Some estimate that the continent’s largest reserves of lithium—the metal used for batteries—are in Serbia. The hard part might be getting it out.
The ancient scooter gurgling through a languid summer afternoon brought groceries and a fistful of cash to Sasa Antic’s house. Like many of his neighbors, the 30-year-old Serb hasn’t had a job for some time so the family relies on the arrival of his mother’s pension.
Yet buried in the ground beneath this forgotten corner of former Yugoslavia is the prospect of becoming a new European front in the economic battle with Asia. Geologists are exploring the hilly landscape for the metal that’s become ubiquitous in modern technology: lithium.
“It would be a godsend if they can prove lithium reserves,” said Antic, as his mother counted out the dinars handed to her by a merchant who also delivered milk, rolls and butter to them in Klinovac, a hamlet of barns, stone houses and more goats than cars. “This is the least developed part of Serbia and we are at a dead end.”
The global hunt for lithium is afoot as companies look to cut fossil-fuel use. BloombergNEF estimates battery demand for lithium material will grow eightfold over the next 11 years.
Serbia’s estimated deposits are the largest in Europe and the insatiable appetite for batteries that power everything from iPhones to Tesla cars is prompting the likes of Rio Tinto Group to study the viability of mining it.
For the rest of this article: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-08-29/there-may-be-a-fortune-buried-in-a-forgotten-corner-of-europe