Key points
- DeepGreen CEO Gerard Barron tells Yale/Brown lecturer Cary Krosinsky that the green transition could come at a very heavy environmental price if metals keep coming from land-based mining.
- The company’s analysis covers full lifecycle carbon sequestration, CO2 emissions and biodiversity impacts of land-based metal sourcing.
- EV battery cathodes rely heavily on nickel, cobalt and manganese; there are currently six to seven million electric vehicles on the road, a number expected to exceed one billion by 2040.
- Barron argues this new demand requires rethinking the source of supply, since continuing to rely on land-based mining could leave the world worse off than before the green transition began.
