Rio Tinto has spent more than a million euros on land in Serbia at the proposed site of a lithium mine that was eventually cancelled a year ago

A BIRN investigation shows that Rio Tinto has spent more than a million euros on land in Serbia at the proposed site of a lithium mine that was eventually cancelled a year ago, while a redacted readout of a meeting with the EU makes clear the company’s fear of a national referendum on the issue.

Since mid-2022, the year Serbia’s government revoked licences for a $2.4 billion lithium mine, Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto has spent at least 1.2 million euros on land in the area that it hoped to exploit, BIRN can report, and is now offering financial aid to local firms in an apparent bid to win favour.

Faced with growing public opposition, the government called off the project in January last year, but critics speculated that the halt was only temporary, to avoid a voter backlash in elections that April.

But while Prime Minister Ana Brnabic stressed again in December that she sees no way back for the ‘Jadar’ project, the company itself says it has not “given up” and President Aleksandar Vucic is again mooting the possibility of a referendum. Opponents of the project face being beaten, he said on January 5.

“You never know – maybe they’ll have that referendum, maybe next or the year after that, you never know, just to fulfill a promise, so they can see how they will fare,” said Vucic, who as leader of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party is the most powerful political figure in the country.

A nationwide plebiscite, however, is precisely what Rio Tinto fears, according to a redacted readout – obtained by BIRN – of a meeting between company officials and the European Union delegation in Serbia on March 25 last year, two months after the project was officially cancelled.

Rio Tinto: ‘We haven’t given up’

With demand for electric vehicle batteries on the rise, Rio Tinto says the lithium mine in the area of Loznica, western Serbia, would be the biggest in Europe and make the company one of the top 10 lithium producers in the world.

The project has strong backing from the UK, Australia, United States, and the EU. The latter imports almost all of the lithium it uses but has ambitions to secure an entire supply chain of battery minerals and materials, with demand for lithium predicted to grow 18 times by 2030 and 60 times by 2050.

Serbia stands to benefit from some 2,100 construction jobs and an injection of roughly 200 million euros per year into the domestic supply chain, Rio says.

Environmentalists, however, fear huge damage to water and land in western Serbia, while some Serbs say they feel steamrollered by the powerful multinational mining giant.

Facing an election in April 2022, the government scrapped the project in the January, but Rio Tinto has not gone away.

Between June 2022 and January 2023, the company has paid some 1.2 million euros for 5.78 hectares of land via seven separate contracts with residents in the proposed mining site, BIRN found by analysing and cross-matching data from state cadastral records.

Then in January, Rio Tinto announced a programme of to support sustainable local development in the Loznica area via financial grants for local enterprises.

The company has not hidden its ambition to revive what chief executive Jakob Stausholm called in December an “amazing asset.”

“We need to figure out how to go about it,” Stausholm was quoted by Reuters as telling an investor briefing in Sydney. “The only thing I would say today is we haven’t given up.”

Asked about its continued land purchases, Rio Tinto told BIRN: “The purchase of the land is a continuation of the previously undertaken obligations of the Rio Sava company,” referring to its local subsidiary.

Pressed for clarification of these “obligations”, the company did not respond.

Regarding its support for local businesses, Rio Tinto said it was part of the company’s “commitment to the communities in which it operates” and has nothing to do with any potential referendum.

Rio Tinto reiterated that it still believes the Jadar project “has the potential to be a world-class operation that could support the development of other future industries in Serbia, acting as a flywheel for tens of thousands of new jobs for current and future generations, and the sustainable production of materials that are key to the energy transition.”

The environmental campaign group ‘Mars sa Drine’ [Get off the Drina], which opposes the Jadar project, said it had warned all along that the cancellation of the mine was a charade, but that its fate would ultimately be decided by the public.

“Rio Tinto buys people off with offers of cash, and now, in a genius marketing move, they act like a humanitarian organization that invests in local crafts,” Jovana Amidzic, a representative of the group, told BIRN. “Rio Tinto can stay on that land for 40 years, but there will be no mines.”

Nationwide referendum risks ‘more complicated dynamic’

Reviving the project without some kind of referendum risks a major public backlash against Vucic’s Progressives.

At a meeting with the EU delegation in Serbia on March 25 last year, Rio Tinto representatives appeared to be open to a local poll among villagers in the affected area, but not necessarily a wider plebiscite.

“A referendum could indicate the will of the inhabitants of the 12 villages of the area of Loznica, who according to the company would be the key players in the execution of the project, and those who would benefit the most,” a redacted summary of the meeting reads. “A local referendum would thus favour the company.”

“A nationwide referendum including Belgrade, where the most negativity comes from, could produce a more complicated dynamic,” the document adds.

BIRN received the summary from an EU citizen who obtained it from the European Commission on the basis of a Freedom of Information request. BIRN obtained another copy of the document from another EU citizen, who had also submitted an FOI to the Commission, but in the second document the reference to Rio Tinto’s misgivings about a national referendum was blacked out.

The Commission shortly told BIRN that it was “a clerical error”.

In its response for this story, Rio Tinto did not comment directly on the possibility of a referendum, saying it was a matter for “the competent authorities” in Serbia.

Amidzic of Mars sa Drine said that Rio Tinto’s fear of a national referendum only underscored the strength of public resistance, even though the country’s president and government were firmly behind the mine.

“Even with all the machinery of Vucic’s rule over the media, the people’s resistance is clear to them,” Amidzic said, adding that regardless of whether the project is put to a referendum, it is already in violation of the law.

“There are legal processes that have not been followed, and therefore we can see that this project cannot be realised according to legal regulations because it is catastrophic in terms of its impact on biodiversity, people’s health, water, air and land”.

Project aborted, but approval pending

Calling off the project on January 20, 2022, Serbia’s government terminated a decree concerning the spatial plan of the special purpose area for the Jadar project and, five days later, annulled a decision by the Ministry of Environmental Protection regarding the environmental impact study.

“All administrative acts related to Rio Tinto, i.e. Rio Sava, all permits, decisions, and everything else has been annulled,” Brnabic declared in the wake of mass protests. “With this, as far as the Jadar and Rio Tinto project is concerned, everything is over.”

However, Rio Tinto’s request for the approval of the exploitation field, submitted on January 6, 2021, is still pending, Ministry of Mining confirmed to Mars sa Drine organization.

BIRN asked the Ministry of Mining why the request is still officially under consideration if the project has already been aborted, but did not receive a reply by the time of publication.

In November last year, the government also signed declarations of intent with Slovakian battery maker InoBat to build an electric vehicle battery factory in Serbia, Reuters reported. Rio Tinto is an investor in InoBat.

Activists and the opposition say this all points to a likely revival of the Jadar project.

Meanwhile, a proposal to ban the mining of lithium and boron in Serbia, signed by more than 38,000 people and submitted to parliament last year, has still to come before the competent committee of ministry, despite rules that it should do so within 30 days.

Radomir Lazovic, an MP of the opposition Green-Left Coalition, said the so-called ‘People’s Initiative’ was being kept from lawmakers on someone’s orders.

“At every session and at every opportunity I asked what’s happening with the People’s Initiative,” Lazovic told BIRN.

“I managed to get answers from the Ministry of State Administration and Local Self-Government, and now the answer has arrived from the Committee for Constitutional Affairs and Legislation that this document never reached them, which can only mean one thing – that someone deliberately removed it from the regular procedure.”

BIRN sent inquiries to the Serbian president’s office and the Serbian government about the Rio Tinto lithium project, but received no response by the time of publication, Balkan Insight writes.

Europe revives mining to reduce dependence on the import of key raw materials, supply from Serbia as competitive choice

European officials expect that the Law on Critical Raw Materials, which was presented last week, significantly improve the capacity of the extraction block, processing and recycling of key metals, such as lithium. The law aims to reduce dependence on third countries, while China currently dominates in the supply chain of numerous items on the European list of strategic metals.

The EU is also in the race with the United States, which already invest large funds in capacity to produce critical metals under the auspices of the Law on Defense Production and Inflation Reduction Act.

Europe may, however, has provided himself to himself through simplifying the procedures for issuing permits for projects, a painstaking process, which is often stretched for years before the first shovel hits the ground.

The law covers a list of critical minerals in the EU, with a special focus on battery metals, such as lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese.

Copper is on the list as a driver of everything electricity, while aluminum and zinc are not, which could be a striking omission given the recent reduction of European production capacities.

While environmental organizations are concerned about Brussels plans to increase the exploitation of critical raw materials, the advocates of this approach say that it is necessary to achieve the green goals of the block.

The European Union wants to diversify the supply of critical raw materials by China and facilitate the use of mineral reserves needed to build green technologies, such as wind turbines and solar panels.

However, local population and environmental activists warn that reducing bureaucracy for projects of exploitation and biodiversity, pointing out that mining can cause serious water and soil pollution and lead to biodiversity forests.

This conflict between European appetite for critical raw materials and its ambitions to protect the continent – local protests are underway against new mining projects in Portugal, Germany, Sweden and Spain, which will only intensify after the adoption of new acceleration legislation Mining activities.

The draft rules suggest that the European Commission could be able to mark strategic plans of public interest, which would prioritize them in the event of a conflict with other EU legislation, for example with the law on conservation of species.

The reason for this is a fear that the EU cannot increase its reserves of key minerals without mitigating strict environmental requirements, which makes the opening of new mines represents a large bureaucratic headache.

Environmental ecologists claim that EU protection rules are necessary and to destroy local biodiversity in search of materials that would become climatic neutral either counterproductive.

Faster drilling

Getting a green light for a new mining project in Europe can take up to 15 years – something that the EU wants to improve in its critical raw material law.

According to the draft, the Commission will allow mining projects that are marked as strategic to receive short terms of two years for permits, with the aim of reducing its dependence on imports.

Although the EU cannot deliver all the raw materials they need, its most important lithium projects, for example, could satisfy 25 to 35 percent of European demand by the end of the decade. Currently, about 78 percent of Lithium in the Block comes from Chile.

Mining companies have long claimed that the issuance of licenses can only be accelerated if the EU agrees to alleviate some ecological rules, such as zero emissions into water, which is difficult to perform.

Mining projects in protected areas, although allowed, also must also undergo an additional impact assessment to show that it will not damage the site integrity.

Treatment of mining activities as projects from primarily public interest would solve a number of similar issues.

Since most well-known reserves of critical raw materials in the block is in protected areas or near them, the EU will have to concesses in nature protection if they want to exploit them, leaders say in the mining industry.

Green groups fought for long anti-expansion of mining in Europe, by favoring efforts to reduce consumption and sources of raw materials in other ways, including recycling and developing alternative materials.

In the light of the new plan of Brussels, they now call for the EU law on nature. However, they fear that the focus of law will increase the offer of raw materials at all costs, not limiting the impact of mining on the environment.

Non-governmental organizations and experts warn that the Commission shoots themselves in the leg if they ignore environmental concerns because protests against new mining projects could potentially disrupt EU goals.

Serbian “critical raw materials”

The demand for rare natural metals for wind turbines is expected to grow four and a half to 2030. Demand for lithium, the key battery element in electrical vehicles and devices will increase 11 times to 2030 and 57 times until 2050, according to the assessments of the Commission. However, only a small part comes from the EU mine.

The largest estimated lithium sites in Europe are in Germany, Czech and Serbia. Legs in Germany are located in large depths and require new extraction technologies that, among other things, can cause earthquakes, and whose environmental and economic sustainability is not yet sufficiently explored.

In 2021, Serbia has begun negotiations on Chapter 15, concerning energy, which implies the implementation of the relevant legal achievements of the European Union, the use of energy protection, the use of renewable energy sources and protection of competition to Serbia.

It remains to be seen whether the new European Regulation will re-open the issue of the controversial project Lithium Jadar.

Although neither new law or accompanying documents mention Serbia, increased cooperation with strategic partners around the world has been announced and it seems that Serbia will be an important point in future plans of European critical raw material mines.

Also, in Serbia, there are a borough bay, natural salts containing pine and are mainly used to produce glass, but also vital for plant growth, so they are in fertilizers.

In addition, they use for insulating homes and in car safety components such as airbags. Currently, the EU gets a huge majority, 98 percent, its borants from Turkey.

On the other hand, the Serbian exploitation mining company Belkanhan could become a primary supplier of EU graphite, which is also on the list of critical materials. It is used in pencils, batteries, steel furnaces, and can be converted into artificial diamonds.

BELKALHAN mine is based on a high quality graphite, with 4 million tons of reserves confirmed at only 25 percent of the project location. The mine is marked as a mineral deposit from national interest in the EU.

Potentially a joint venture partnership and investments will enable Belkalhan to integrate the graphite-based product chain for numerous lithium-ion batteries for electrical vehicles, fuel cells, graphene and nanomaterials, heat management in consumer electronics and smart consumer electronics and smart products buildings.

Politicians in Serbia are lobbying for Rio Tinto which is accused of corruption

“If we link that news to the fact that the politicians in power are lobbying so much for one Rio Tinto project after numerous independent experts declared that lithium mining will ecologically destroy Serbia, their motives seem very suspicious,” Manojlovic says for Danas daily.

He recalls that, before the elections, certain politicians in power said that they were done with Rio Tinto and that lithium mining was a finished story.

“They agreed to meet the demands of the people, have changed the relevant regulation and now they are starting to lobby for this company again.

At the same time, we hear that Rio Tinto settled with the American Securities Commission (SEC) to pay a fine of 15 million dollars, after an investigation into bribery in which a consultant from Guinea was also involved,” Manojlovic adds.

To remind, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced charges against global mining and metals company, Rio Tinto plc, for violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) arising out of a bribery scheme involving a consultant in Guinea.

The company has agreed to pay a $15 million civil penalty to settle the SEC’s charges.

The SEC’s order finds that, in July 2011, Rio Tinto hired a French investment banker and close friend of a former senior Guinean government official as a consultant to help the company retain its mining rights in the Simandou mountain region in Guinea.

The consultant began working on behalf of Rio Tinto without a written agreement defining the scope of his services or deliverables. Eventually the mining rights were retained, and the consultant was paid $10.5 million for his services, which Rio Tinto never verified.

The SEC’s investigation uncovered that the consultant, acting as Rio Tinto’s agent, offered and attempted to make an improper payment of at least $822,000 to a Guinean government official in connection with the consultant’s efforts to help Rio Tinto retain its mining rights, Serbian Monitor reports.

European Lithium has made a big statement in its bid to become the first on-shore producer of lithium hydroxide

Backed by an offtake deal with BMW, a definitive feasibility study released by European Lithium today shows the mine and downstream processing operation will generate 8800t of lithium hydroxide monohydrate per annum for 14.6 years.

That would amount to some 129,000t over the life of mine from the completion of a hydrometallurgical downstream processing facility in 2026.

With a robust DFS and internal rate of return of 33.3%, well above standard industry investment thresholds, construction of that plant is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of this year.

Mean green machine

The DFS also highlights the impressive ESG credentials of the Wolfsberg operation, located just 20km east of the city of the same name in Austria.

The project will be well-located, just 93km from a 3000 strong cohort of university students at an established mining university in Leoben with a technically skilled local population.

It will also have access to the Baltic to Adriatic rail corridor through the completion of the Koralm tunnel in 2025, providing access to motorways that will connect the mine to lithium-ion battery plants under development across the EU.

The DFS has also outlined the tiny environmental footprint of the operation, with a mining fleet of battery electric vehicles revealed to be economically viable for the project.

An underground portal, concentrator and surface infrastructure will all be located within an envelope of under 10 hectares.

“European Lithium is committed to the sustainable development of its Wolfsberg Project, utilising the most advanced mining and processing technologies to become a reliable low carbon producer of LHM and be a key part of the emerging lithium supply chain in Europe,” the company said.

Importantly, most of the company’s mineral resource of 12.88Mt at 1% Li2O (measured and indicated 9.7Mt at 1.03% Li2O) has been converted to proved and probable reserves, which come in at 11.483Mt at 0.64% Li2O, with contained lithia of 72,937t.

Euro-boom

The baseline price for the study has been ramped up significantly from a PFS completed in April 2018 from US$26,800/t to US$54,000/t.

But the need for lithium to power a move to EVs and energy storage has only gathered pace since then.

The 2018 study assumed 140 million EVs would be rolled out worldwide by 2030.

But sales have already outpaced projections. In 2021 EV sales worldwide hit 6.6m against previous expectation of 5m, a 30% beat.

The IEA’s long term forecasts for EV adoption by 2030 have doubled since the 2018 PFS, with a long running deficit expected in undersupplied lithium markets.

The EU has moved to accelerate the shift by passing laws that all new passenger vehicle sales will be EVs by 2035, with more than 1500GWh of lithium ion battery manufacturing planned.

The number of gigafactories in Europe is projected to lift from 142 in 2022 to more than 1200 in 2030, providing demand for lithium hydroxide monohydrate of 650,000tpa.

Much of the planned expansions in the global industry are already allocated to early moving Chinese battery producers, with European Lithium expected to provide a genuine domestic lithium producer to supply the fast-growing Euro battery market.

Capital costs

At a capital cost of US$866m, the integrated mine and processing operation is expected to produce at operating costs of US$17,016/t after by-product credits, compared to a 2025 sales price of US$48,600/t.

That is conservative in comparison to current prices, a 39% discount to the US$79,500/t being paid for lithium hydroxide in Antwerp last month.

It comes ahead of the listing of the project on the major NASDAQ market in the United States, providing access to capital from the world’s biggest investment market.

“The robust DFS provided by DRA provides confidence in the commercialisation of the Wolfsberg Project. This positive news has come during a buoyant market for lithium and an increased urgency for decisive action to accelerate the green energy transition, especially in Europe,” European Lithium chairman Tony Sage said.

“Our next steps include finalisation of the listing of Critical Metals on NASDAQ and continuing our discussions with our financiers. Through the business combination with Sizzle, Critical Metals Corp. expect to access substantial opportunities available in the U.S. market”, Stock Head writes.

Serbia: Starting in June 2022, Rio Tinto bought land worth at least 1.2 million euros in the vicinity of Loznica

Starting in June 2022, Rio Tinto bought land worth at least 1.2 million euros in the vicinity of Loznica, despite the fact that the Government of Serbia suspended the company’s lithium mining project “Jadar”, the Balkan Research Network (BIRN) announced.

BIRN also obtained a document from the company’s meeting with the Delegation of the European Union, in which, among other things, it is stated that Rio Tinto looks favorably on the local, and fears a potential national referendum on the “Jadar” project that was supposed to be carried out. in the vicinity of Lozica.

After a series of protests by environmental activists across the country and blockades of bridges and roads, the Government of Serbia, led by Ana Brnabić, stopped the “Jadar” project on January 20 last year and canceled all documents with the company Rio Tinto.

However, part of the public was not convinced that the project was completely suspended, but pointed out that it was only “frozen” until more favorable socio-political circumstances, reports Beta.

BIRN research shows that the mining corporation has definitely not “put an end” to the project. Only from June 2022 until today, the company has purchased at least 5.78 hectares of land in the vicinity of Loznica.

By cross-checking data from the Republic Geodetic Institute, BIRN found that Rio Tinto signed at least seven sales contracts with land owners in the villages of Gornje Nedeljica and Slatina – the first in June 2022 and the last in January 2023 – paying a total of more than 1.2 million euros.

The smallest contract is worth 15,000 euros, which is what Rio Sava, the Serbian subsidiary of the mining giant, paid for property on 457 square meters in Slatina, and the largest is 430,000 euros – what the company paid for almost 5,000 square meters, also in the municipality of Loznica.

Rio Tinto does not hide its desire to “revive” the project. Rio Tinto Ltd CEO Jacob Stausholm (Jakob Stausholm) said at a briefing for investors in Sydney in December last year that “Jadar” represents “unbelievable value”.

“We have to figure out how to do it. The only thing I would say today is that we didn’t give up,” Reuters reported his statement.

In a reply to BIRN, Rio Tinto points out that “the purchase of land is a continuation of previously assumed obligations of the Rio Sava company that refer to the period before the Government of Serbia in January 2022 invalidated the acts for the implementation of the project”.

Rio Tinto did not answer the additional question about what kind of “previously assumed obligations” are we talking about, considering that the contracts were certified months after the decision of the Government of Serbia, and the last two almost a year after the suspension of the project.

Serbia stomps on Rio Tinto’s lithium mining project

In Serbia, Rio Tinto then faced a rude shock. The Serbian government, having praised the potential of the Jadar project for some years, abruptly abandoned it. “All decisions (connected to the lithium project) and all licenses have been annulled,” Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić stated flatly on January 20. “As far as project Jadar is concerned, this is an end.”

Branabić insisted, somewhat disingenuously, that this decision merely acknowledged the will of voters.  “We are listening to our people and it is our job to protect their interests even when we think differently.”

This is a bit rich coming from a government hostile to industry accountability and investment transparency.  The same government also decided to begin infrastructure works on the jadarite mine before the granting of an exploitation permit. Such behaviour has left advocates such as Savo Manojlović of the NGO Kreni-Promeni wondering why Rio Tinto was singled out over, for instance, Eurolithium, which was permitted to dig in the environs of Valjevo in western Serbia.

Zorana Mihajlović, Serbia’s mining and energy minister, preferred to blame the environmental movement, though the alibi seemed a bit forced. “The government showed it wanted the dialogue … (and) attempts to use ecology for political purposes demonstrate they (green groups) care nothing about the lives of the people, nor the industrial development.”

Rio Tinto had been facing an impressive grass roots militia, mobilised to remind Serbians about the devastating implications of proposed lithium mining operations. The Ne damo Jadar (We won’t let anyone take Jadar) group has unerringly focused attention on the secret agreements reached between the mining company and Belgrade. Zlatko Kokanović, vice president of the group, is convinced that the mine would “not only threaten one of Serbia’s oldest and most important archaeological sites, it will also endanger several protected bird species, pond terrapins, and fire salamander, which would otherwise be protected by EU directives.”

Taking issue with the unflattering environmental record of the Anglo-Australian company, numerous protests were organised and petitions launched, including one that has received 292,571 signatures. Last month, activists organised gatherings and marches across the country, including road blockades.

Rio Tinto’s response to the critics was that of the seductive guest keen to impress: we have gifts for the governors, the rulers and the parliamentarians. Give us permission to dig, and we will make you the envy of Europe, green and environmentally sound ambassadors of the electric battery and car revolution.

The European Battery Alliance, a group of electric vehicle supply chain companies, is adamant that the Jadar project “constituted an important share of potential European domestic supply.”  The mine would have “contributed to support the growth of a nascent industrial battery-related ecosystem in Serbia, contributing to a substantial amount to Serbia’s annual GDP.”  Assiduously selective, the group preferred to ignore the thorny environmental implications of the venture.

The options facing the mining giant vary, none of which would appeal to the board.  In a statement, the company claimed that it was “reviewing the legal basis of this decision and the implications for our activities and our people in Serbia.” It might bullyingly seek to sue Belgrade, a move that is unlikely to improve an already worn reputation. “For a major mining company to sue a state is very unusual,” suggests Peter Leon of law firm Herbert Smith Freehills. “A claim under the bilateral treaty is always a last resort, but not a first resort.”

Another option for punters within the company will be a political gamble: hoping that April’s parliamentary elections will usher in a bevy of pro-mining representatives. By then, public antagonism against matters Australian will have dimmed. The Serbian ecological movement, however, is unlikely to ease their campaign. The age of mining impunity in the face of popular protest has come to an end, Dissident Voice writes.

Europe, Can mining ever be green?

As France prepares to dig for lithium in its own backyard, part of the EU’s broader push to create strategic reserves of key raw materials needed for the green transition, activists worry about the environmental impact of mining

Lithium, Gallium, Magnesium, Indium, Niobium. Although these rare metals and minerals appear to belong to the same family, not all were created equal, at least in the eyes of industry.

The European Commission has listed 30 of them it deems strategic for the future of its ambitious green and digital transitions, but for whose supply Europe has become reliant on foreign countries over the years.

Called “critical raw materials” (CRMs), they fall under the European Union’s strategic autonomy agenda. The Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine served to highlight the EU’s dependencies on other nations for natural resources and reminded the bloc which states were in its corner, and which were not.

After concluding that China plays an outsized role in supplying the Europeans with these materials essential to electric car batteries, windmills and solar panels, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced a new strategy in her State of the Union address, in September 2022: the EU will seek to diversify its trading partners through new agreements. It was also announced that, in early 2023, the Commission will present a regulation on CRMs to create strategic reserves of those materials on European soil.

Geologists have located critical raw materials across the continent. Finland, Sweden, Spain and Portugal, where deposits have been spotted, are eager to dig into the earth. Will the Europeans go back to the mines? Some countries, such as those in Scandinavia, have a long and ongoing tradition of mining, while others closed their last coal mines decades ago.

In any case, the issue worries environmental activists. The word “eco-mining” is on everyone’s lips in Brussels as well as in the Member States, and the concept should ostensibly help overcome obstacles to opening new mines.

In its consultation last October and November, the European Commission identified a lack of investment to create an EU supply and noted that permit procedures were long and complex. Opening a mine can take up to 15 years, between the exploration process to the extraction itself. Moreover, these projects are highly scrutinised, and the legislation in individual Member States remains demanding when it comes to exploiting their natural resources.

The consultation also pointed out the environmental risk. “We have to define our standards regarding responsible mining,” MEP Hildegard Bentele, the EPP rapporteur for the resolution adopted on CRMs by the European deputies in 2021, tells The Parliament. “Because a mine is always an intervention into nature. We should not be blurry about it.” Rather than “green” or “sustainable”, Bentele hopes for “responsible” mines: the impact on the environment will never be zero, but it is necessary to do everything in our power to minimise it.

The idea that a mine can be “responsible” is put forward by the French authorities and the companies which have recently announced lithium projects in several parts of the country. France, where mines are still taboo, has high ambitions for the production of this new “white gold” necessary for the batteries of future electric cars.

A boom in demand is expected after the ban on fossil fuel cars comes into force in 2035. In the Massif Central, in the centre of France, the French company Imerys has announced a vein capable of producing 34,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide per year, which translates into 700,000 batteries for future electric cars. It plans to start extracting in 2028.

In the Rhine basin, between France and Germany, several projects aim to extract lithium using geothermal technologies: hot salty water is pumped to the surface, from which operators extract the precious metal before reinjecting the water into the earth. The Australian company Vulcan Energy hopes to produce 50,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide annually starting in 2027. In the same area, some French companies have also successfully passed their first tests of lithium extraction from geothermal brines.

The zone could supply up to 30 per cent of Europe’s lithium needs. Not bad, considering Thierry Breton, the EU’s Commissioner for the Internal Market, has set the ambitious target of being “almost self-sufficient in lithium for our batteries by 2025”. But what is going to be the environmental impact of those mines?

Thierry Breton, the EU’s Commissioner for the Internal Market, has set the ambitious target of being “almost self-sufficient in lithium for our batteries by 2025”

In the Massif Central, even if the mine is underground, the industrial operator will still have to pump water to be able to work. And if it uses hydro-metallurgical separation techniques to extract lithium, large quantities of water will be required. The enterprise promises to recycle water, but with scant details on how often and how much.

At the Franco-German border, geothermal technologies also raise eyebrows among the locals. People are afraid of seismic tremors caused by the stress generated underground. Others wonder whether they may be affected by the high level of radioactivity concentrated a few kilometres away underneath their feet.

Even employing so-called “clean” technologies, the new mines don’t convince everyone. Judith Pigneur, an engineer from the French association négaWatt, has observed these new technologies carefully and as well as an outsider can, given that each company is still relatively hush-hush about its extraction process.

“In absolute terms, the environmental impact of CRMs’ exploitation will only increase because deposits will become less and less good and their contents will decrease [in number],” she explains. As a result, companies will have to dig deeper or be more aggressive in the extraction process.

At the European Parliament, the Greens are wrestling with the dilemma of how to ensure the green transition, which requires critical raw materials, while protecting the planet’s remaining resources. There must be some limits to mining in Europe, explains German MEP Henrike Hahn, shadow rapporteur for the European Parliament resolution in 2021: “Obviously, a protected area in Europe, like Natura 2000 [a network of protected areas], are off-limits for mining industries.”

And the recycling of CRMs must be developed and promoted by future EU regulation, with the objective of creating a market of secondary raw materials.

Of the many CRMs, lithium holds a special place. The projected need for batteries will be so huge that many people are uneasy about our ability to maintain stocks. Even those advocating for a reduced consumption of CRMs across the board agree on the importance of lithium. For them, the only hope is to be able to reduce demand in small, incremental ways, with the understanding that it will, in any case, remain high. “Are we going to use lithium for SUVs or for small cars?” wonders Pigneur, the engineer.

Creating reserves of critical raw materials with new mines in Europe will not be enough to meet tomorrow’s needs, no matter the geopolitical and economic urgency, and even with new extra-European trading partners. The CRMs will also have to give way to the 3Rs: reduce, reuse, recycle, Parliament Magazine writes.

Arkle Resources finds lithium in Ireland

Serbia and lithium, black and not green

If, in addition to 11,400 tons of metal lithium, 100,000 electric cars were produced annually in Serbia, this would increase carbon dioxide emissions by at least 1.15 million tons or by an additional 3.5 percent.

In addition to the justified concern for damage (pollution of underground and surface water, devastation of forests and agricultural land) that can be produced by the mine and processing plants for obtaining compounds of lithium and boron in the Jadar river valley, there are also less well-known harmful consequences that these activities, and the eventual launch of the production of electric cars in Serbia, I can have.

According to data published in February 2021 by the Rio Sava Exploration company itself, the mine would annually produce about 60,000 tons of lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) or about 11,400 tons of metallic lithium. Without going into the issue of mining, the brochure states that the processing plant would consume 80.8 million cubic meters of natural gas per year, which would increase the consumption of that energy source in Serbia by 3.1 percent, given that in 2020, 2,265.96 million cubic meters.

The annual emission of carbon dioxide CO2, the main cause of global warming, in the technological process of lithium carbonate and boric acid production would be between 526,000 and 620,000 tons, which is an increase of 1.22 to 1.44 percent of the total emission in Serbia, which is 2020 amounted to 43 million tons.

In that estimate, in addition to CO2 emissions due to the burning of 80.8 million cubic meters of natural gas and during production, other necessary chemicals that would be used in the technology of obtaining lithium carbonate and boric acid, as well as the effects of the use of 60,000 tons of calcium oxide (quick lime), 320,000 tons of sulfuric acid, 188,000 tons of different types of cement, 110,000 tons of sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) for the deposition of lithium carbonate, while on the other hand, the destruction of more than 520 hectares of forest and agricultural land will permanently destroy the assimilation of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This assessment does not include gas emissions from various means of transport, bulldozers, trucks, commercial passenger cars, necessary for the functioning of the mine, production plant and administration.

According to official announcements, Serbia is ready to invest significant funds in the gigafactory for the production of lithium-ion accumulator batteries (LIB), and later also electric cars. With the optimistic estimate that 100,000 electric cars with a 50 kWh battery will be produced annually, this would increase carbon dioxide emissions by an additional 500,000 tons or 1.16 percent, because it is known that one kWh battery emits about 100 kilograms during production. CO2. For the production of electric cars without batteries, which include various metals, plastics, glass, rubber, approximately five to six tons of CO2 are emitted per vehicle, or 500,000 to 600,000 tons for 100,000 vehicles, which would increase the emission by 1.16 to 1, 4 percent.

All together, the production of lithium and 100,000 electric cars would annually emit about 1,150,000 tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, which means that the annual emission of greenhouse gases would increase by at least 3.5 percent. In other words, each electric car would emit about 11,500 kilograms of CO2. The same amount of CO2 would be emitted by the consumption of 4,420 liters of diesel in ordinary cars (a liter of diesel releases 2.6 kilograms of CO2). This means that with an average consumption of five liters per 100 kilometers, a diesel car would travel 88,400 kilometers before the electric car even leaves the factory.

The EU is planning or has introduced taxes of 50 euros per ton of CO2, so increased emissions would expose Serbia to a cost of at least 75 million euros per year (50 euros times 1,150,000 tons). In addition, it should be noted that the production of just one kWh of lithium-ion battery requires 328 kWh of different types of energy, and Serbia, in addition to importing gas and oil, has been importing electricity for more than a year, and the prices of all energy products are at record levels.

With all that, even if Serbia were to produce 100,000 electric cars a year, which is unlikely, with a 50 kWh battery, it would require about 800 tons of lithium metal. So, only seven percent of the total annual production in Jadro, while Rio Tinto could sell the remaining 93 percent to whoever it wants. Of course, Serbia would also buy lithium from him at realistic, market prices.

In addition to lithium (its share ranges from four to ten percent), positive (cathode) materials contain many other expensive and rare metals, cobalt, manganese and nickel, which Serbia does not have and would have to be imported, and the price of cobalt on the world market has varied from 30,000 to 90,000 dollars per ton in the last five years.

Many were also surprised by the announcement of the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of Serbia and the Slovakian company InoBat, one of whose investors is Rio Tinto, on the construction of a gigafactory for the production of lithium-ion storage batteries with an innovative, revolutionary approach (?!), but on the basis of already well-known nickel-manganese-cobalt cathodes NMC622.

By looking at InoBat’s website, it can be seen that they have developed only one so far prototype of a lithium-ion battery, giving virtually no specifications of that prototype, such as voltage, specific capacity, energy, etc. The internet presentation does not show any mini-factory built so far, so the construction of a giga-factory of this extremely technologically demanding production is highly debatable. Of course, the presentation showed fantasies about flying cars, plant sketches, and a modern, in my humble opinion, average typical laboratory with empty desks, as if drawn.

If all these ideas and projects come to fruition, the crucial question is how to charge such “green” electric cars. The most environmentally acceptable solution is solar energy. The problem, however, is that a quick, half-hour charging of an electric car with a 50 kWh battery requires about 100 kW of electrical power. Therefore, the minimum area of the solar collector would be 800 square meters (dimensions 28 by 28 meters), because an average solar collector of 1.6 square meters (meter by 1.6 meters) and in ideal conditions gives a power of 0.275 kW, and in an average of 0.2 kW.

A multi-car charging station would have to have a huge area for the installation of solar collectors, which is technically unfeasible in urban conditions. And if solar photovoltaic panels were to be installed outside cities, even greater problems of transmission and distribution of that energy would arise. The relatively low DC voltage of the solar photovoltaic collectors would first have to be converted into alternating current by special devices, inverters, and then the voltage should be raised to a much higher value with transformers in order to reduce losses, transmission lines with copper wires should be built, and transformers again in order to reduced the voltage to a usable value and finally installed rectifiers alternating to direct current, which all represent huge investments. Aside from the fact that six to eight tons of carbon dioxide is released to produce a ton of steel for transmission lines and copper for conductors.

An even bigger problem is that solar collectors cannot work 24 hours a day, so additional accumulators are necessary to store surplus solar electricity, so that electric cars can be charged during the night, and all this produces new construction and maintenance costs.

Wind energy (wind generators) is a special story because of the big environmental consequences and oscillations (no wind, no electricity), and they are mostly built on fertile Vojvodina soil to reduce transport costs from locations like Stara Planina.

Because of all this, electric cars would probably be powered by electricity obtained from thermal power plants, because around 70 percent of electricity is produced by burning lignite in Serbia. Considering that 1,490 kWh of electricity can be produced from one ton of lignite from Kolubara, for 100 chargings on average, each electric car would consume 3.3 tons of lignite per year. Therefore, only 10,000 electric cars would increase coal consumption in Serbia by 33,000 tons, and electricity by as much as 50 GWh per year.

Certain parts for electric cars are also problematic. The construction of a lithium-ion battery consists of a positive and negative electrode, a thin porous separator that prevents their contact, and an electrolyte. The last two parts are the main causes of battery fires and explosions. Accidents accompanied by fire and explosion are mainly caused by uncontrolled overheating of batteries, manufacturing errors, damage to batteries in collisions… Self-ignition of a battery always causes an internal short circuit, which occurs when an electrical circuit is formed inside the cell, due to damage to the separator and the formation of an electrical connection between the positive and negative electrodes. The most common cause is corrosion of the negative copper collector, which occurs when the cell discharges below 30 percent capacity.

A battery pack in some electric vehicles can store up to 100 kWh of electricity, and when ignited it can release from two to twenty kilograms of hydrogen fluoride, which is enough to contaminate between 80,000 and 800,000 cubic meters of air. It is unimaginable what would happen in a chain collision of several such cars, because inhaling hydrogen fluoride can cause laryngospasm, laryngeal edema, bronchospasm and/or acute pulmonary edema, and in the most severe cases it can be fatal. According to the standards of the American National Institute for Occupational Safety, a concentration of 24.5 milligrams of hydrogen fluoride per cubic meter of air for 30 minutes is immediately dangerous to life and health, while the latent (lethal) concentration is 139 mg/m3.

An internal short circuit caused by a manufacturing defect is believed to be the root cause of both the 2013 Boeing 787 battery accident and the 2016 Samsung Galaxy 7 cell phone battery explosion. As of February 2022, there were 354 (or about 22 per year) confirmed air/airport incidents involving lithium batteries transported as cargo or baggage.
“In an effort to minimize potential damage to the facility”, and nearby vehicles in rare cases of potential fire, we recommend parking outdoors and 15 or more meters from another vehicle. In addition, we still insist that you do not leave your vehicle unattended while it is charging, even if you are using a charger in an open parking lot,” said Dan Fowlers, a spokesman for General Motors, as reported by the Detroit News on September 17, 2021. That safety “recommendation” came is just days after a 2019 GM Chevrolet Bolt caught fire in the garage of a home in Cherokee County, Georgia.

The owner realized something was up when the smoke alarm in his house went off. When he entered the garage, he noticed smoke billowing from his electric car, which was completely destroyed. Chevrolet has recalled more than 140,000 of the model so far, but is still working with supplier LG Energy Solution to determine the cause of the battery damage that led to the fire.
On November 23, 2022, firefighters used an enormous 45,425 liters of water to extinguish the Tesla Model S fire. Unfortunately, the fire is very difficult to extinguish because it is an internal combustion in the cell, where water cannot reach. By comparison, a standard car fire generally requires less than 2,000 liters of water. In Australia in 2021, it took three full days to put out the big battery fire at the Victorian Big Battery in Moorabbin, near Geelong. The fire started during testing in a shipping container containing a 13-ton lithium-ion battery and spread to another battery pack.

These are just some of the accidents with lithium-ion batteries. The predicted exponential growth of their application in the near future, as well as the purchase of cheaper systems with less security, leads to the thought of a drastic increase in such relatively sporadic cases, with unforeseeable consequences, especially if electric cars catch fire in densely populated urban areas or in a tunnel.

Considering the large emission of carbon dioxide during production, the possibility of self-ignition, the lack of resources for the production of a large number of lithium-based electric cars, the synergy of different alternative sources should be considered. Some of the alternatives in the near future are sodium-ion batteries, hydrogen energy and fuel galvanic couplings, as well as liquid and gaseous biofuels (biodiesel, bioalcohols, biogas), which do not pollute the environment, since the amount of carbon dioxide produced by their combustion is equal to the amount that would be released by rotting the biomass from which they are obtained. The possibilities are unlimited, and clean energy is all around us, we just need to recognize it and use it, NiN writes.

The story of Serbian lithium is once again in the revival phase