Lithium is one of 34 critical raw materials listed by the EU under the Critical Raw Materials Act and is a key component of the EU's quest to abandon fossil fuels and move towards clean energy.
The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) recently passed by the European Council will enable European industry to extract the key mineral 10%, refine 40% and recycle 15% by 2030. Among the key materials transformed, there are 34 critical materials and 17 strategic materials. , and lithium is one of the very important raw materials.
Why lithium?
Under the EU's energy transition plan, the mineral will face increased demand due to the large production of batteries needed for electric vehicles and energy storage systems. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that global demand for lithium will increase 42 times by 2040 compared with last year.
“It is mainly the cars, buses and trucks of the future that will consume all the lithium,” Peter Tom Jones, director of the Institute of Sustainable Metals and Minerals at the University of Leuven in Belgium, told Euronews.
Lithium is a very light mineral that plays a key role in enabling the green and digital transition, helping to combat the instability of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
"More and more companies will have renewable electricity production facilities that they store in large stationary batteries so that they can be used as smart systems, whether that's storing the electricity or sending it back to the grid," Jones added.
Lithium can be extracted from hard rock or (liquid) brine. In the case of lithium brines, scientists make a "clear distinction" between geothermal lithium brines and so-called salt lakes, which are located in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, but none in Europe, where Jones believes there is real potential in hard rock deposits.
Lithium as an available resource
Andreas Bittner, executive director of the European Lithium Institute, told Euronews that processed lithium is mainly imported from Chile (79%), Switzerland (7%), Argentina (6%), and the United States (5%), with the remainder coming from China. He pointed out that the EU currently imports 81% of extracted lithium and 100% of processed lithium.
Although the raw material is currently only produced outside the EU, 27 deposits have been identified in Europe, in the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Ireland, Germany, Portugal, Serbia, Spain and the United Kingdom, of which approximately ten have actual mining possibilities. Serbia's Yadar deposit is the largest, according to Jones.
Taking into account the current and feasible development of these ten sites, geologist Wouter Heijlen believes that by 2030, the EU's lithium self-sufficiency rate from mines could reach 50% of the block's needs. These deposits vary in depth and are often found deep underground. Portugal is the only European country with four open-pit mining sites.
"Currently only Portugal (excluding the UK) produces lithium from hard rock deposits, while the largest lithium resources are in Germany," Bittner said. However, the lithium dug out is currently only used to make ceramics, not batteries.
Challenges of mining lithium
A recent scientific study published by Material Proceedings on ongoing lithium projects in four countries claims that the Portuguese open-pit Mina do Barroso project, owned by Savannah Resources, is the only commercial venture to face strong opposition from local people. . Projects underway in France, Finland and the UK "appear to be favored by local people, as no signs of controversy or disputes have been reported".
"I think the biggest issue, for arid areas like Portugal and Spain, is water consumption," Jones added. He also said he was involved in two EU-funded lithium projects focused on reducing water consumption levels compared to baseline methods.
Another uncertainty regarding lithium is the potential breakthrough in sodium-ion batteries, which could replace lithium demand in the long term. "One of the huge advantages is that you don't need to mine large amounts of critical metals such as lithium and cobalt, which is a critical metal, and sodium is very abundant and can be extracted from seawater," Jones said, noting that this scenario remains " Extremely uncertain”.
What measures is the EU taking to ensure lithium production?
The EU has established several trading partnerships with countries that have lithium production or identified reserves and are preparing projects. These countries include Argentina, Canada, Chile, Congo (DRC), Greenland, Namibia, Norway, Rwanda and Uzbekistan. Last month, the EU also established a partnership with the United States to strengthen transatlantic cooperation on key raw materials in order to "diversify the global supply chain of critical minerals."
Source: euronews.green (2024.5.9) Why is lithium crucial to the EU's green and digital transition?
