能源转型的首要任务是为车辆、供暖等应用实现电气化，并确保为其供电的电力来自可再生能源。但一旦排放饼图中的主要部分减少，其他减排潜力较小的类别将变得重要。
The first order of business for the energy transition is electrifying applications like vehicles and heating and making sure that the electricity that powers them is made using renewables. But once the dominant slices of the emissions pie have shrunk, other categories with less potential to reduce emissions become important.
墨尔本大学的Haiwei Zhou领导的一项新研究聚焦于锂离子电池生产所关联的排放，而能源转型的许多部分依赖于这类电池。这些排放并非零，因此随着我们使用越来越多的电池，这一数字将增长。目前，研究人员估计这些排放仅占年度温室气体释放量的0.18%，但到2050年可能增加10倍或更多。
A new study led by Haiwei Zhou at the University of Melbourne focused on the emissions associated with making lithium-ion batteries, which many parts of the energy transition rely on. Those emissions aren’t zero, so as we use more and more batteries, that number will grow. Right now, the researchers estimate that these emissions only account for 0.18 percent of annual greenhouse gas releases, but they could increase by a factor of 10 or more by 2050.
降低电池生产所需排放的方法有多种。用于各种锂离子电池化学体系的一些元素在开采和精炼过程中比其他元素更耗能。电池制造过程涉及许多步骤，这些步骤可以通过提高能源效率来优化。此外，还有回收利用，它能将电池材料重新投入使用循环，而所需能源远低于开采。
There are a number of ways to reduce the emissions required to make a battery. Some elements used in various lithium-ion battery chemistries are more energy-intensive to mine and refine than others. The battery manufacturing process involves many steps that could be made more energy-efficient. And then there’s recycling, which can put battery materials back into the loop while requiring much less energy than mining.