Electric vehicle supply chain

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The electric vehicle supply chain comprises the mining and refining of raw materials and the manufacturing processes that produce batteries and other components for electric vehicles.

Batteries[edit]

Geographic distribution of critical minerals for Li-ion batteries.

The electric vehicle battery accounts for 30–40% of the value of the vehicle.[1] There is rapidly growing demand for its components because of growth in the electric vehicle market as well as in battery storage power stations. This is driven largely by the ongoing transition to renewable energy.

The Li-NMC type uses the critical minerals lithium, cobalt, nickel, and manganese. This imposes limits on large-scale adoption of this type. [2] These three elements are concentrated in only 12 countries, with Australia being the only country that has all three.[3]

The Lithium iron phosphate battery (LFP), which has become the leading technology in China, is more sustainable. The sodium-ion battery (Na-ion) completely avoids the need for critical minerals.[4]

Li-NMC LFP Sodium-ion
global BEV market share 59%[5]: 85  41%[5] <1% (high potential)[6]
lithium X X -
manganese X - -
nickel X - -
cobalt X - -

Securing the supply chain for these materials is a major world economic issue.[7] It has been estimated that battery recycling can provide up to 60% of market demand for the three critical elements.[2] Recycling and advancement in battery technology are proposed strategies to reduce demand for raw materials. Recyling lithium-ion batteries in particular reduces energy consumption.[8] Supply chain issues could create bottlenecks, increase costs of EVs and slow their uptake.[1][9] Nations set up incentives for domestic growth in the market, to further secure their stake in the supply chain.[2]

Deposits of critical minerals are concentrated in a small number of countries, mostly in the Global South. Mining these deposits presents dangers to nearby communities because of weak regulation, corruption, and environmental degradation. The mining impacts the quality of the food and water local communities depend upon, and the metals end up in their bodies. Miners also experience low pay, dangerous conditions, and violent treatment.[10][11] Electric vehicles require more of these critical minerals than most cars, amplifying these effects. These communities face human rights violations, environmental justice issues, problems with child labour, and potentially generational legacies of contamination from mining activities. Environmental justice issues arising from the supply chain affect the entire globe, through depredation of the atmosphere from pollution byproduct. Manufacture of battery technology is largely dominated by China. However, burning less petroleum products in vehicles can reduce the environmental impact of the petroleum industry because, as of 2023, most petroleum is used in vehicles.[12]

The battery supply chain includes:

Upstream activities include mining for required raw materials, which include critical materials such as cobalt, lithium, nickel, manganese, and graphite as well as other required minerals such as copper.[3][13]

Midstream activities include refining and smelting of raw mineral ores with heat or chemical treatment to achieve the high-purity materials required for batteries,[3][1] as well as the manufacture of cathodes and anodes for battery cells.[13] Lower environmental impacts for refining can be achieved by decarbonized electricity generation, automated process control, exhaust gas cleaning, and recycling used electrolytes.[14]

Downstream activities include manufacturing of the batteries and end goods for the consumer.[3] The production of lithium batteries in China has nearly three times higher emissions than the US because electricity generation in China relies more on coal.[2]

End of life activities include recycling or recovery of materials when possible.[3]

Disposal of spent LIBs without recycling could be detrimental to the environment.[2] Recycling lithium-ion batteries reduces energy consumption, reduces greenhouse gas emissions, and results in 51.3% natural resource savings when compared to discarding them in landfills.[8] Recycling can potentially lower the overall energy emissions of battery production as the LIB recycling industry grows larger.[2] When not recycled, the disposal of cobalt extraction involves non-sulfidic tailings, which has an impact on land use.[15] Even in the recycling process, CO2 emissions are still produced, continuing to impact the environment regardless of how LIBs are disposed.[2]

Recycling of battery minerals is limited but is expected to rise in the 2030s when there are more spent batteries. Increasing recycling would bring considerable social and environmental benefits.[16]

Countries roles in the supply chain[edit]

China dominates the electric car industry, accounting for three-quarters of global lithium-ion battery production. Most refining of lithium, cobalt, and graphite takes place in China. Japan and Korea host significant midstream cell manufacturing and downstream supply chain activities. Europe and the United States have a relatively small share of the supply chain.[1]

In 2021, 3.3 million EVs were sold in China, up 400% from 2019 and higher than the global sales in 2020.[1]

Upstream activities (mining and processing) largely take place in countries with extractivist economies such as Australia,[need quotation to verify] Chile, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.[1][17]

Other components[edit]

EVs have fewer parts than ICEs. On average, a motor for an electric car has about 20 moving parts, but a comparable ICE would have 200 or more.[9]

Some electric vehicles motors are permanent magnet motors that require rare-earth elements such as neodymium and dysprosium. Production of these materials is also dominated by China and poses environmental problems. An alternative motor is the AC induction motor, which does not use these minerals but requires additional copper.[9]

These components also contribute to the environmental justice issues caused by the extraction of cobalt and other mineral resources, just as batteries do. Radioactive dust and mine sewage from mining for these resources contribute to environmental impacts.[14] Another aspect of the pipeline, metal refining, contributes to the environmental impacts through production of electrolytes, electricity consumption, and used cathodes.[14] Used Cathodes amplify the toxicity of marine ecosystems by the leaching of heavy metals during the smelting process.[18] The result of cobalt presence in the soil is its accumulation in plants, and their fruits. High cobalt amounts accumulate in the rest of the food chain, reaching land and air animals. Effects of excess cobalt include lower animal weight gain and a higher birth mortality.[19]

Electric vehicles require more semiconductors than internal combustion engines (ICEs). Taiwan is the world's largest producer of semiconductors.[9]

Background[edit]

International commitments reflected in the Paris Agreement have led to efforts toward a renewable energy transition as a strategy for climate change mitigation. Green capitalism and sustainable development approaches have informed policy in many countries of the Global North, resulting in rapid growth of the electric vehicle industry, and resulting demands for raw materials.[17] Mainstream projections for electric vehicle uptake assume that there will be more cars in the future.[20]

Environmental justice issues[edit]

See also: Mining_industry_of_the_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo § Environmental_justice_issues_and_supply_chain_regulation

Supply chain risks include sustainability challenges,[21] political instability and corruption in countries with mineral deposits,[22] and human rights or environmental justice concerns.[23][3] The supply of critical minerals is concentrated in a few countries: for example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo produced 74% of the world's cobalt in 2022.[24] Extreme weather events, geopolitical issues, international trade regulation, consolidation of supply chain companies into a few large corporations, and rapidly changing technologies all present additional challenges to building a resilient supply chain.[3] Mineral extraction in the Global South for manufacturing of batteries and vehicles consumed in the Global North may replicate historical patterns of injustice and colonialism.[25]

However electric vehicles are better for the environment than fossil-fuelled vehicles.[26][27] The supply chain for fossil-fuelled vehicles is mostly petroleum (for a typical car around 17 tonnes of gasoline[28]), and can be complicated and obscure.[29] Burning less petroleum products in vehicles such as two-wheelers[30] can reduce the environmental impact of the petroleum industry because, as of 2023, most petroleum is used in vehicles.[12]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f Global Supply Chains of EV Batteries. International Energy Agency. 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g High concentration from resources to market heightens risk for power lithium-ion battery supply chains globally. 2023. Environmental Science and Pollution Research. 30/24, 65558-71. Y. Miao, L. Liu, K. Xu, J. Li. doi: 10.1007/s11356-023-27035-9.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g Mills, Ryan (2023-03-08). "EV Batteries 101: Supply Chains". Rocky Mountain Institute. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  4. ^ "Global EV Outlook 2023: Trends in batteries". Paris: IEA.
  5. ^ a b "Global EV Outlook 2024". Paris: IEA. 2024. Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  6. ^ Stephan, Annegret (2024-02-06). "Alternatives to lithium-ion batteries: potentials and challenges of alternative battery technologies". Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI.
  7. ^ Zeng, Anqi; Chen, Wu; Rasmussen, Kasper Dalgas; Zhu, Xuehong; Lundhaug, Maren; Müller, Daniel B.; Tan, Juan; Keiding, Jakob K.; Liu, Litao; Dai, Tao; Wang, Anjian; Liu, Gang (2022-03-15). "Battery technology and recycling alone will not save the electric mobility transition from future cobalt shortages". Nature Communications. 13 (1): 1341. doi:10.1038/s41467-022-29022-z. ISSN 2041-1723. PMC 8924274. PMID 35292628.
  8. ^ a b Boyden, Anna; Kie Soo, Vi; Doolan, Matthew (2016). "The Environmental Impacts of Recycling Portable Lithium-Ion Batteries". Procedia CIRP. 48: 188–193 – via ScienceDirect.
  9. ^ a b c d Ziegler, Bart (12 November 2022). "Electric Vehicles Require Lots of Scarce Parts. Is the Supply Chain Up to It?". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2023-04-26.
  10. ^ Calvão, Filipe; McDonald, Catherine; Bolay, Matthieu (December 2021). "Cobalt mining and the corporate outsourcing of responsibility in the Democratic Republic of Congo". The Extractive Industries and Society. 8 (4) – via Science Direct. This article incorporates text from this source, which is available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
  11. ^ Kara, Siddharth (January 31, 2023). Cobalt Red. St. Martin's Press. p. 130. ISBN 9781250284297.
  12. ^ a b "How electric vehicles are accelerating the end of the oil age".
  13. ^ a b "Electric Vehicle Battery Supply Chains: The Basics". www.nrdc.org. 7 July 2022. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  14. ^ a b c Schreiber, Andrea; Marx, Josefine; Zapp, Petra (October 15, 2021). "Life Cycle Assessment studies of rare earths production - Findings from a systematic review". Science of the Total Environment. 791 – via ScienceDirect.
  15. ^ Farjana, Shahjadi; Huda, Nazmul; Mahmud, Parvez (August 2019). "Life cycle assessment of cobalt extraction process". Journal of Sustainable Mining. 18 (3): 150–161 – via ScienceDirect.
  16. ^ "Reliable supply of minerals – The Role of Critical Minerals in Clean Energy Transitions – Analysis". IEA. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  17. ^ a b Jerez, Bárbara; Garcés, Ingrid; Torres, Robinson (2021-05-01). "Lithium extractivism and water injustices in the Salar de Atacama, Chile: The colonial shadow of green electromobility". Political Geography. 87: 102382. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102382. ISSN 0962-6298. S2CID 233539682.
  18. ^ Dong, Di; van Oers, Lauran; Tukker, Arnold; van der Voet, Ester (November 20, 2020). "Assessing the future environmental impacts of copper production in China: Implications of the energy transition". Journal of Cleaner Production. 274 – via ScienceDirect.
  19. ^ Srivastava, Prashant; Bolan, Nanthi; Casagrande, Veronica; Joshua, Benjamin (2022). Appraisal of Metal(loids) in the Ecosystem. Elsevier. pp. 81–104. ISBN 978-0-323-85621-8.
  20. ^ Henderson, Jason (2020-11-01). "EVs Are Not the Answer: A Mobility Justice Critique of Electric Vehicle Transitions". Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 110 (6): 1993–2010. doi:10.1080/24694452.2020.1744422. ISSN 2469-4452. S2CID 218917140.
  21. ^ Rajaeifar, Mohammad Ali; Ghadimi, Pezhman; Raugei, Marco; Wu, Yufeng; Heidrich, Oliver (2022-05-01). "Challenges and recent developments in supply and value chains of electric vehicle batteries: A sustainability perspective". Resources, Conservation and Recycling. 180: 106144. doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2021.106144. ISSN 0921-3449. S2CID 245834750.
  22. ^ Deberdt, Raphael; Billon, Philippe Le (2021-12-01). "Conflict minerals and battery materials supply chains: A mapping review of responsible sourcing initiatives". The Extractive Industries and Society. 8 (4): 100935. doi:10.1016/j.exis.2021.100935. ISSN 2214-790X. S2CID 236622724.
  23. ^ "Promoting Electric Vehicles Can Pose Environmental Challenges | Modern Casting". www.moderncasting.com. Retrieved 2023-04-17.
  24. ^ "How 'modern-day slavery' in the Congo powers the rechargeable battery economy". NPR. 2023.
  25. ^ Jerez, Bárbara; Garcés, Ingrid; Torres, Robinson (2021-05-01). "Lithium extractivism and water injustices in the Salar de Atacama, Chile: The colonial shadow of green electromobility". Political Geography. 87: 102382. doi:10.1016/j.polgeo.2021.102382. ISSN 0962-6298. S2CID 233539682.
  26. ^ "Electric Vehicles | MIT Climate Portal". climate.mit.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  27. ^ Evans, Simon (2023-10-24). "Factcheck: 21 misleading myths about electric vehicles". Carbon Brief. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  28. ^ "Batteries vs oil: A comparison of raw material needs". Transport & Environment. 2021-03-01. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  29. ^ "Natural Gas and Oil Supply Chains Explained". www.api.org. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
  30. ^ "Electric scooters slashing oil demand four times faster than electric cars – report". Drive. 2024-01-05. Retrieved 2024-04-15.
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