A hunt for metals is underway all over the world. Metals that are indispensable in electric cars, wind turbines, solar panels and hydrogen technology. The demand for those products will increase enormously. Because more and more countries want to stop emitting greenhouse gases by 2050, in order to stop further global warming. And that has consequences. “The material basis of human society is going to change at lightning speed,” says industrial ecologist René Kleijn of the Center for Environmental Sciences at Leiden University. “Coal, oil and gas are going out. Metals such as lithium, nickel, copper and rare earth metals form the new basis.”
Europe also wants to be climate neutral by 2050. This has been a legal requirement since last year. Researchers at KU Leuven have calculated what that means for the need for metals. Their report came out this week† In 2050, for example, Europe will need 861 million kilograms (kiloton) of lithium, forty times more than in 2020. Lithium is used in the batteries of electric cars, as are nickel and cobalt, among other things. In that period, for example, the demand for dysprosium will increase by more than thirty times, and that for neodymium ten times. These two belong to the group of rare earth metals. They are incorporated into magnets that are used in wind turbines and electric cars.
“The enormous demand for metals begs the question: where do we get it all from?” said geologist Liesbet Gregoir, one of the authors of the report. Now Europe consumes almost a quarter of all metals mined worldwide, but it only produces 2 to 3 percent itself. Most of it is imported. Of all palladium (a metal that is used, among other things, in car catalytic converters) that Europe needs, it imports 40 percent from Russia. 98 percent of the rare earths come from China. Does Europe want to remain so dependent, knowing that other countries are also chasing it? “The covid pandemic, and now the war in Ukraine, have shaken Europe awake,” says Kleijn. “It shows how vulnerable supply lines can be.”
Europe has started the recommended ‘strong action’. Presented on March 10, 2020 the European Commission’s new industrial strategy for the transition to a green and digital economy. Security of supply plays an important role. “China and the US have been on this path for much longer,” says Kleijn. “In the Netherlands, industrial policy has long been a dirty word. But now even GroenLinks thinks it is important.”
:format(jpeg):fill(f8f8f8,true)/s3/static.nrc.nl/images/gn4/data85154421-2f69f8.png)
Things have been going fast ever since. In September 2020 the European Commission presented its action plan for raw materials. In the same month, the European Raw Material Alliance (ERMA) was founded, a platform of governments, companies, universities, NGOs, trade organizations and investors. Initially, the alliance wants to focus on magnets and motors containing rare earth metals, batteries and fuel cells.
The European Commission’s actions are roughly along four lines: where could metals be mined and refined? How can the entire chain become more sustainable? What is possible in recycling? And how, and in what form, should support be provided?
1 Own industry
Europe could certainly mine more metals itself, says metallurgist Laurens Tijsseling of British consultancy Minviro, which studies how sustainable mining chains are. “We don’t have that much nickel in Europe, for example,” says Tijsseling. But he certainly sees opportunities for other metals, such as lithium and rare earths. Especially in Scandinavia.
This is also apparent from the call made by the ERMA last year, and to which fourteen proposals came† Three are for metal mining, in Norway, Sweden and Finland. Estonia has made a proposal to purify and process ores. Germany, France, Estonia and Slovenia have submitted a plan for making magnets. In addition, Germany and Belgium want to focus on recycling. If all proposals are implemented (it would require an investment of €1.7 billion), Europe could quadruple its production of rare earth magnets by 2030. This would cover 20% of the demand.
The EU is also investigating whether the import of metals can be spread more evenly. Canada and Africa are mentioned in particular as new suppliers.
Companies can try to recover metals from their waste
In addition to opening new mines, it is also examined whether waste from old mines is a suitable source. So has Finnish research in the waste from a number of Chilean copper mines, we have been able to identify a whole range of metals, with the most value being silicon and scandium.
A month ago announced the European Agency for Innovation and Technology which, with its support, is to start extracting vanadium from the waste of local steel companies in eastern Finland. The vanadium is intended for batteries.
2 More sustainable chains
The fact that mining in Europe has declined so much in recent decades is partly due to public resistance, says Laurens Tijsseling. He mentions the lithium mine that the Australian company Rio Tinto wanted to develop in Serbia as an example. After ongoing protests over environmental degradation, the government withdrew the permits this year.
Read about the Rio Tinto lithium mine: In Radinac, Serbia, everything is shrouded in a reddish-brown coating – ‘We don’t even know what this stuff is’
That is why making mining, refining and production more sustainable is a second pillar of European industrial policy. Tijsseling sees many possibilities there. He co-wrote a review article about this, which appeared last year in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment† For starters, you could convert all trucks and other vehicles from diesel to electricity, he says. Then you can also electrify the processes themselves. “That’s more difficult.” He mentions Tata Steel in IJmuiden as an example, which wants to produce steel using hydrogen, which has been generated via electrolysis with green electricity. Companies could also try to extract metals from their waste. Although that is often more expensive. “Such changes are risky for a company,” says Tijsseling. What he says is not helping is that the industry is “very conservative”. “The government will really have to jump in on this.” That is what the Leuven researchers also write.
As a shining example, Tijsseling mentions a large nickel mine in Finland, where a leak was discovered about ten years ago. The operator was subsequently taken over in 2015 by state-owned Terrafame. “Since then, it has made production as sustainable as possible.”
The European Agency for Innovation and Technology approved a project this month to map all supply chains with blockchain technology. It is primarily focused on rare earth metals and magnets. The company Minviro where Tijsseling works is involved.
3 Recycling
Recycling of wind turbines, electric cars and so on can become an important source of metals. According to the Leuven study, Europe could get almost 80 percent of its lithium needs from recycling by 2050. For the rare earths it could be 200 percent (there would be more available than is needed for the magnets that Europe makes itself). However, recycling will not become a serious source until about 2040. Because only then will large numbers of solar panels and electric cars reach the end of their lifespan.
But then some things still need to change, says environmental technologist Fernando Coelho, who is a member of the ERMA from TU Delft. At present, end products are often still complex. “Manufacturers don’t always know how they are put together.” Isolating individual metals is difficult. “I like to have students dismantle a hard drive so they can see how difficult it is to get the magnet out.”
4 government support
If Europe wants to build up a serious metal industry of its own, it will have to support it for a long time. “Just like China has been doing in all sorts of ways since the 1990s,” says Leiden researcher Kleijn, who studied the industrial policy pursued together with researchers from the The Hague Center for Strategic Studies. recently described in a report on the security of raw materials. They argue for more government control, just like the researchers at KU Leuven. The ERMA has already made a series of proposals. European policymakers must ensure that the more expensive magnets and motors made in Europe can compete in price with the subsidized products from China, where labor is cheaper and environmental standards lower. European automakers must source a ‘significant portion’ of rare earths from European manufacturers. Products that have reached the end of their useful life may not be exported. And the EU and its member states must ‘pull all financial levers’, including state aid, to unleash large private investments in the rare earths chain.
A month and a half ago, the European Agency for Innovation and Technology that it will ‘support’ the African company Mkango Resources in securing financing for the construction of a plant in eastern Poland that will purify rare earths from ores initially imported from Malawi.