The EU needs lithium to help wean it off oil. But is there enough?

Europe’s need to wean itself off fossil fuels and finish its reliance on Russian vitality is just not solely going to contain a sea change in shopper habits, however it is usually going to require numerous lithium.

Provided that the Outdated Continent barely produces any of the steel: is it simply swapping one dependency for one more?

European leaders have extolled the virtues of the New Inexperienced Deal which plans for the 27-country bloc to change into the primary carbon-neutral continent by 2050. To attain this, the EU goals to slash greenhouse fuel emissions by 55% by 2030 in comparison with the Nineties stage, carry emissions from new vehicles by 2035 all the way down to zero and enhance its share of renewables within the bloc’s vitality combine to 40%.

Lithium is more and more used for batteries in electronics from smartphones to tv in addition to to retailer vitality produced by photo voltaic panels and wind generators and in electrical vehicles.

In line with the World Financial institution, the manufacturing of minerals, resembling graphite, lithium and cobalt, would wish to extend by almost 500% by 2050 with a view to meet local weather targets whereas EU officers estimate that to attain local weather neutrality by mid-century, the bloc would require 18 instances extra lithium than it at present makes use of by 2030 and virtually 60 instances extra by 2050.

‘Strategic autonomy’

But, Europe solely has one lithium mine, in Portugal, and the very overwhelming majority of its wants is at present met by imports.

About 87% of unrefined lithium the EU sources comes from Australia — the remainder from Portugal — whereas Chile, the US and Russia present 78%, 8% and 4% respectively.

China can also be a very large participant. Though it has about an estimated 7% of the world’s reserves in lithium, 13% of the lithium extracted in 2019 was in China whereas over half of the lithium extracted that yr was processed within the nation.

Greater than 70% of the lithium-ion batteries that entered the market final yr have been produced in China.

Brussels is conscious of this dependency and added lithium to its checklist of crucial uncooked supplies checklist in 2020.

A Fee spokesperson acknowledged to Euronews that “the manufacturing and refining of lithium are closely concentrated in a handful of overseas international locations, which raises our vulnerability to numerous provide dangers.”

They added that “given the financial and technological relevance of this useful resource, in addition to the exterior dependencies it generates, it’s our accountability to make sure that the European financial system can profit from a sustainable and resilient provide of lithium.”

“Though the EU will proceed to domesticate its worldwide partnerships, important lithium extraction potential exists inside our borders and its exploitation might create hundreds of jobs. Growing native lithium mining and processing operations won’t solely improve our strategic autonomy and reinforce our financial system, however will even permit us to raised monitor and comprise the environmental impacts of mining industries, that are far tougher to regulate past the EU’s borders,” they mentioned.

Opposition to mines

There are at present 10 doubtlessly viable lithium tasks within the EU: three in Portugal, two in Spain and Germany every, with the remaining three within the Czech Republic, Finland and Austria respectively.

For Rene Kleijn, affiliate professor on the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) at Leiden College, “if all these vegetation change into operational, it will in all probability be sufficient for our personal provide.”

Drawback solved, then? Effectively, not fairly.

Getting all these tasks off the bottom won’t essentially be straightforward. A €2.2 billion lithium mine mission in Serbia was shelved earlier this yr after sturdy native opposition over environmental considerations. There may be additionally fierce opposition to lithium mining in Portugal.

The mining course of for lithium is primarily executed in two methods. There may be the standard open-pit method with the steel extracted from laborious rock and the second entails pumping large quantities of underground water to the floor to take away lithium from the briny liquid that comes up because the water evaporates.

Each are seen as disruptive to the panorama and native inhabitants with a possible threat of air and water air pollution. Utilizing water to extract lithium can also be controversial as water turns into extra scarce in some areas resulting from local weather change. Massive elements of Portugal and Spain, as an example, have been struggling by a winter drought leading to near-depleted reservoirs.

However there’s a third, greener, approach of mining lithium, referred to as Direct Lithium Extraction and that’s being applied for the potential mission in Germany. It depends on geothermal vitality to pump the brine to the floor to permit for the extraction of lithium earlier than being pumped again into the underground geothermal reservoir.

From extraction to manufacturing

Mining nevertheless is simply the tip of the iceberg. As soon as extracted, lithium must be refined, batteries made and finally recycled.

In reality, the latter is de facto the place lithium shines.

“One of many largest sources of air pollution in Europe and CO2 emissions is street transport,” Julia Poliscanova, Autos & e-mobility lead at Transport & Atmosphere, a clear transport marketing campaign group, informed Euronews,

Transport generates a couple of quarter of the EU’s complete emissions with street transport accounting for about 70% of them.

“The easiest way to decarbonise one of many largest local weather issues is electrification, and for that, we want batteries. And for that, we want lithium.

“Nonetheless, it’s certainly necessary to emphasize that any mining, any uncooked materials extraction, oil, nickel, lithium, fuel comes with an impression. On the subject of lithium, the impression per automotive is considerably much less so. When you’ve gotten a automotive, you’ll burn 17,000 litres of oil over using that automotive,” she mentioned.

“For a battery, an electrical car, you want about 5 – 6 kilogrammes of lithium which you can then recycle and reuse repeatedly. You simply must get it into your first batteries after which after a while, it could actually change into a round loop. So the impression of lithium is considerably lower than the impression of oil.”

US and China transfer sooner

However once more Europe is working behind on the whole provide chain infrastructure.

The European Battery Directive of 2006 was written earlier than lithium-ion batteries turned more and more outstanding resulting from a extra lukewarm method in direction of preventing local weather change then and thus didn’t set any targets for the recycling of lithium. These days, virtually no lithium is recovered within the EU, whereas recycling efficiencies are estimated at about 95 % for cobalt and nickel, and 80 % for copper.

“We might have anticipated this a lot earlier. For instance, within the US we now have insurance policies that principally come from Chilly Conflict instances that at the moment are being applied by President Biden with a view to safe provide chains for batteries, and electrical automobiles,” Kleijn mentioned.

Washington’s Defence Manufacturing Act permits the White Home to exert management over home industries in instances of disaster. It was utilized by President Trump to restrict exports of medical items at the beginning of the pandemic and by Biden to speed up vaccination.

It has now as soon as extra been invoked by Biden “to safe American manufacturing of crucial supplies to bolster our clear vitality financial system by lowering our reliance on China and different international locations for the minerals and supplies that may energy our clear vitality future” together with lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and manganese.

“That is actually like laborious core state interference within the markets to make it possible for your industries are in a position to survive and in addition aren’t depending on autocratic states or different states that you simply may not wish to be dependent upon. And this isn’t the sort of insurance policies that Europe is legendary for,” Kleijn argued.

“And I am not even speaking about China. I imply, in China, it is utterly state-operated. Massive Chinese language state-owned mining firms are concerned in mining all of those supplies all around the world, whether or not it is cobalt in Africa or lithium in Australia. The most important miner for the largest Australian mining of lithium, for instance, is one-quarter owned by a Chinese language state-owned firm. So you’ll be able to see how the Chinese language authorities can also be closely concerned in securing the availability chains additionally abroad,” he added.

2030 and past

Investments are being made throughout Europe in battery manufacturing to curb reliance from overseas.

About 24 lithium-ion battery cells giga-factories have been anticipated to open throughout the EU between 2021 and 2030. Tesla, as an example, opened its gigafactory in Germany final month.

The affiliation of European Automotive and Industrial Battery Producers now forecasts that the EU battery market worth will develop from €15 billion in 2019 to an estimated €35 billion in 2030 — with lithium-ion accounting for about half — whereas the worldwide market worth will develop from €90 billion to 150 billion.

Nonetheless, even within the best-case situation, with all potential mines opening by 2025, “I do not see how Europe will obtain sufficiency on this decade,” Poliscanova flagged.

“However transferring after 2030, relying on how sensible our coverage on recycling is, Europe can change into self-sufficient,” she concluded.