transport replaces a fuel problem with a materials problem.
A battery requires lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite in quantities that current mines cannot supply.
The comparison with oil is nonetheless misleading in one important way.
Oil is burned once; a metal stays in the battery and can be recovered.
A mature electric fleet therefore needs mining mainly to grow, not to run.
That equilibrium is decades away, and the mining happens now.
is concentrated in a small number of countries and, for , in fewer still.
That concentration creates the same strategic that oil created, with different names on the map.
Local costs fall where they always have.
Water use, and land rights are the live disputes at most new sites.
Communities are frequently asked to accept a mine for a benefit that elsewhere.
Agreements that route a share of revenue to the district change that calculation materially.
Recycling capacity is the part of the system that is currently missing.
Batteries reaching the end of life this decade were made when nobody planned for their return.
Designing the next generation for costs little and will decide whether the loop closes at all.