The price of lithium, the building block of electric vehicle batteries, shot to a record this year, amplifying concerns there will not be enough of the metal to fuel the switch away from combustion engines. In that climate, now should be a prime time to build a mine.
The opposition Rio faces is replicated around the world, and industry executives consider it their biggest challenge going forward. Southern Copper is struggling to get government support for a $US1.4 billion project in Peru and Lithium Americas was taken to US federal court over its planned mine in Nevada.
Protesters also blasted an effort to speed up ownership changes for both state and private projects. The outrage forced President Aleksandar Vucic to send the proposal back to parliament for reworking. Lithium is a future-facing commodity critical for global decarbonisation. The biggest car makers, from Tesla to Volkswagen to Toyota, need an ever-growing supply of battery materials to accelerate the rollout of EVs, with BloombergNEF expecting demand for the minerals in lithium-ion packs to grow fivefold by 2030.A global index of lithium prices has more than tripled this year, and BNEF forecasts that lithium-ion battery prices will increase next year for the first time since 2010.
Precisely. We also need to work on developing new material rather stealing resources from poor and oppressed countries.