referenced article does not say water or brine, but one cannot get Li out of plain water.
 * Second, given the Li content of the Atacama brine (0.15%), 146,778 gallons of brine will contain 1T of lithium (assuming a brine density of 1.2g/ml), and since about 70% of the brine is water and 30% is various salts and other compounds, the water content of that brine is roughly 102,775 gallons, almost 1/5 of the number claimed. (some additional water is needed during processing, but nowhere near to the number claimed)
 * Reference: https://danwatch.dk/en/undersoegelse/how-much-water-is-used-to-make-the-worlds-batteries/   numbers from the "What is brine?" section. 24.18.45.241 (talk) 09:07, 9 May 2022 (UTC)

Chile seems to not be the worlds leading producer according to the reference given.
The statement "With the world's leading country in production of lithium being Chile," supplies the reference https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2020/12/13/the-worlds-top-lithium-producers/?sh=4c125c975bc6

Which pretty much says the complete opposite. Australia has aggressively developed its lithium reserves, and production jumped nearly 170% in 2018 to put Australia firmly in first place globally. In 2019, the world’s Top 5 lithium producers were: Australia - 52.9% of global production Chile - 21.5% ... 161.29.24.79 (talk) 19:06, 23 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Following up on some of the other numbers, the water usage seems mightily suspect given the claim of 65% of the regions water being used for lithium production combined with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_lithium_production would suggest that the increase in production is now using more than 100% of the water.     So either the figure of 65% is not accurate, water use is now much more efficient, or it is a regionally specific property and not representative of the industry as a whole.   Any of these options would mean the 65% figure creates a misleading account of the global environmental impact of lithium mining.
 * I'm rather hesitant to edit the article myself because it looks to be a house of cards and once you start removing one it seems like the entire section needs to be redone. 161.29.24.79 (talk) 19:23, 23 October 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ERTH 4303 Resources of the Earth
— Assignment last updated by Starkrobin (talk) 19:22, 1 March 2024 (UTC)

Changes to current article
Hello, I will be adding a bit of content to this article as well as rearranging the layout of it to make it a bit more organized and concise (in my opinion). I have added quite a few sources as well which are all academic and peer-reviewed sources that I found mostly through either JSTOR or my university's online library. If there is any errors or mistakes that somehow slid by without me noticing or anything at all that I can fix, please let me know, I'd love to hear some feedback. Brettellier (talk) 23:36, 10 April 2024 (UTC)


 * @Brettellier Excellent - also maybe some detail here should be moved to Battery recycling? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:00, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Scope of article and meaning of “environmental impact”?
@Brettellier I am not an academic so you probably know better than me the academic definition of “environmental impact”.

Should the article mention good impacts such as the global reduction in smoke from burning fuel?

Should the article discuss the balance between good and bad impacts? Chidgk1 (talk) 10:15, 13 April 2024 (UTC)