Greenpeace app reveals each EV maker's deep-sea mining stance

Tesla's arriving in NZ in January. Photo / John Barker, Ports of Auckland

Greenpeace has launched a new interactive website that lets you see major electric vehicle makers' stance on deep-sea mining.

Tesla chairwoman Robyn Denholm used her Apec 2021 CEO Summit keynote to call on Governments to co-invest in new nickel and lithium mines.

"Today there are about 1.5 billion cars globally and 16 million are electric, about 1 per cent," Denholm said.

But even at that level, the EV industry (and phone and laptop makers and others) is facing a supply crunch for key elements used in batteries.

Tesla alone would sell 20 million EVs annually by 2030, she said. 2030 is the year when most major car makers say they will leave internal combustion engines behind.

To meet anticipated demand, "Lithium-ion cell production will have to grow by 23 times from its current level by 2035," Denholm said.

A possible solution lies offshore.

"Sprawling fields of rocks about the size of your fist coat the Pacific seabed. Below miles of ocean, these nodules burst with copper, nickel, manganese and cobalt, all key to building batteries for electric vehicles," a National Public Radio report in the US said.

NPR points to a peer-reviewed paper that says deep-sea mining can actually have a lower carbon foot print than terrestrial mining because it does not involved deforestation (and that it's safer for workers).

In March 2021, BMW and Volvo Group (from which Polestar was spun-off), along with Samsung and Google, pledged to abstain from sourcing deep-sea minerals.

Greenpeace's "Race to the Top" site thanks Renault and VW for supporting a global moratorium on deep-sea mining, too.

Tesla gets a "Hey @Tesla we need you to take a stand and pledge no to deep sea mining".

Ford and GM get the same request.

Greenpeace says, "Deep sea mining is a destructive and untested industry where minerals are sucked up from the ocean floor and waste materials pumped back into the ocean leaving a sediment plume that smothers marine life, threatening vulnerable ecosystems, fisheries and people's way of life."

The organisation says New Zealand is "silent" on the issue.

And Te Pāti Māori co-leaer Debbie Ngarewa-Packer recently accused our Government of "sitting on the fence, rather than fighting against this environmental disaster".

Greenpeace and its peers have had plenty to say about terrestrial mining for materials used in EVs, too.

The Financial Times recently reported that Chile's lithium extraction from underground brine reservoirs - which accounts for around a quarter of the world's supply - has been the subject of legal action from environmentalists who said the energy-intensive mining caused underground water depletion and soil contamination, among other issues.

The hard-rock lithium mining in Australia causes fewer side effects, but does leave scars on the landscape.

Denholm said the mining and refining industries also have to decarbonise, and technologies for cleaner lithium extraction are being developed by various companies.

One is the Taupō-based company Geo40, which is developing a process for extracting lithium from geothermal brine. Geo40, which partners with Contact Energy for access to geothermal fluid recently raised $7.5m to develop its technology in a round led by local private equity company Pacific Channel, which in turn partners with the Crown-backed NZ Growth Capital Partners (NZGCP).NZ Govt stance.

Denholm also pointed out that Tesla has a growing business in home solar panels and home batteries, which mean an EV can be cleanly recharged (even if, for now, NZ still has to turn to coal for top-ups drying dry spells as thousands of EVs put more pressure on our power systems).