The UK lithium battery industry is expected to grow rapidly due to the boom in electric vehicles (EVs), and experts are predicting that there will demand for up to seven gigaplants by 2040.
Sky News reports that according to the UK institute for electrochemical energy, the Faraday Institution, the government’s plan to bring forward the ban on internal combustion engine vehicles by 2030 will lead to a massive expansion in the battery industry to aid the transition to EVs.
This acceleration in the UK’s plans adds urgency to the battery market and will drive up regional demand for battery metals and chemical derivatives of cobalt, lithium, nickel and manganese.
The government recently invested £318 million in the Faraday Institution’s Battery Challenge, an initiative to establish a new testing facility and a research consortium that will work with more than 500 researchers to develop new battery technologies.
However, until the UK can locate more lithium, it will be relying heavily on imports, which will raise questions about the supply chain and its environmental footprint.
To comply with the UK-EU trade deal, many key parts of the battery supply chain need to be established in the country, and there needs to be an investment in developing supply chains for cobalt, lithium and nickel chemicals and manufacturing of cathode active materials, which mostly come from Asia, particularly China.
Professor Richard Herrington, head of earth sciences at the Natural History Museum, said of the government’s ‘laudable’ net-zero goals: “We know in order to deliver that goal we need mitigating technologies – we need to change from burning carbon for our electricity and we need to stop burning hydrocarbons in our cars.
“It’s inevitable you can’t have the massive revolution in energy that we want without this mining that goes with it.”
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