Hyperdrive
The Black Forest Holds a Secret to Making Electric Cars Greener
A new mining process aims to produce battery-grade lithium in Germany without hurting the environment.
Photographer: Silas Stein/picture alliance/Getty Images
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In the valley alongside Germany’s Black Forest lies a potential solution to one of the most vexing issues facing Europe’s transition to sustainable transport.
Some two miles underground is enough lithium for at least 1 million electric vehicles a year, and one miner says it can tap those reserves at roughly half the cost of competing sources and without discharging greenhouse gases.