Making all the batteries required will mean opening hundreds of new mines and that will take considerable time
Governments around the world are mandating a shift away from vehicles powered primarily by internal combustion engines and toward vehicles powered primarily with electricity stored on-board in batteries. The timelines for the electric vehicle (EV) transition are beyond ambitious. Here in Canada, Trudeau government targets require that 35 per cent of all new medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold must be electric by 2030, rising to fully 100 per cent by 2040.
But these government EV transition timelines depend in turn on timelines for producing the metals necessary to manufacture battery-electric cars. Current EV technology requires large quantities of lithium, nickel, manganese, cadmium, graphite, zinc and other rare-earth elements in both the batteries and drive systems.
Thus, barring breakthrough developments in battery or fuel technology — widespread adoption of hydrogen, for instance — this massive, rapid expansion of EV production will require a correspondingly massive, rapid expansion of the mining and refining of metals. In a new study published by the Fraser Institute, I gathered some numbers to see what the timeline mismatch looks like.
According to the International Energy Agency, to meet 2030 EV adoption pledges in Canada, the U.S. and beyond, the world will need 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines, 17 new cobalt mines, 50 new mines for cathode production, 40 new mines for anode materials, 90 new mines for battery cells and 81 new mines for EV bodies and motors.
For the rest of this column: https://financialpost.com/opinion/liberals-unrealistic-ev-targets-global-metal-supply