The IEA releases new report on critical mineral supply and demand, plus how evaporative production of lithium is affecting areas and indigenous peoples in Argentina.
The International Energy Agency has published a new report on critical minerals. EVs are essential to decarbonize road transportation, but there are challenges in mass production of the battery-grade substances, such as lithium, needed in EV production. The big questions: where can we find massive supplies of these minerals to meet demand? And can we procure and produce these minerals on a sound ethical and environmental basis? Let’s take a look.
P.S. We also reveal the answers to last week’s quiz, so read to the end!
Rasoul Sorkhabi
Editor, Core Elements
Critical Minerals Outlook
IM Imagery/ Shutterstock.com
The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) published a major report on Global Critical Minerals Outlook 2024. The report analyzes the market forces of supply and demand for copper, lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare-earth elements and makes policy recommendations around their procurement.
Demand for critical minerals experienced strong growth in 2023:
Lithium demand rose 30 percent
Demand for nickel, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements all saw increases from 8–15 percent.
Electric vehicles using these minerals show strong and fast growth. EV sales were close to 14 million in 2023, a 35 percent increase from the previous year.
The report forecasts that given the scenario of “stated policies,” mineral demand for the energy transition will double between 2024 and 2030.
If society achieves “net zero emissions by 2050,” the IEA projects that mineral demand will quadruple by 2040 reaching, 40 million tons per year.
Price findings: Between 2020 and 2022, the prices of battery materials increased sharply, but in 2023, the prices for lithium plummeted 75 percent and dropped 30–45 percent for cobalt, nickel, and graphite.
Supply and demand tension: The above two statements appear to contradict each other. How can prices drop for a commodity while demand is on the rise? Largely because supply overtook demand. In other words, massive production of battery-grade materials is underway.
Recommendations:
Major capital investment is required for the production of critical minerals. This will be best achieved through market transparency around pricing and data.
Recycling metals creates a secondary source of supplies and relieves pressures on primary mining and processing.
Mining companies should consider environmental stresses such as water shortage and fragile biodiversity, the adverse social impacts of government corruption, and meaningful engagement with indigenous and local communities when planning projects.
Go deeper: Read the IEA’s full report online. There is also a webinar about the report available.
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The IEA’s recommendations for environmental sustainability and social license to operate take us to the Lithium Triangle in the Andes. The area is bordered by Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile and is known for its high concentrations of lithium in shallow brines.
A place called Puna: The story focuses on the indigenous community living in San Miguel de loc Colorados in the province of Jujuy in northern Argentina.
San Miguel de loc Colorados is part of a much larger watershed covering more than 17,000 square kilometers and is home to 33 indigenous communities.
They live in mud-brick houses with grass roofs across a mountainous plateau called Puna.
Indigenous rights: Since 1994, Argentina’s federal constitution has given the Indigenous communities rights to their ancestral lands, but the provincial government in San Miguel de los Colorados has denied this communal land right.
In June 2023, the provincial government even declared that the territory as “public land destined for production.”
A month later, a group of indigenous people protesting this new change was violently beaten by the police. “Argentina had not experienced this level of state violence since the end of the military dictatorship since 1983,” the article notes.
Companies operating in these areas use a process called evaporative production to procure lithium.
How evaporative production works:
Pump two million liters of water per ton of lithium from the underground to the surface.
Water evaporates from surface ponds.
A residue of heavy brine with high concentrations of lithium ions is produced.
Lithium is further processed for purification.
Downsides to evaporative production:
Resource intensive: Over 90 percent of the original pumped water in evaporative production is lost through evaporation. This is a huge loss of water for the arid areas in the Lithium Triangle: The Puna highlands receive a maximum of 300 millimeters of rain a year.
Land footprint: The evaporation ponds require huge land footprints.
Time consuming: The process can take one to two years.
Disruptive: The process can infringe upon indigenous peoples’ lives and environment.
A necessary swap: Edition 12 of the AAPG newsletter Enspired covered direct lithium extraction. This is a preferable alternative to the harms caused by evaporative production.
Go deeper: Read the full article in Earth Island Journal online.
Quiz Answers Revealed
Roman Samborskyi/ Shutterstock.com
Last week, I published a quiz to help you focus and retain information from BBC’s series Earth: One Planet, Many Lives. Here are the answers:
Roachoids, ancestors of cockroaches, appeared in the Carboniferous and survived the Permian-Triassic mass extinction.
The polar climate during the Snowball period was minus 90 degrees Celsius.
Crown shyness is observed in the canopy of some trees (especially in trees of the same species) in which the crowns of fully developed trees do not touch each other and instead form channel-like gaps, possibly for photosynthetic efficiency. These gaps prevent disease, curb the spread of leaf-eating larvae, and help avoid damage by branches hitting each other in the wind. It is an example of convergent evolution.
Of the five elements that make up DNA–oxygen, nitrogen hydrogen, carbon, and sulfur—nitrogen and oxygen are 78 percent and 21 percent, respectively, in the lower atmosphere. Hydrogen occurs in water vapor. Carbon (in carbon dioxide) is 0.04 percent, and sulfur occurs in trace amounts in the form sulfur dioxide, which dissolves and makes rain acidic.
The oldest cave rock art found to date is nearly 40,000 years old and located in Indonesia.
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