Guest Lecturer Thea Riofrancos Delivers Talk on Lithium Extraction, Green Energy, & Capitalism

On Monday, April 13, Thea Riofrancos delivered a talk at the Frank Center for Public Affairs exploring the political, economic, and environmental implications of resource extraction in the era of green capitalism, attracting dozens of Wesleyan students. The event was sponsored by the Bailey College of the Environment and the Government Department. 

Riofrancos is a political scientist and Associate Professor of Political Science at Providence College. Her work focuses on natural resources and climate politics.

Riofrancos began her talk by focusing on mining rare-earth minerals for energy source transition, with a specific emphasis on lithium extraction for electric-vehicle batteries. While lithium is just one slice of a much broader extractive system, projections suggest that the world may need almost four hundred new mines in the next nine years to meet growing demand, according to Riofrancos.

Riofrancos also explained that lithium is classified as a critical mineral because it is essential to the economy and linked to national security. She noted that the controversial designation directly shapes policy by encouraging governments to accelerate mining projects and increase industry support.

“When you say this is critical, you say it’s relevant to state security, which might mean that the state takes a special interest in pushing these projects forward,” Riofrancos said. “Maybe that means we deregulate them; we limit environmental reviews so we can fast-track them. Whatever it is, the state wants to make sure these critical minerals are being produced, and that can even include more repression against protest.”

Riofrancos further pointed to lithium extraction in Chile as an example of how the energy transition can be environmentally and socially disruptive. 

“Chile is the number one copper producer in the world,” Riofrancos said. “Climate change and its environmental impacts are already affecting these regions, leading to lower flamingo populations as part of a broader biodiversity crisis. Lithium extraction and copper extraction require significant amounts of water, undermining local livelihoods and human water use, while large multinational companies disrupt the social fabric of these communities. And so we might ask, in the name of what is all this sacrifice? All of this environmental harm and social dislocation—why is it happening, and why is it deemed necessary?”

According to Riofrancos, efforts to transition to green energy have intensified, and lithium batteries have become vital. She added that because lithium batteries power electric vehicles and thus reduce carbon pollution from cars, trucks, and other forms of transportation, they are central to the sector’s efforts to decarbonize. Furthermore, since solar and wind power are intermittently generated, batteries are needed to store energy when they are unavailable. Thus, demand has risen dramatically.

“When we’re talking about the multi-trillion-dollar global auto sector and electrifying [an] entire fleet of automobiles, when we’re talking about energy grids that need to go everywhere and have stable, reliable storage, we’re talking about a roughly 42 times increase in lithium over a couple of decades,” Riofrancos said.

According to Riofrancos, this influx in demand creates imbalances when supply cannot keep pace. In addition to supply-side factors, policy changes can weaken demand. The rollback of electric vehicle subsidies under the Trump administration, for example, helped soften demand in the United States. These shifts have created volatility in markets for the commodity, making the price of lithium highly unstable.

The discussion then shifted toward government policy in the Global North, with an emphasis on the U.S. and Europe. Riofrancos explained how policymakers in these regions increasingly view lithium through a geopolitical lens of competition, particularly in relation to China. As a result, they tend to pursue expanded domestic or allied-country mining. Instead of relying on imports from global markets, industrial policies, tax breaks, and subsidies, trade restrictions are being implemented to secure supply chains closer to home.

“Global North policymakers are saying [they] don’t trust importing these minerals from elsewhere or from China,” Riofrancos said. “We view the world through this hyper-securitized lens of a geopolitical battle [in which] we need to secure our own resources.”

Several students attended the lecture and shared their takeaways, including Brendan Barry ’28, who is actively involved in environmental politics on and off campus. 

“I think one of the most interesting parts of the green energy transition is that, as the professor said, different stages of it are going to incur different costs on local communities,” Barry said. “There could be this confluence of interests between local labor forces, environmental groups, [and] indigenous groups coming together towards a common cause in restraining the actions of corporations that might be especially economically or socially hazardous to a local community.” 

Liam Dorien ’27 also attended the lecture. 

“We’re the next generation,” Dorien said. “[We’re] real people going into government, into policy, [and] into business as well, and also people who are going to be advocating for the rest of our lives, hopefully. So I hope we’re able to take these ideas and not forget the larger issues when we’re advocating for green energy, green school buses, or walkable cities, or whatever, and to keep in mind the downstream effects.” 

Brendan Kelso can be reached at bkelso@wesleyan.edu.