You forgot one Metal, that also is a real problem, but it is nessassary for building the Frames of modern Cars: Aluminum.<br>You can say, that in Nations, that win and process Aluminium for the global market, it is the same like with Lithium.<br>To get the Metal out of the stones, you need a mix of very corosive and unhealthy substances. After it is processed, the rest is a reddish slag that cannot be processed otherwise, full of acid, heavy metals and other stuff.<br>It is stored on BIG Areas, that are forever lost to nature and the farming industry, and cannot be renaturalised again.<br>When the stuff dries up, the wind blews particles in the surrounding areas, if a big rainstorm comes, the dams that should prevent that stuff to get in the surounding areas, can break or overflow, which already happened sometimes in the past in an eastern europe country.<br>I know, this metals are essential for todays life, but the prospecting / Mining / Processing of them and storing the slag, is killing our earth. With all the Aluminium slag that already exist on our wonderful planet, you could cover the ground on the biggest Crater that can be seen from earth in red slag. and it becomes more with each day.<br>And yes, we here in Germany have one too, in north east Germany. It also is the most Expensive Hightech and clean one. But even they cannot prevent the "red sand of death" and destroys hectares of land with it.