Lithium – No mobility turnaround without white gold
Published: Friday, Dec 8th 2023, 10:30
Retour au fil d'actualité
"The future is electric": slogans like this are intended to convince customers to buy an electric car. And this is also necessary, because from 2035 there will be a ban on the registration of fossil combustion engines in the EU, and there is likely to be a similar timetable in Switzerland.
The framework conditions for the mobility turnaround have thus been created and car manufacturers have adjusted their production plans accordingly. But can it be that simple? There is one crucial piece of the puzzle that is facing major bottlenecks and could throw the whole plan into disarray: Lithium.
This special metal is not only essential for the construction of modern electric car batteries, but is also rare and difficult to obtain. And a normal battery with 90 kilowatt hours requires around 14 kilograms of lithium. To make matters worse, a significant proportion of the current lithium supply is in Chinese hands - for example, the EU obtains 97 percent of its lithium from China.
China tries to secure deposits
The trading partner, which has not always been reliable in the past, is investing billions in countries in Latin America and Africa in order to secure further deposits. But not all countries are so open to China. In the summer, for example, the Australian government prohibited the takeover of lithium miner Alita Resources by a company with links to China. At the beginning of the year, the Chinese Yuxiao Fund was prevented from increasing its stake in rare earth miner Northern Minerals. And Canada even forced three companies from the People's Republic to sell their stakes in companies related to critical raw materials.
The country with the world's largest reserves of lithium g is Chile with an estimated 9 million tons. It is followed by Australia (5.7 million tons) and Argentina (2.7 million tons). However, efforts are currently underway in Chile to nationalize mining, which has led to significant price fluctuations in some cases.
Prices have fallen significantly since the summer, with the price of lithium carbonate per tonne in China - the world's largest market for electric vehicles - dropping below 165,000 yuan (just over 20,000 Swiss francs) for the first time since September 2021 - around 600,000 yuan (just under 74,000 Swiss francs) was still being paid around a year ago.
Strong increase in demand
However, the fall in prices is likely to come to an end in the future, as demand for the metal and other rare earths will increase significantly. According to calculations by the EU Commission, the amount of lithium required in the EU alone will increase more than fivefold by 20230. Global demand is also gigantic: the European Raw Materials Alliance (ERMA) estimates that up to 70,000 tons of rare earths will be needed annually by 2030 for the construction of electric cars alone - in 2019, demand was still at 5,000 tons. And other industries also use the "white gold". The EU itself has not yet mined any of these materials and is therefore completely dependent on imports.
In addition to lithium-ion batteries, there are also lithium iron phosphate batteries, which use significantly less lithium. They are also cheaper, but have a lower energy density and therefore offer less range. Of course, other battery forms are also being worked on, such as the sodium-ion battery from the Swedish company Northvolt, which does not require the rare metal at all. However, the technology is not yet ready for the market or, above all, for mass production.
Therefore, the industry currently only has batteries that rely on lithium. However, the expected demand cannot be met by the deposits currently being tapped. The International Energy Agency (IEA) calculates that around 60 additional lithium mines will be needed worldwide by 2030 to meet the governments' decarbonization and e-car targets. The problem with this is the long time it takes for a lithium project to make it from the initial feasibility study to actual production. According to the IEA, it currently takes between 6 and 19 years.
The bottom line is that, despite all the challenges, electromobility will probably be "without alternative", as the saying goes. However, the road there could be much bumpier than many would like.
©Keystone/SDA
French 
English 
German 
Spanish 
Arabic