This is the fourth in a series of articles (ed. note:, see previous posts here, here and here) addressing the global energy transition as an opportunity to interrupt continuing injustices, to create a new global ethic of development in favor of human and earth-centric values.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts that about 60% of the world’s population will be living in countries defined as ‘water stressed’ by 2025. By 2050, when over 40% of the world’s population will live in severely water-stressed river basins, water usage from manufacturing is expected to rise by over 400%, Business as usual will mean the world will miss water-related United Nations SDGs by a wide margin.
The general perception is that mining projects already use a large percentage of the global freshwater supply. The actual figure sits at around 5%. If mining water usage were to follow the anticipated upsurge in demand for transition minerals, we would see that number rise—unless the industry were to develop efficiencies in usage and/or reclamation. Moreover, both water and minerals are two potential sources of transboundary conflict. The intersection of mining, water and human rights dictates that the future costs of our modern lifestyle are going to rise. Maybe a lot. Or maybe some of its more expensive features will go away. But either way, without a radical rethinking of the disparities between those who will be able to afford those things and those who will not is going to widen. This is not acceptable. This will be evidence of failure, a failure of vision, a failure of values.
The coincidence of high concentrations of energy minerals including copper, lithium and rare earths with rising water demand, uncertain future supply and high levels of water stress in some key geographies is dramatic. Sixty-five percent of known lithium resources are in areas of medium to very high water stress. Australia, Chile, Argentina, China, and the Southwestern US are areas with significant deposits. Chile, with over 4000 operating mines in the central and northern regions, and with the world’s highest production of copper and lithium, consumes more than 50% of all available regional water supplies, coming into direct competition with agriculture. By law, Chile now pumps desalinated water from sea level to copper mines at 9000 ft for new projects. While mining is generally regarded favorably for its economic benefits, there is growing opposition to the environmental damage both inside and outside the industry, from lenders, governments and ground-level communities affected.
There are over 40 planned lithium projects in Argentina alone. While many won’t come to fruition, it’s a huge industry that is having a big impact on both the cultural and natural processes of life – there’s a lot of indigenous communities in the area that have many practices tied around water, and these are being disrupted.—Dr. Ana Carballo
Out of 435 active lithium-containing mining projects analyzed by S&P Global Market Intelligence, 189 are in areas that are either projected to face medium to high water stress by 2030 or are in arid regions of low water use, as defined by the World Resources Institute. There are 23 projects in areas expected to face extremely high water stress by the end of the decade, including areas of the Western U.S., South America, and Australia. — S&P Global
Global mining operations used an estimated 1.6Bm3 (or 1.3 trillion liters) in 2006. Every ton of rare earth produces 75m3 of wastewater + 1t of radioactive residue. Open pit nickel mining in the Philippines, Australia and Indonesia is causing pollution in waterways, wells, and farmland in areas already water stressed. It’s difficult to even grasp the significance of these numbers. Diminishing water supplies in arid areas can severely disrupt local supplies. The privatized Chilean water system, owned by transnational corporations, prominent Chilean families and large landowners, means its use bends toward water-intensive crops, water-intensive mining, drives the highest consumer prices in Latin America, as well as theft. Fortunately, aggressive re-cycling of water has been adopted by some large producers.
Several lithium-rich sites in the US are in salt flats requiring evaporation of high concentration brine to harvest the mineral, using large amounts of fresh water to produce a finished product. The Thacker Pass mine in Nevada is projected to use 27,000 gallons of water for a single ton of lithium. When the mine is in full operational mode, it will draw 1.7B gallons per year from the Quinn River basin aquifer. By drawing brine salts from below freshwater salt flats, mining lithium contaminates the surface waters. Such techniques diminish already scarce water resources, damage wetlands, and harm communities. The same conditions exist at the Silver Peak mine in Nevada and the Salton Sea mine in California.
Drought risk will increasingly have an impact on financing of new mining projects, which is why the industry is continuously evaluating its water use, learning how to quantify water risk, and seeking to reduce its water footprint. Unfortunately, there’s virtually no data to determine the long-term effect of pumping massive amounts of water out of the driest areas of the planet. Using a Water Footprint Assessment tool to determine the impact of copper and lithium mining, the production of a 2MWh lithium storage battery (~30 Tesla Model 3 batteries at current density) is estimated to use more than 33,000m3 of brine pumped from an aquifer. The Chilean firm SQM and their US counterpart Albemarle pump 63B liters per year out of the ground. Estimates vary as to how much water is required to produce a single kilogram of lithium for an EV battery (which might use 7-16kg), assuming a requirement of approximately 1000-2000m3 or up to 2 million liters of water at current maximum power density.
A more realistic estimate of evaporated water required to produce a single 64kWH battery determined by the Helmholtz Institute for Electrochemical Energy Storage (Denmark) to be ~4000 liters. With continued improvements in chemistry, such a battery may sustain up to 3000 recharges (compared to the current 2000), meaning it will last up to 900,000 km.
The total water used to produce an EV battery still seems miniscule compared to the 46 billion liters of water required from ground sources, lakes and rivers to produce the 17.5B liters of oil we use every day, much of it contaminated in the process. But still, the water footprint to produce one ton of lithium seems a lot, especially considering we are imagining scaling up EV sales by 500% by the end of the decade. The water issues surrounding copper and lithium are daunting and may seem shocking (and dangerous) to tolerate. New mines will exacerbate existing water scarcity. Yet at some point (not yet) every EV battery that hits the road will not only reduce our reliance on oil but will save substantial amounts of water. The question is, do we have sufficient water to complete this transition (safely) at all?
According to the USGS, a flotation copper mine (the most common method of refining) producing 50,000 metric tons of ore per day (a small mine compared to the largest operations) uses 44 billion liters of water per year. That’s 11.6 billion gallons. Estimates vary, but if the average copper content of Chilean ore, now dropping to .7%, such a mine produces 1,277,000 tons of copper per annum. A 3MW wind turbine requires about 1700kg (1.7mt) of copper, which would require the use of ~9M gallons of water. The largest offshore wind turbines are now four times that size (36M gallons of water for the copper alone). The largest copper mine in the world (Chile) produces 15x this amount of copper using 15x the water (if no water is recycled).
For the sake of perspective, here is a representation of water use in the USA:
If access to clean potable water we were to be seriously regarded as a primary human right as declared by the UN in 1948, as well as being reiterated and augmented by subsequent declarations including Guiding Principles for State and Businesses, and particularly as water scarcity promises to affect ever growing numbers of people, at what point does the rarely penalized abuse of water move from being a mild inconvenience presumed to have a negligible effect on overall fresh water supplies to a criminal offense? Numerous miners have been accused of a wide range of human rights violations, most being resolved with financial settlements, but no miners have been convicted of violating human access to clean water.
There are literally thousands of journal articles on mining and waterway pollution. Contamination of water supplies by energy mining operations can continue even after a 70 year-old mine has been closed. The fact that there has never been a prosecution for such a thing does not preclude the possibility of bringing charges of human rights violations to a coal company, a lithium miner, a copper, zinc, nickel, or gold miner. At the very least, such practices are a violation of the widely recognized principles of sustainable development.
- According to a report published by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, an NGO, 26% of human rights abuse allegations brought forward in 2022 were related to water pollution or access.
- Recent data suggests infant mortality rates in the Brazilian Yanomami reservation have been linked to mercury entering waterways as a result of (primarily illegal) mining operations. Infant mortality in the region is seven-times higher than the national average.
- The US has always balked at entering binding international agreements regarding the Rights of Women, the Rights of Children, or any Guiding Principles for the conduct of states or businesses regarding existing human rights. Even though businesses may agree to be bound by human rights standards, including the right to access clean water supplies, and even to report on their human rights policies to investors, the United States does not actively hold businesses to any legal obligation to adhere to such standards. Just as in the case of indigenous rights, there is a great gulf between declarations and actual policy both in the US and internationally.
- The RMI Report 2020 shows that disaggregated mine site level information on human rights related issues are mostly lacking. For example, of 180 mine sites across 49 producing countries, only about one-third of the sites disclose any information about operational-level grievance mechanisms for communities and workers. This lack of evidence casts doubt on the ability of companies to know about and respond to grievances, despite corporate human rights commitments.
Just as in the case of carbon footprints, those living downstream from the intersection of mining and water, those who benefit most from the use of 100% mine-dependent materials and processes, if they are not directly benefitting the lives of everyone equally, will be externalizing some of the costs of those materials to those whose access to water and materials is limited and coming under increasing stress.
Even if we have never legally recognized the imposition of huge carbon footprints on the rest of the world by our leading status as a carbon emitter, such as by passing a carbon tax, our profligacy with the inefficient or negligent use of water will amount to human rights violations if water scarcity or increasing toxicity is imposed on others by a critical mineral mining operation. As water scarcity increases, our current practices will eventually come back to haunt us.
Citations:
How much copper in a wind turbine? Utility Smarts.
Mining Water Use, USGS, March, 2019.
Obbekaer, Mie, How Much Water is Used to Make the World’s Batteries?, Danwatch, 2019.
Simcox, Dave, Where Does US Stand on Human Rights Conventions? Cincinnati.com, Jan 2018.
The Battle Against Lithium Mining at Thacker Pass.
The Environmental Impact of Lithium Batteries, Institute of Energy Research, Nov., 2020.
Vella, Heidi, Managing Water Consumption in Mining, Mining Technology, Aug, 2013.
Water Scarcity Is Greatest Risk to Metals and Mining, Fitch Ratings, July 2020.
