Dig This: The Shift To EVs Requires A Massive Expansion Of Battery Metal Mining – by Alan Ohnsman (Forbes Magazine – September 19, 2022)

https://www.forbes.com/

The ongoing transition away from fossil fuels will likely trigger shortages of some key metals used in electric vehicle batteries requiring hundreds of new mines. This is according to industry experts who expect demand for EV batteries to spike to tens of millions of units annually in the years ahead.

A projected sixfold surge in demand for lithium-ion batteries over the next decade means up to 384 additional graphite, lithium, nickel and cobalt mines may be needed by 2035 to supply all those new EVs, industry forecaster Benchmark Minerals said in a report. Even a big increase in battery recycling, as planned by companies including Redwood Materials and Li-Cycle, would only cut the number of new mines to 336, according to Benchmark.

“​​We’re heading toward an extreme cliff that, unfortunately, our industry needed to invest $100 billion five years ago to avoid,” Brian Menell, chairman and CEO of TechMet, a Dublin-based firm that’s backing companies producing and processing EV battery metals, told Forbes.

“Over a two- to three-year horizon, the pain is going to become severe. And that pain is going to grow over the subsequent five to eight years from a constrained supply of battery metals.”

For the rest of this article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2022/09/19/dig-this-the-shift-to-evs-requires-a-massive-expansion-of-battery-metal-mining/?sh=4f5f18092963