MEXICO.- In the cheerful figures of this country and its trading partner, President Joe Biden’s push for electric cars places Mexico as the epicenter of clean energy in world transport as a producer; in the figures of environmentalists and of the companies themselves, the challenge is a red alert for the country’s environment.
Lithium-ion batteries, which feed many electric car devices depend on a mixture of nickel, manganese and cobalt, copper and iron, according to the specialized site mining.com. The higher nickel content increases the autonomy of the electric vehicle, while cobalt and manganese act as stabilizers, improving its safety.
The demand for these metals that can being lethal sources of environmental contamination makes environmentalists’ hair stand on end due to the current conditions in the country: vast minerals, powerful international companies, violent criminal groups and government corruption hand in hand with impunity of the 98%.
A report by the environmental organization Global Witness published in the last week of August attested to the death of 54 defenders of the environment, a figure that makes the country the deadliest in the world for environmental activists.
Electric cars fuel millionaire interests. The European Union promotes electric vehicles with more demanding regulations on emission levels while the United States promotes automotive electrification through subsidies for its purchase (which includes cars made in Mexico ) and in the latter an objective was established so that in 2021 the 50% of the vehicles in the country are zero polluting emissions.
But the experience in Latin America with lithium, for example, is not very positive. The fever for this metal has meant additional pressure on the water systems in Bolivia, Chile and Argentina, where extraction has already generated water scarcity.
“Before the miners arrived here there were much water. Mining has consumed the groundwater, they take water from a river in another sector as well and the corresponding water does not get here,” said an inhabitant of Atacama, Chile, in a DW report, in 2020.
In Mexico, the situation is heading towards a similar situation. Bacanora, the largest lithium deposit in Mexico and one of the largest in the world, located in Bacadéhuachi, Sonora, is one of the regions with the greatest water crisis at the national level: the World Resources Institute placed Sonora as the tenth with the highest ‘water stress’.
The environmental responsibility for lithium extraction will fall directly on the State, now headed by the president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, after he nationalized the mineral and created Litiomex last August, a figure similar to Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) or the National Electricity Commission, which will be in charge of managing the entire productive chain of the mineral, from exploration and exploitation.
But Pemex has a long list of attacks on the environment. From 2018 to 2021, recorded 176 Spills and leaks on a moderate and serious scale that dumped substances such as crude oil, oil and gasoline have been dumped into soils, rivers and seas, mainly due to industrial failures and acts of vandalism, according to the organization Causa Natura.
In addition, greenhouse gas emissions by Pemex Industrial Transformation (TRI) in its refining segment increased between 2018 and a 32%, mainly carbon dioxide, the main gas responsible for this phenomenon; and 69% those of sulfur oxides, which cause acid rain and lung diseases, according to research of the organization México Evalúa.
Other companies, other metals
For an electric car battery to work, large amounts of lithium are required (nine kilos per unit) and 40 kilos of nickel, but especially copper: 139 kilos per unit. This is five times more than for a gasoline vehicle, according to consultancy S&P Global.
In these proportions, the world industry will depend a lot on Mexico as it is the fourth largest producer in the world and has the largest copper reserves, according to Grupo México, which is already expressing its concerns in this regard, in the voice of the Vice President of the company, Xavier García.
At the conference “The Future of Mining and the Role of Sustainability” he expressed the opinion that the supply of these minerals will not be sufficient to cover the demand in the short term since towards the 2030 clean energies (solar and wind), batteries and electric cars, will demand more than five million tons of copper, with which a deficit of 8.1 million tons of the mineral is expected.
The investments that would be required in the next 10 years to cover the deficit in the demand for that mineral is estimated at 150 billions of dollars and many problems to solve”, he said: “The times to obtain the environmental permits, the acquisition of land, the solution of social conflicts, community development, human capital and water resources”.
Grupo México bears the story of one of the oldest environmental disasters in the history of Mexico. In 2014, the Buenavista del Cobre mine discharged 40 million liters of acidified copper sulfate solution in the Bacanuchi and Sonora rivers. Eight years later, the impact is present: the Ministry of Health and the National Center for Disease Control revealed an analysis of 650 affected in eight municipalities where more of 95% of the population tested has lead in their blood; a 50%, arsenic and the 79% cadmium.
In the case of iron, the management of its exploitation drags murky stories that go from the control of organized crime that imposes a law where the environment is the last thing that matters (several iron ore mines have had to close in Michoacán, one of the main producers), in addition to the contamination of underground aquifers.
Most groundwater (69 .1%) that it has Mexico does not comply with the standard and is therefore considered to have poor quality, according to information from the National Water Quality Measurement Network that checked
2,070 sites and found total iron in half of them as well as cadmium, chromium, mercury, lead and manganese (the latter is also used in batteries for electric cars.
“In the change towards mobility schemes friendlier with the environment, mining has a fundamental role, for all the amount of minerals that this is going to require”, said Fernando Alanís, former president of the Mining Chamber of Mexico.
A double-edged sword.
You may be interested:
– Why lithium could become the gold of the future
– What results did the nationalization of lithium have in Bolivia and why did AMLO ask for your advice to do it in Mexico
– Mexico nationalizes lithium: AMLO publishes in the Official Gazette of the Federation the reforms to the Mining Law