The Human Cost of the Lithium Ion Revolution

If you have a cell phone, laptop, a hybrid car or an electric vehicle, you may want to sit down. This is going to hurt.

You have probably heard of blood diamonds and conflict minerals, maybe you’ve even read up a bit on how big consumer tech companies are trying (and, in some cases, being forced by governments) to sort out where the materials they use for their gadgets come from. But stories about “supply chains,” “globalization,” and “poor working conditions” can a world away, or just plain academic.

In a sweeping, heartbreaking series, the Washington Post is putting the lie to that.

Take the example of Yu Yuan, a farmer who lives near a graphite factory in northeastern China. In a video, he swipes at shimmering grime accumulated in his window sill and points at a barren cornfield. The crops turn black with graphite dust he says, and don’t grow properly. Hh and his wife worry about the air they’re breathing, and their water is undrinkable, polluted by chemicals dumped from the graphite plant. “There is nothing here once the factory is done damaging this place,” he says.

Over two pieces so far, the Post has traced the path of first cobalt and then graphite as they make their way from mines to factories and ultimately into our hands as the cathodes and anodes, respectively, for lithium ion batteries. Each of them is a remarkable blend of globe-spanning investigative journalism, business reporting, and an appeal to us to confront the consequences of owning the devices we surround ourselves with.

While graphite is mined and processed mostly in China, a huge amount of cobalt comes from mines in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where “artisanal” miners sometimes dig through the floor of their own houses. Mines collapse frequently-injuries and death are commonplace.

The raw materials stay or end up in Asia, where companies you’ve probably never heard of turn them into battery parts. There the largest battery makers in the world, including Samsung SDI, LG Chem, and Panasonic, purchase the components and turn them into batteries that go into phones, computers, and cars the world over.

Lithium batteries are prized for being light and having a high energy density compared to other battery chemistries that came before. The modern smartphone would be difficult to imagine without a lithium battery as its power supply. They help power hybrid cars and the small, but fast-growing fleet of all-electric vehicles wouldn’t exist without them.

Interest in electric cars, in particular, is fueled by claims that the vehicles are cleaner and better for the environment. That may be true in the countries where they are mostly sold. But when we consider the bigger picture, the reality is something else altogether.

(Read more: The Washington Post, "Why We Still Don’t Have Better Batteries")