There are three proposals for new lithium refining facilities in development around Australia. These plants will bring their own environmental challenges. Roasting spodumene to create a concentrate requires significant amounts of energy and large quantities of sulphuric acid. At the end, the slag waste will also have to be disposed of – a process that will need to be monitored to avoid causing pollution.
It is still early days for the Australian lithium mining industry but Maggie Wood, executive director of the Conversation Council of Western Australia, a not-for-profit organisation that represents more than 100 environmental groups across Western Australia, says the industry is being closely watched.
"On the one hand, we know we need to decarbonise as soon as possible and critical minerals like lithium and a whole heap of others are part of that pathway," Wood says. "But we also know the mining of those minerals is environmentally destructive."
For example, environmentalists have raised concerns that sediment from the Finniss Lithium Project mine may have contaminated a nearby creek. BBC Future Planet contacted Core Lithium, the owners of the Finniss Lithium Project, to respond to these claims but received no reply.
Kirsty Howey, co-director of the Northern Territory Environment Centre, an environmental body within the Territory, says she is worried the cumulative environmental impact from multiple mines opening to extract lithium deposits between Darwin and the famous Litchfield National Park, an hour's drive south of the city.
"There are lithium tenements all the way across it," Howey says. "You've got these vast areas of the Territory that are pretty pristine by global standards and they're now subject to [permits for future lithium mining].
"It's a tropical ecosystem, so you've got increased cyclone risk, you've got huge rains – rain is the enemy of mining. That's when metals drain into waterways and cause havoc.
"We've got to stop fossil fuel development, but we also need the scrutiny on mining."
BBC Future Planet contacted the Minerals Council of Australia, a representative body for the country's mining industry, for comment on the concerns raised about the impacts of lithium mining, but they did not respond by publication.
Some of Australia's political leaders have argued that acquiring metals for decarbonisation is the priority. In early October, when the Finniss Lithium Project broke ground 80km (50 miles) from Darwin, the Northern Territory's Mining and Industry Minister Nicole Manison was on site. Speaking to the media, she said: "We have to be realistic about that transition – there are materials you absolutely must mine to achieve decarbonisation and tackle climate change head-on, and many of those materials are available in the Northern Territory."
