Batteries Can Be Part of the Fight Against Climate Change – If We Do These Five Things
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Batteries Can Be Part of the Fight Against Climate Change – If We Do These Five Things

Jonathan Eckart
World Economic Forum, 2017
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  • Scientific
  • Eye Opening

Recommendation

Driving your new electric vehicle around feels good, until you realize the battery which powers it could create a negative sum impact on the environment. Jonathan Eckart explains in World Economic Forum that producing lithium-ion batteries, which energize everything from cars to homes to power plants, requires electricity, and tons of raw materials such as lithium, nickel and cobalt. Batteries continue to be an important part of the global warming solution, but public and private entities must work together to ensure they are manufactured responsibly, and recycled.

Summary

Batteries remain valuable energy storage solutions, but they present hidden environmental dangers.

The battery market will be worth about $100 billion by the year 2025. Batteries storing solar energy for homes and businesses will account for more than half of the planet’s storage capacity by 2040. But battery manufacturing can cause harm to the environment. Battery production produces carbon emissions, and mining the needed materials can cause toxic chemical spills, water shortages and air pollution.

Electric vehicles can produce more carbon emissions than gas or diesel vehicles.

To reach the Paris Agreement global warming goals, 100 million electric vehicles must hit the world’s roads by 2030, fifty times the number operating...

About the Author

Jonathan Eckart is Project Specialist, Inclusive Business Strategies and Global Leadership Fellow for World Economic Forum, Geneva.

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