Lithium Mining.... Poor countries suck up the pollution while the EU benefits...?
Lithium is an essential component in Europe's green energy transition: electric car batteries rely on it!
At present most of it comes from China and Australia, but the EU is now eying up a new source: Serbia has enough Lithium to provide 90% of the EU's supply.
Most of this Lithium lies under the fertile banks of the Jadar river in the west of the country, and in recent weeks Serbs have turned out in their thousands to protest plans by Rio Tinto to open Europe's largest lithium mine. This site would span 220 hectares and extract 58 000 tonnes of lithium a year.
Rio Tinto have been buying up houses in the local area for years in anticipation of being granted a mining licence, and Serbia's president, Aleksander Vucic has recently done just this.
The problem with Lithium extraction is that it tends to poison local water supplies, aside from the aesthetic damage, so this almost certainly isn't in the interest of the local populations.
Serbia's media is controlled by the President and it is branding any protestors as fascisist or anarchists.
Western EU Hypocrites...?
This seems to be a case of the wealthy strong arming the poor, forcing them to bear the costs of the pollution to be cause by large scale mining.
Austria, for example, also has large reserves of Lithium, as does Portugal, but i guess it's a case of less authoritarian countries in which ordinary people have more power bringing more effective pressure to bear to prevent mining taking place in those countries.
It strikes me that if it's mainly the wealthy in Western Europe who are going to benefit from the raw material, they should damn well mine their own reserves first, and put more time and money into making sure the mining is done with as little environmental impact as possible.
I get that it's cheaper with economies of scale to set up in those areas where there is MORE lithium, so I guess we can justify this on those grounds, but, still, this really doesn't sit very well with me!
Posted Using InLeo Alpha
Congratulations @revisesociology! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts:
We need a very well structured decentralised governance system, by the people for the people. Once we have such a system in place & proven to work well in large groups, very many local & world problems can be solved.
#matrix8fixesthis
We certainly need to change something!
In Portugal they are trying to open and expand a mine that would cover vast swats of agricultural land and would displace animals and people... this is something the locals really oppose.
I'm not surprised they probably have very little to gain!
I have spent quite a good bit of time thinking about batteries and their components. I am concerned about the planet and am willing to do my part to reduce my impact, and try and do the things that would be a part of the solution rather than the problem. Then I think about the things I use and the batteries in some of them.
Getting reminded again that the basic element we need to survive, water, will be poisoned in exchange for the extraction of lithium doesn’t make me feel too great about my efforts. I am all for greener energy sources but it is all virtue signalling posing when you do things like drive a car which is killing the environment to make it, then charging that battery with the electrical grid which is a collection of ecological disasters, and creating huge waste in spent batteries just to have to purchase again.
This “someone else’s backyard” attitude by those set to gain a couple decades of ridiculous wealth sure is troubling. Makes me think of the hive community who gather virtually without the need of government or big corporations (save internet providers, hydro companies and technology producers) and the collaborative movement we can create to develop solutions to be included in this extraction process that reduces the environmental impact.
We can do better, for sure! It must be possible to extract this stuff with minimal side effects, we just have to invest more time and money!
Wish the eco nazis would wake up and realise lithium doesn’t grow on trees. They are raping the earth to save it. Fucking idiots
All part of the agenda
Poor locals, they'll become victims of another man's money well. Will they even be compensated for such chemical release.
Hmmm, it's one of those article that you just regret seeing power inconveniencing others.
Will they be compensated.... hmmm???