Energy Crossroads: Exploring North Carolina’s Two Energy Futures

JOHN LOCKE FOUNDATION
93
Mining and processing of key minerals for wind, solar, and battery power,
come with a host of water-related issues as well. “Mining and mineral
processing require large volumes of water for their operations,” IEA notes,
“and pose contamination risks through acid mine drainage, wastewater
discharge and the disposal of tailings.” Around half of lithium and copper
production takes place in areas of high water stress.
The processing of rare-earth elements (REs), similarly, “often generates
toxic and radioactive materials,” that “can leak into groundwater, causing
major health and safety issues, including fatalities,” IEA determines.
New Energy Geopolitics
According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), China controls 80
percent of the world’s raw material refining for lithium-ion batteries, 77
percent of the world’s cell capacity, and 60 percent of the world’s component
manufacturing. 61
In BNEF’s 2020 national rankings, China comes in first in both the raw
materials category and the cell and component category. The U.S.,
meanwhile, ranks 15th in raw materials and 4th in the cell and component
category.
The raw material rankings are based on resource availability, mining capacity,
and refining capacity. Cell and components are ranked based on
the manufacturing capacity of electrolyte salts and solutions, anodes,
cathodes, separators, and cells.
James Frith, BNEF’s head of energy storage, describes the current situation
as one of Chinese “dominance,” remarking that it is “to be expected
given its huge investments and the policies the country has implemented
over the past decade. Chinese manufacturers, like CATL, have come
from nothing to being world-leading in less than 10 years.”
For China and the United States, additions of wind, solar, and battery
storage have different geopolitical consequences. As Paul Kolbe, director