Europe faces critical shortage of metals needed for clean energy
APRIL 25 2022
Europe faces a critical shortage of clean-energy metals and needs to decide urgently how it will bridge the looming supply gap or risk new dependencies on unsustainable producers. That is the conclusion of a new study commissioned by Eurometaux, an industry group that represents some of the region’s biggest metal producers, including Glencore and Rio Tinto
The report, written by Belgium’s Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, marks the first attempt to provide some EU-specific numbers around last year’s warning from the International Energy Agency of supply challenges owing to the amount of metals needed for batteries, solar panels and wind turbines. It comes as the EU, which is aiming to be carbon neutral by 2050, looks to reduce its dependence on imported Russian energy and make a quicker switch to renewable energy.
“There is a risk . . . with the geopolitical developments we are seeing round the world that Europe . . . will not have the metal for its climate programme,” said Mikael Staffas, president of Eurometaux and chief executive of Boliden, one of Europe’s biggest metals and mining companies. He was speaking before the launch of the study in Brussels. The report estimates that to meet its clean energy goals, Europe will require 35 times more lithium and seven to 26 times the amount of rare earth metals in 2050 compared with today. It will also need 1.5mn tonnes of copper (an increase of 35 per cent from today) and 400,000 tonnes of nickel (a 100 per cent increase).
While up to 75 per cent of the region’s clean energy metal requirements could eventually be met through local recycling, assuming there is enough investment, the study says a metal supply crunch will emerge over the next 15 years. That is when global shortages of lithium, cobalt, nickel, rare earths and copper are expected to emerge because of a lack of new mining projects and competition from countries around the world also seeking to decarbonise.
“Europe needs to decide urgently how it will bridge its looming supply gap for primary metals. Without a decisive strategy, it risks new dependencies on unsustainable suppliers,” said Liesbet Gregoir, lead author of the report. Gregoir said there were three options for Europe. The first would be to develop new mines, something that would be difficult because of permitting challenges and local community opposition. Rio Tinto’s licence to develop a huge lithium project was recently revoked by Serbia.
The second would be to open new refineries that could process metal-rich ores. However, that would involve tackling the issue of high energy prices. Skyrocketing energy prices have resulted in 35 to 45 per cent of Europe’s aluminium, zinc and silicon capacity being taken temporarily offline, according to the report. The final option would be for Europe to co-invest or finance new mining projects around the world in return for long-term term supply agreements. “If you look at China, they have been very proactive,” said Gregoir. “They have projects across the globe for everything they can’t produce themselves. Europe could learn from that.”
Commenting on the report, Thierry Breton, the EU’s internal market commissioner, claimed the bloc was “pursuing an ambitious agenda” on raw materials focused on recycling, “exploring” sustainable domestic production and diversifying supplies through strategic partnerships. “I fully agree with the conclusion of your study that recycling is a long-term opportunity to improve the EU’s . . . raw material resilience,” he added.
Supply challenges come as EU seeks to reduce its dependence on Russian imports
www.ft.com
The US is heavily reliant on China and Russia for its ammo supply chain. Congress wants to fix that. Jun 8 2022
The United States has relied almost entirely on China — and to a lesser extent Russia — in recent years to procure a critical mineral that is vital to producing ammunition.
The mineral antimony is critical to the defense-industrial supply chain and is needed to produce everything from armor-piercing bullets and explosives to nuclear weapons as well as sundry other military equipment, such as night vision goggles.
Antimony is now on the front lines of
recent congressional efforts to shore up the strategic reserve of rare earth minerals, known as the national defense stockpile. The stockpile includes a multitude of other minerals critical to the defense-industrial supply chain such as titanium, tungsten, cobalt and lithium, but lawmakers expect will become insolvent by fiscal 2025 absent corrective action.
The House Armed Services Committee took its first stab at addressing China’s grip on the antimony supply chain in draft legislation it released Wednesday. A report accompanying the bill would require the manager of the national defense stockpile to brief the committee on the status of antimony by October while providing “a five-year outlook of these minerals and current and future supply chain vulnerabilities.”
“The committee is concerned about recent geopolitical dynamics with Russia and China and how that could accelerate supply chain disruptions, particularly with antimony,” the report noted.
The draft legislation would also require the Defense Department to instate a policy of recycling spent batteries to reclaim “precious metals, rare earth minerals and elements of strategic importance (such as Cobalt and Lithium) into the supply chain or strategic reserves of the United States.”
The House’s readiness subcommittee is expected to approve the draft text on Thursday, and the Armed Services Committee is set to advance the legislation as part of its annual defense authorization bill later this month.
After Japan cut off the U.S. supply of antimony from China during World War II, the United States began procuring the mineral from ore in an Idaho goldmine. However, that mine ceased production in 1997.
“There is no domestic mine for antimony,” according to a 2020 report from the U.S. Geological Survey, a government agency. “China is the largest producer of mined and refined antimony and a major source of imports for the United States.”
The report noted that China is “losing market share with Russia, the world’s second-ranked producer,” with Tajikistan gaining ground in the global market as the world’s third-largest supplier of antimony.
Lawmakers’ recent interest in shoring up the national defense stockpile of strategic minerals marks a significant about-face for Congress, which had repeatedly authorized multimillion-dollar sales of the reserve over the past several decades to fund other programs.
At its peak during the beginning of the Cold War in 1952, the stockpile was valued at nearly $42 billion in today’s dollars. That value has plummeted to $888 million as of last year.
The Defense Department submitted its own legislative proposal to Congress last month, asking lawmakers to authorize $253.5 million in the defense authorization bill to procure additional minerals for the stockpile.
Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, led seven Republicans in April in asking the defense appropriations subcommittee to provide an additional $264 million in funding for the stockpile for FY23.
“The current stockpile is inadequate to meet the requirements of great power competition,” the lawmakers wrote. “The [national defense stockpile] is no longer capable of covering the Department of Defense’s needs for the vast majority of identified materials in the event of a supply chain disruption.”
The mineral antimony is critical to the defense-industrial supply chain and is needed to produce everything from armor-piercing bullets and explosives to nuclear weapons as well as sundry other military equipment, such as night vision goggles.
www.defensenews.com
Rare Earth elements can be considered the oil of this century. And the reserves of the US-European countries are scarce. They are now doomed to us. And there is no alternative to it. Therefore, we can set them against each other by offering a partnership to England.
www.aa.com.tr
