next decade will be all about mining - ReYep
A single EV battery weighs about 1,000 pounds and requires extracting and processing some 500,000 pounds of materials. That’s 20 times more than the 25,000 pounds of petroleum that an internal combustion engine uses over the life of a car. The key question for a green energy future here is not whether there are enough elements in the earth's crust to meet demand. Given predicted battery and related green energy demand, over the next thirty years more mineral ores will need to be mined than humanity has ever extracted. The 21st century will be the century of mining. This will have serious environmental and geopolitical implications.