Seeking to simplify the complicated issue of clean energy, social media posts have proliferated claiming to show pictures of the destruction left by lithium mining for hybrid and electric-vehicle batteries.
The problem is that many of these posts have been wrong about what the images show. And a new one from a March 24 post follows that pattern with a photo it says shows “one of Tesla’s lithium supply mines where entire mountains are eliminated.”
The post includes two images, of an oil well and a mine. The caption says the oil well is where “100% organic material is pumped out of the ground, taking up around 500 to 1000 square feet,” contrasting that with the mine, which it says “came at a cost of entire mountains, thousands of square miles of land and billions of gallons of oil and fuel.”
The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
(Screengrab from Facebook)
We rate the claim that a photo shows “one of Tesla’s lithium supply mines where entire mountains are eliminated” False.
