Vesna Marinkovic U.
The diplomat highlights the French and European desire to ensure the supply of strategic resources, such as lithium, to face the energy transition autonomously. She said that the DLE (Direct Lithium Extraction) is a very advanced technique but still in development…
1France will exploit one of the largest lithium mines in Europe, with an expected capacity of 34 thousand tons/year. Could we expand this information please?
Yes, in October 2022, the French company Imerys, a world leading specialist in minerals for the industry, announced the launch of a large lithium extraction project called “Emili” in eastern France. Unlike lithium extraction in Bolivia, Argentina or Chile, which is obtained by collecting the minerals found in brines, this project is to extract lithium from rock minerals, as in Australia or China. The goal is to produce around 34,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year from 2028, over a period of at least 25 years.
This project responds to the French and European desire to ensure our supply of strategic resources to face the challenges of tomorrow’s energy transition. It will make it possible to supply the European market with lithium-ion batteries and plans to equip around 700,000 electric vehicles a year. This project will guarantee France the development of its economic sovereignty in a key sector in which demand is expected to continue to grow strongly in the coming years. It is also part of the France 2030 Plan, an industrial strategy supported by the Government that establishes the entire battery value chain in France, from basic materials to recycling.
2Press reports indicate that the exploitation of this deposit, by the company Imerys, will allow Europe to produce lithium batteries autonomously and eliminate its dependence on China in this matter. What can you tell us about that?
European car and battery manufacturers are currently heavily dependent on imports from third party countries. For this reason, the European Commission published a proposal for a new regulation last month, called the Critical Raw Material Act (CRM Act). The text includes a broad set of actions aimed towards reducing Europe’s dependence on third party countries in terms of critical raw materials for its strategic sectors, seeking to strengthen value chains and at the same time, establishing coordination mechanisms between Member States to guarantee supplies.
Given that the demand for batteries is expected to multiply by 14 between now and 2030, the needs of the EU will not be able to be satisfied with a production based solely on European soil. Other lithium-rich countries have an interest in participating in the diversification process of Europe’s lithium supply chain, as well as creating a comprehensive value chain. Although the CRM Act requires that a minimum of 10% of the extraction of a critical metal takes place in Europe, it stipulates that no third-party country can supply more than 65% of the annual consumption of a metal. In addition, as part of its climate plan that aims to be carbon neutral by 2050, and following an initiative proposed by France during its presidency, the European Union has announced the end of combustion engine cars by 2035.
On the other hand, the European Commission has launched a strategy called “Global Gateway” since 2021, with a budget of 300,000 million euros, to support the financing of infrastructure, mainly within newly industrialised countries and developing countries. This strategy aims to strengthen the resilience of European supply chains and diversify our trade in several key areas such as digital, energy or transport.
3Which will be the technology that will allow you to extract the raw material for the production of lithium batteries and what is the investment level?
The technology used for this extraction project in France is not new, rather it is very similar to the techniques used in other lithium-in-rock mines, such as in Australia. Once the mineral is extracted, the mineral that contains lithium, called “mica” is isolated and separated from the other components. Finally, lithium is extracted from litiniferous mica to produce lithium hydroxide in a powder form. The resulting hydroxide can be marketed in the electric vehicle battery industry.
According to his estimates, the Imerys group project will require an investment of approximately 1,000 million euros. The production cost of lithium in France is expected to be at a competitive level, especially in the European market, thus guaranteeing a return on investment.
4In Europe, Serbia had to abandon the Rio Tinto project due to environmental pressures, which would have been considered the exploitation project of the largest lithium deposit in Europe. Taking this into account, under which environmental security measures will lithium exploitation operate in France?
There are international certifications on responsible mining exploitation to which companies can subscribe. In this sense, scientists from the Geological and Mining Research Office of the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières (BRGM), have developed a geochemical method that establishes the “fingerprint” of lithium present in batteries to trace it and determine its origin. Over time, this should offer guarantees for a more sustainable extraction from the social and environmental point of view.
In general, future investments in France for the energy transition will have to be aligned with the National Strategy for the Reduction of Carbon Emissions (SNBC – La Stratégie Nationale Bas-Carbone), the national roadmap to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and achieve carbon neutrality between now and 2050. To minimise CO2 emissions linked to the extraction of raw materials and the manufacture of batteries, French manufacturers can rely on a low-carbon national electricity mix and apply innovative transport logistics solutions.
“Given that the demand for batteries is expected to multiply by 14 between now and 2030, the needs of the EU will not be able to be satisfied with a production based solely on European soil”
5Do you consider that in general, the exploitation of lithium is very controversial, especially due to issues related to water consumption?
Clearly, in the case of lithium extraction, the issue of water consumption needs to be carefully considered. However, French companies operate according to environmental, social and governance standards that seek to mitigate the effects of mining activities on the environment.
Due to climate change, the water cycle in France has undergone significant changes that affect many sectors such as agriculture, energy, tourism or industry. President Emmanuel Macron recently announced the launch of a “water sobriety plan” with more than 50 measures. This plan plans future water management with the main goal of achieving 10% water savings in all sectors by 2030.
Among the main lines of action of this plan, we can highlight the will to go towards greater sobriety in sectors that consume a lot of water, the reuse of wastewater, the transformation of the agricultural sector and the introduction of progressive pricing to promote the reduction of water consumption.
6Do you have any comments about the DLE (Direct Lithium Extraction) technology that the Chinese consortium will use in the extraction of lithium carbonate in Bolivia?
In the case of lithium extraction in brines, the direct lithium extraction technique (DLE) represents a great technological advance that maximises yields and has a much smaller carbon footprint than other traditional techniques. Although this technique is still in the development phase, it represents a very interesting possibility.
France is one of the most advanced countries in this technology. Several French companies have developed their own direct lithium extraction techniques and some already operate in the region in the salt flats of Argentina and Chile. French companies are still very interested in participating in Bolivian projects for the extraction and industrialization of Bolivian lithium, to the extent that these companies perceive interest from Bolivia.
France has great capacity in the area of research and innovation of the entire lithium value chain thanks to internationally recognized institutions. I am thinking, in particular, of the Atomic Energy Commission specialised in the energy transition (CEA-Liten) and the BRGM, mentioned beforehand. These two organisations are a testimony of the cooperation between France and Bolivia in the field of minerals, a Franco-Bolivian story that began in the 1970s, when ORSTOM (now the Institute for Research and Development, IRD) participated in the study to quantify the Uyuni salt flat reserves.
