Europe accounts for less than 1% of global lithium supply but is seeking to boost this by 2030
The EU Critical Raw Materials Act , which came into force on May 23, aims to diversify Europe’s supply of the minerals needed for the “green and digital transitions”. It set benchmark targets the EU must meet by 2030 to secure the supply of critical minerals such as lithium, copper and cobalt.
These targets stipulate 10 per cent of the EU’s annual consumption of critical raw minerals must be extracted in the EU; 40 produced in the EU; 25 per cent sourced through recycling; and no more than 65 per cent of the EU’s annual consumption for each mineral should come from a single country.
Battery-grade lithium, which has a higher purity than conventional lithium, is central to the EU’s decarbonisation of energy and transport. Crucial to the electrification of transport, for example, battery-grade lithium is one of the EU’s “strategic raw materials”, which face “a potentially significant gap between global supply and projected demand”.
The International Energy Agency projects that total global demand for lithium will almost triple from 165 kilotonnes in 2023 to 531kt in 2030 and increase more than eight times to reach 1,326kt in 2040.
A host of lithium mining and processing projects are under way in Europe and the UK. Savannah Resources is developing Europe’s first major mine in the north-east of Portugal, where the region’s most easily accessible resources are located. Development work began in 2017 and the mine will begin operating by the end of 2026, project CEO Emanual Provena tells Sustainable Views.
Provena says the EU goals are “realistic” and could “be more ambitious”, and predicts the Savannah project could “be responsible for a third or half” of the 10 per cent required by 2030. Currently, however, this is a distant dream.
https://www.sustainableviews.com/europe-promises-sustainable-lithium-but-production-is-years-away-83b3d9eb/