Key points
- The webinar, delivered September 23, 2020 to Imperial College London’s Centre for Environmental Policy, presents a yearlong study by Daina Paulikas and Dr. Steven Katona comparing the impacts of sourcing battery metals from land-based ores versus deep-sea polymetallic nodules.
- The analysis models production of 1 billion electric vehicle batteries (NMC811 chemistry, 155 kg of metal per battery) by around 2047, citing a World Bank projection that metal demand will rise 500% by 2050.
- Using land ores for that demand would emit an estimated 1.5 gigatons of CO2 and generate 64 billion tons of waste over 30 years, versus 0.44 gigatons of CO2 for nodules, a reduction of more than two-thirds, with per-metal reductions ranging from 22% to 80% (nickel highest).
- Land mining for the same battery demand would require about 156,000 square kilometers of land, including 66,000 sq km of forest, use 45 billion tons of water, and is projected to cause about 1,800 mining deaths over 30 years.
