[Music] the electric car industry is scouring the Earth for battery metals from lithium in the Chilean Salt Flats to Nickel in Indonesian rainforests to valuable metals on the deep sea floor China the US and Europe are engaged in a resource arms race that stretches around the globe to try to meet skyrocketing demand but extracting those raw materials comes at a cost which can include scarred land Scapes toxic pollution and dangerous working conditions there's no question combustion engines are a problem they emit hazardous fumes and a fifth of yearly Global greenhouse gas emissions electric cars are promising to change all that experts say the benefits of EVS outweigh the costs but where do battery Metals come from and what is mining them doing to the planet your average consumer EV has over six times as much mineral content as a petrol vehicle most of that goes towards the massive battery pack each one is made up of thousands of cells it's here that lithium ions move back and forth between an anode and a cathode as the battery charges up and then Powers the vehicle this is where you'll find many of the minerals at the center of today's mining boom change the mix of metals here and you change the car's performance including its range and charging speed and each metal has its own story what I found was the hidden Supply chains behind all this were dominated uh by China but they also involved a lot of tradeoffs environmental impacts and a huge need for minerals this is Henry Sanderson his book Vault Rush looks at how the race to go green has upended Global Supply chains and and transformed Landscapes like in Chile's atakama desert what struck me when I went there was just the sheer size of these pools in the middle of the desert locked away in these vast Salt Flats is a lightweight metal used in nearly all EV batteries lithium the silvery white mineral is the world's lightest metal and can be found in rocks clay and saltwater more than half of the global lithium resources are in the soal lithium triangle in Bolivia Chile and Argentina lithium here is stored in Underground Salt Water called brine billions of gallons of it are pumped to the surface every year where it is left to evaporate the lithium from Chile hat has a low carbon footprint cuz it's using the energy from the Sun the more yellow the pond the higher the concentration it can take more than 1,000 gallons of brine to produce enough lithium for just one electric car battery two companies control the right to operate here American albal and Chilean sqm in 2021 they exported more than $890 Million worth and satellite imagery shows how their mining operations have transformed the landscape it can take around 18 months for the brine to move under Gravity through the series of ponds the lithium Rich salts are then loaded into trucks and then taken to a processing plant near the coast where they're purified into battery grade lithium pumps suck out enough brine to fill an Olympic swimming pool every 20 minutes and the factories that process the salts draw fresh water from underground aquifers water usage is of course a sensitive issue here in the desert in some areas of the atakama rainfall has never once been recorded horor Munos Koka is a member of the local Atek meno indigenous [Music] Community Chilean mining company sqm has run into trouble with environmental regulators for extracting too much Brine and fresh water in an email to Business Insider sqm said it aims to be watered neutral by 2030 as it switches to desalination plants and more efficient lithium extraction technology in neighboring Bolivia Chinese and Russian companies are investing nearly $3 billion in an array of new lithium plants but they're gambling on a relatively unproven set of Technologies called DL l e or direct lithium extraction instead of waiting for water to evaporate from brine this approach draws out the lithium using a range of chemical or heat-based processes it can take only a few hours but it's unclear how water or energy intensive these processes will be with foreign mining companies moving in locals like abdon Morales are worried about the precious water supply that well was good he's disillusioned after years of high hopes for Bolivia's lithium industry a pilot plant was open 60 mi from his home in 2013 promising jobs and prosperity but Bolivia lacked the technical nohow to scale up and the jobs never came abdon is not against lithium mining he just wants any company coming in to extract the metal to be open and honest as of 2021 there were 21 lithium mining operations globally industry experts estimate it could take hundreds more to meet demand lithium isn't the only thirsty industry in the atakama desert Chile is also the world's largest producer of copper a highly conductive metal and another key ingredient in EV batteries an electric car can contain over 80 kg of the metal more than twice the amount used in cars with an internal combustion engine in each battery cell copper foil placed over the negative end or the anode acts as a bridge to the outer circuit allowing electricity to flow through the car it's also of course used in a car's wiring and electric motor the existing mines in places like Chile they've been going for for decades so they are coming close to the end of their lives so we need new copper mines finding and developing a new copper mine can take years and billions of dollars most copper mines look like this vast open pits where the rock is blasted out of the Earth with a explosives leaving behind stepped walls that can plunge half a mile into the Earth in many cases these pits remain long after the mine has shut down this one in but Montana closed down in the 1980s and the pumps that would normally keep water out were shut down the liquid you see is in fact a bath of acids and heavy metals leeched from the surrounding Rock in 2016 over 3,000 geese died soon after landing on the lake now workers have to keep aroundthe clock vigil scaring away migratory birds with gunshots lasers even drones if Birds land here and start drinking the toxic brew it can cause organ failure it's Mark Mariano's mission to make sure that doesn't happen yeah Mark Mariano water foul protection specialist we invented that title but it it fits these are propane cannons and they fire all day they mimic gunfire which a lot of the birds are scared of for obvious reasons on special occasions the birds might get their own private fireworks display this is a kind of a last resort we know you know something big would be coming we've used them twice this acid lake is an extreme outcome but there's evidence toxic waste rock has contaminated soil near copper mines around the world as the EV Market continues to grow so does the demand for copper although design improvements mean that less will be needed per vehicle in the years to come meanwhile the US still has considerable copper reserves as does Chile and the likes of Australia and Peru other battery metals are not so well distributed like Cobalt the metal is a popular choice for battery makers because it withstands high temperatures and doesn't corrode easily it goes in the cathode of the most common battery type nmc and just one African nation is responsible for producing over 70% of the world's Cobalt the Democratic Republic of Congo is the Saudi Arabia of Kobo or much more than that in fact they really have a very uniquely dominant position mining here has exploded since 2000 driven largely by Chinese investment between 15 and 30% of the Cobalt or comes from artisanal mines meaning low Tech informal mining operations miners use whatever tools they have available often without protective equipment miners here dig shafts into the Earth and rock to reach seams of cobalt the tunnels are cut by hand and have been known to collapse and kill w jier has been working in these mines for 22 years wow wow wow wow wow wow team of three others work here they cut chunks of or from the walls and later haul their load back up to the surface miners take the rocks to a local Depot where they are assessed and weighed one dung can earn between $2 and $300 a week the price can change on a daily basis depending on the value of cobalt on the global market he says he makes enough money to support his family hundreds of thousands of people work in drc's artisanal Cobalt mining sector men tend to work as Miners and Traders while women find work processing The Ore Clarice says this site follows strict rules but over the years human rights groups have also raised the alarm about child labor at unregulated mining sites a 2016 Amnesty International naal report found thousands of children working as artisanal miners the amnesty report really opened a lot of people's eyes to what was actually going on in the DRC and the extent of abuses most companies had little idea about where they got their Cobalt or or what was going on some manufacturers Look To Source their Cobalt from large industrial operations instead these mines are big operations fenced off secured big big processing plants big open fit mines but these mines haven't been without their problems either satellite imagery shows how massive mining pits have consumed large parts of kisi in the south of the country another amnesty report this time focusing on large Chinese and European run mining operations in the DRC details how residents have been forced from their homes to make room for the pits in some some cases residents were physically assaulted and even had their houses set on fire locals say hundreds of homes have disappeared meanwhile artisanal mining hasn't gone away and many don't want it to human rights groups say that improving working conditions at these mines is a better approach than trying to outlaw them all together and it's difficult for battery or car manufacturers to know which type of mine the Cobalt comes from since the ores mixed together at refining plants almost all of the drc's Cobalt ends up in China where it has helped put around 14 million EVS on its roads way more than Europe and the Us in fact the DRC has a long history of foreign countries benefiting from its riches over 100 years ago Belgian colonizers scoured the vast country for its mineral wealth later other Western Powers relied on the country for minerals used in military aircraft without strategic materials and by strategic materials I mean ones like Cobalt we really couldn't make a jet engine today the metallic element is used in things like paints Alloys and batteries conventional combustion engine Vehicles don't use any the mining boom driven largely by EVS has transformed the drc's economy as well but the majority of congales people are not feeling the benefit of the country's mineral riches economists call it the resource curse we we've seen countries who have been blessed with natural resources that often it's Elites that benefit you get these booms where they're actually more destructive than than beneficial that's partly because minerals like Cobalt gain value as they move through the supply chain from ore to refined metals to batteries it's difficult for many resourcer countries to have the infrastructure the energy the chemicals Etc that that's needed to produce processed products but whether processed at home or abroad the amount of cobalt used in the most common EV battery nmc is going down from 1/3 of the cathode to just 10% the tradeoff means using more nickel and 6 half thousand mil away one country is poised to benefit massively from that change Indonesia is the world's largest nickel producer and it's just going to extend that lead this decade unlike the DRC see Indonesia receives far more investment from foreign mining firms and car makers including from China the US and Korea for things like refineries and Battery plants helping it hold on to more of the supply chain the country's leaders banned nearly all nickel exports after Decades of shipping it off to foreign stainless steel plants with little economic gain to show for it now they're saying well we've got all the process nickel here why don't you come build your battery Factory in Indonesia and then they're saying why don't you build your electric vehicle Factory nickel mining in Indonesia is concentrated on the resourcer island of sui where mineral extraction is increasingly coming into conflict with nearby agriculture these are clove farms and some locals say mining companies have forcibly cleared their lands now they Patrol the land themselves armed and ready to defend their crops meanwhile pollution from the mines has washed into the sea visible here on the left and it's having a direct impact on [Music] fishing so far the vast majority of nickel coming out of Indonesia has gone to make stainless steel not batteries that's because most of the country's ore has low nickel content but Indonesia wants a larger piece of the EV pie and plans to scale up a process called High Press acid leeching this technique can transform lowgrade or into the kind of nickel useful to the EV battery industry but it uses hot sulfuric acid and can leave behind hazardous waste that can cause environmental destruction if not properly stored the Eastern side of the Indonesian archipelago is inside what's known as the coral triangle an area with more diverse marine life than anywhere else on the planet and the nation as a whole is home to more than a tenth of the world's mammal species and nearly a fifth of all bird species environmental concerns have given some investors PA in 2022 Indonesian officials said Tesla would soon invest $5 billion in local nickel processing but an open letter from environmental groups to CEO Elon Musk called for an end to all nickel investments in the country it sites water and air pollution land grabbing and systemic large-scale environmental damage the deal didn't go through and Tesla switched its standard ranged vehicles to a nickel free variety the Indonesian government says it will improve environmental monitoring at mining sites but operations aren't likely to scale down anytime soon Indonesia is the nickel producer to watch this decade and we won't have in many cases electric vehicles without Indonesia 72,000 miles away on the west coast of Africa Gabon is busy mining another key ingredient in EV battery cathodes manganese a company called kog owned by French mining interests has operated here since 1951 leading to massive population growth and development the company says it's invested millions of dollars in Social projects that improve access to education and water but some locals say they've been left behind EC meanwhile the government is counting on mining for manganes iron and gold as it tries to transition away from an oilbased economy right now the majority of gabon's Manganese is used for making steel not EV batteries but EV demand for the metal could grow Eightfold by 2030 there is one place where manganese nickel and Cobalt can all be found together and it's not on land but within potato siiz rocks lying more than 2 miles below the ocean's surface they're called poly metallic nodules and there could be billions of tons of them in the ocean a Canadian startup called the metals company wants to be the first to cash in on a test run in 2022 it scooped up what the founder says is the world's biggest Hall yet this is history I've never stood in this no one has no one Gerard Baron is on a decade long quest to mine the Deep his last Venture ran out of money I wanted to do something that was near impossible you know I was pretty sure that if I didn't do this then it may not move forward and that would be a travesty the technology is available to collect these rocks at a commercial scale here's how it works works the ship lowers a collector vehicle into the water the Prototype weighs 90 tons and is about the size of a mini buus all the way to the copy operators Drive The Collector remotely from inside the control roomes each vehicle has four nozzles and sensors that adjust their positions they hover just above the seabed and the noil that are laying there are sucked into the nozzle they work kind like a vacuum cleaner the machine also collects the top few cenm of mud internal pumps separate that from the rocks and shoot some of the sediment back out next air bubbles push rocks mud and sea water up a tube that can extend up to 2 and 1/2 mil after about 12 minutes the slurry reaches the surface here a Whirlpool uses gravity to separate the nodules from water and sediment nodules are found in flat soft parts of the deep ocean floor around the world one of the most promising nodule Fields is in the claran clipon zone a stretch of Pacific Ocean Floor about as wide as the continental United States a promotional video for the metals company calls this mining area a vast underwater desert but even deserts have life in them and this stretch of seaf Flor does too recent Expeditions have found a neverbe seen octopus a swarm of eels eating bait plus sea cucumbers fish and species not found anywhere else no matter how careful the miners are some environmental impact is impossible to avoid we can't really predict the scale of species extinctions that would come from that much mining but there's reason to think it could be significant we don't actually know enough yet to understand B's impact and therefore the costs deep sea mining in international waters is regulated by the international seabed Authority by the end of 2023 it had granted exploration contracts to 31 companies and governments it takes a different type of contract to mine the sea floor at commercial scale and no one has one of those yet if all goes according to plans the metals company aims to build processing centers at ports that will melt and refine the Rocks the nodules wouldn't leave behind tons of waste rock like other ores do we generate zero waste and zero tailings we don't have the risk of any child labor we can commercially pick up these rocks and help stop some of the terrible deforestation of our most biodiverse habitats on land however it's not clear yet whether Ventures like this can scale and experts say there's no evidence landbased mining would go away or even decline if seaf Flor mining takes off you'll just end up with a situation that you are going to have increased ecological harm on land and then at Sea as well one mineral that can't be found in nodules but makes up the largest part of any EV battery is graphite it's used in the anode or negative end of each battery cell most CVS use synthetic graphite derived from coal but there's still demand for natural graphite which is cheaper and China is the world's largest producer of both the country produces 70% of the world's mined graphite but in 2023 announced it was restricting exports the move spooked foreign EV makers who are wary of their overreliance on Chinese Supply as the world races to find a more diverse Supply countries like Sri Lanka are hoping to cash in the country is home to what's called vain graphite the purest natural form of the element but at the moment Sri Lankan graphite is mainly used for steel making and as an industrial lubricant and working in the mines is difficult and dangerous Neil sish abisara has worked in kataha Sri Lanka's biggest graphite mine for 11 years it Des ends 2,000 ft the deepest in the [Music] country to mine the graphite Neil and his colleagues use drills and explosives working so far underground can make it hard to breathe the work exposes miners to toxic air particles putting them at risk of lung diseases like pneumoconiosis but if the lift breaks or the power is cut the only way out is this ladder about 60 workers earn a living from the mine here in kaha but it's not much in January 2020 Mine Workers went on a hunger strike for increased wages for the first time since 2012 the government gave workers an increase of just 50 rupees a day that's 3 us cents promising to meet other demands in the future but those needs have still not been met with more Modern Machinery Sri Lanka could be well placed to tap into the huge demand for graphite from the EV industry miners here just hope they won't be left [Music] behind whether on land or at Sea every form of mining comes with tradeoffs after extraction and refining battery Metals head to gigafactories like this one at the moment they roll off the assembly line EVS have a carbon footprint about 30% larger than internal combustion engine cars on average however that begins to change as soon as you start the engine because driving an Eevee has no direct emissions they still have a lower climate impact over their lifetime even if they're charged with electricity that comes from fossil [Music] fuels reducing greenhouse gases is the number one tool humans have to fight the climate crisis which is displacing people and threatening many species as EVS enter the mainstream Consumer Power Sanderson says will likely Force car manufacturers and mining companies to clean up their acts consumers I think are are in a powerful position because electric vehicles are still relatively new to many people supposed to be a better product people care more about where all the materials come from so that that's helping to drive change meanwhile one of the best ways to clean up the EV supply chain is by minimizing the need for mining in the first place which means reusing and recycling as much as possible a handful of startups use endof life EV batteries for large scale energy storage fields of lithium ion batteries which will be an essential part of scaling up wind and solar power and recycling rates for battery metals are are trending upwards the US Europe and Asia have seen massive public and private investment in recycling infrastructure getting the minerals out of the complex battery cells is its own puzzle crushing or shredding the batteries is risky because they can catch fire under pressure a company called Lys cycle says its process addresses that issue the team built a machine that slices batteries into confetti like shreds while keeping them submerged in liquid without oxygen there's no fires that liquid also helps separate the plastic which many recyclers just burn away what is left is metallic foil so behind me we're bagging that metallic foil and we sell this for the copper content as well as the precious metals and black mass Black Mass contains the nickel the Cobalt manganese graphite lithium Etc as recycling operations like this scale up recovered Metals could eventually account for about half of the amount of cobalt and nickel the world uses but that might not happen until the year 2050 by then investments in public transportation and greater awareness of the climate crisis will possibly have even brought about a less car Centric world but while the car continues to be king Sanderson says the electrification of Transit is essential we shouldn't let the perfect be the enemy of the good and it Pals in comparison to the destruction wreaked on the planet by our addiction to fossil fuels and that we need to make this [Music] [Music] shift [Music] oh