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Europe's achilles heel raw materials like cobalt

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Raw materials: the missing link in Europe’s drive for batteries

EURACTIV - November 9, 2020

While Europe is rapidly catching up with China on investments into batteries for electric cars, it is still lagging behind when it comes to...

forcing them to trace the materials based on the model of the EU’s Conflict Minerals Regulation, which enters into force in January. Further

While Europe is rapidly catching up with China on investments into batteries for electric cars, it is still lagging behind when it comes to securing supplies of the critical raw materials that are needed to produce them…Investments in the EU battery sector reached €60 billion last year, while China invested only €17 billion, EU commissioner Maro efovi told EURACTIV in a recent interview. This year, Europe has so far invested €25 billion – again twice as much as China, he noted…“In terms of investment levels in Europe, we probably have caught up,” says Andrew McDowell, the European Investment Bank’s vice-president responsible for economics and energy…But the catch up is not over yet. Europe’s Achilles Heel is at the start of the value chain, where raw materials are mined and processed, according to Peter Carlsson, the CEO of Swedish battery maker Northvolt…“We’re building plants but they need to be supported by raw materials, components and suppliers of equipment,” Carlsson told journalists at the August online briefing…Raw materials like lithium and cobalt, which are currently imported into Europe, have come under close scrutiny as part of the EU’s push to secure raw materials for battery manufacturing…Demand for lithium is expected to increase 16-fold by the end of the decade and be 60 times larger by 2050, according to European Commission forecasts. Cobalt, another key ingredient for batteries, will also see a spike in demand, growing 500% by 2030 and 15 times by 2050…To address this weakness, the Commission launched an action plan on critical raw materials as well as an industry alliance last September, with the aim of strengthening the EU’s “strategic autonomy” on key raw materials…And the focus is not only on car batteries – sectors such as aerospace, construction, and low-carbon industries are also concerned because they are considered key for the green and digital transitions…“Today we are acutely aware that this dependency is something we have to take extremely seriously, which is why we created this European Raw Materials Alliance,” efovi said…But developing mining at home and diversifying supplies is only part of the answer. The European Commission’s strategy also relies on recycling and green standards for batteries, which could help extract huge amounts of untapped raw materials contained in electric waste… “The recovery of critical raw materials from this e-waste stands below 1% because we do not have the necessary technology and industrial processes in place,” efovi said. “If you just collect all the old cell phones we have in our drawers, we can immediately build four million car batteries just from the cobalt,” the commissioner remarked, highlighting the vast untapped potential of so-called “urban mining”… “We also want to make sure that we will be working with raw materials that are traceable and respect ecological, labour and other standards. This is important for European consumers.”