Metal Mining for Lithium-ion Battery Production of Electric Vehicles and Its Impact on Global Land Use: A Review

Abstract

As electric vehicles are believed to be zero-emission alternative to conventional vehicles, the demand for lithium-ion batteries used to produce electric vehicles is also increasing. Although electric vehicles have the potential to improve the current world environment, the mental mining for lithium-ion battery production have the potential to cause environmental impacts. Given that many literature only discuss the possible impacts of lithium-ion battery production in a general manner, this paper conducted a “two-stage†review to first identify a targeted environmental area based on the theory of planetary boundaries, and then further collect evidences in details. Social problems related to lithium-ion batteries such as global metal mining market change and damage of protected ecosystems have been discussed. This paper also put forward several possible management methods to solve the land use change problems and the related social problems, including promoting lithium-ion battery recycling and land recovery etc.