Almost 150 million electric vehicles (EVs) are set to be on the road by 2030 according to an International Energy Agency (IEA) report. A typical EV battery (NMC532) contains roughly 8 kilos (17 lbs) of lithium carbonate, 35 kilos (77 lbs) of nickel, 20 kilos (44 lbs) of manganese and 14 kilos (30 lbs) of cobalt. Currently, most lithium is extracted from hard rock mines or underground brine reservoirs, and much of the energy used to extract and process it comes from fossil fuels. Particularly in hard rock mining, for every tonne of mined lithium, 15 tonnes of CO2 are emitted into the air.
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