China’s Yichun city is struggling with lithium mining damage: Yichun — China’s most prospective region for lithium — is grappling between maximizing lithium mining to lead the electric vehicle battery boom, and holding off on expansion as concern over the environmental impact grows, Reuters reported on Thursday. Extracting and smelting lepidolite — the rock from which lithium metal is extracted — produces toxic by-products like thallium and tantalum that cause “severe water pollution,” assistant professor at Xiamen University Wu Wei told the newswire. Yichun authorities have shut down some plants due to complaints of environmental damage.

But plans to expand lithium production are still in motion: While monthly lithium output in Yichun has fallen by about a third, the city still plans to quadruple its output to about 500k metric tons of lithium carbonate — the first chemical in the lithium production chain — by 2025. If the target is met, tailings — or waste left from mining — would increase 10 fold to 10 mn tons, director of Yichun's lithium battery new energy industry development center Lv Jun said.

Sulfur and nitrous emissions from cruise ships surge: Cruise ships in Europe released 4x more sulphuric gasses into the atmosphere than all of the continent’s combined emissions from passenger vehicles, the Financial Times reported on Thursday, citing a report by climate lobby group Transport & Environment. Despite the International Maritime Organization introducing a 0.5% cap on sulfur content in marine fuels in 2020, dozens of extra cruise ships have been added to the fleets of major operators, increasing overall emissions. Additionally, emissions of nitrous oxides and fine particles — both linked to respiratory diseases and lung cancer — have increased by 18% and 25% respectively since 2019.

Tags: