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The Surprising Climate Cost of the Humblest Battery Material

As with other battery materials, automakers rely on estimates to determine the environmental cost of graphite’s globe-spanning journey before it ends up inside a car. But a pair of recent studies suggest that those estimates are woefully out-of-date and undercounted, failing to include the energy-intensive processes required to produce modern, anode-ready graphite. Those bad estimates are undermining efforts to clean up the supply chain for electric vehicles. “The same thing kept coming up again and again,” says Robert Pell, CEO of Minviro, a consultancy that works with electric car companies on environmental assessments. “Everybody cares about the cathode, but the reality is we knew the impact…

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 Graphite is a battery material and we don’t even know how much carbon it emits

It is used in the anode side of electric vehicle batteries and is made in extremely hot furnaces using a huge amount of energy.

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China: Graphite production for lithium-ion batteries causes severe environmental pollution; complaints by villagers are suppressed

[V]irtually all…[lithium] batteries use graphite, and its cheap production in China, often under lax environmental controls, produces old-fashioned industrial pollution. At five towns in two provinces…Washington Post journalists heard the same story from villagers living near graphite companies: sparkling night air, damaged crops, homes and belongings covered in soot, polluted drinking water — and government officials inclined to look the other way to benefit a major employer.

Climate Impact of Graphite Production

Like with all battery materials, the production of natural and synthetic graphite can have a wide range of environmental impacts depending on the source of the raw material, the technology used for processing and purification, energy grid mix in the operating region(s), and production route.

Environmental and socio-economic challenges in battery supply chains: graphite and lithium

Although graphite as material itself is nontoxic to humans and the environment, its production or mining and subsequent processing produces emissions, which – if not properly controlled by EHS (environment, health and safety) measures during processing - can impact the health, and other concerns,..

Natural Graphite: The Material for a Green Economy

As the world moves towards decarbonization, electric vehicles (EVs) and clean energy technologies offer a path towards a sustainable future. However, these technologies are mineral-intensive, and the minerals they use are becoming increasingly valuable. Graphite is one such mineral.

The unseen side of Graphite mining

Mining graphite involves the use of explosives to crack open the rock joints and to expose the graphite. The amount of explosives used in this process is often more than what actually is required and therefore ends up creating damage to unintended areas as well. this process also result in the release of dust and very fine particles of Carbon into the atmosphere causing air pollution. This can lead to the deterioration of the health of workers and people living in the vicinity.