Canada Used To Provide A Lot Of World’s Lithium, But Can It Revive That? – CleanTechnica

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There’s loads of lithium on the planet. There’s no specific worries about operating brief, and plenty of innovators comparable to E3 are working to make locations the place it isn’t grime low-cost and straightforward not less than aggressive. Canada’s oil and fuel area might need a secondary product as demand for his or her major output dries up.
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Lithium was used to deal with mania and temper swings, and now its availability or lack thereof is making market swings. Within the Nineteen Fifties, Canada was truly a participant within the worldwide lithium market, with a mine in Quebec offering tons of the salt, then failing because the market failed. Quick ahead to 2021, and lithium is a core part of the electrification of transportation, in all of our digital devices and a lesser part for grid storage.
Canada truly has large lithium reserves underground. Can it return to being, if not the king of lithium, not less than a well-positioned pawn?
Minerals required for lithium ion batteries obtainable in Canada. Picture courtesy Authorities of Canada.
Along with its historical past with lithium, Canada’s federal authorities established an initiative to attempt to kickstart battery manufacturing right here, working with the mining business to extract the varied minerals required, one thing Canada has in abundance.
Moderately absurd quantities of lithium are locked into the pre-Cambrian Defend. However right here’s the factor. I do know the pre-Cambrian Defend personally and deeply. I carried loads of blasted laborious granite chunks in North Bay, Ontario, landscaping a terraced set of partitions on my mum or dad’s property right down to the flood plain under. It was from SAGE, the underground facility that used to look at for Soviet bombers coming throughout the North Pole and scrambling jet fighters out to intercept them. The US and Canadian militaries constructed a six-story workplace constructing on large springs 1 / 4 mile underground for the aim, so there was loads of rock left over.
And that rock is difficult to mine. It’s a few of the hardest rock on the planet. It’s not like we don’t know methods to do it, however there must be an enormous payoff.
Making mining low-carbon is an understood problem, and there’s numerous work completed on that already. I consulted briefly to the Raglan Mine wind turbine deployment in Northern Quebec close to the Arctic Circle (for these retaining monitor of wind vitality working in icy situations), and labored on a proposal for a net-zero mine within the Ring of Fireplace in Northern Ontario. I’ve additionally frolicked trying on the adjoining market of pumped hydro website tunnel boring, so I do know greater than the typical bear concerning the topic, whereas being removed from an skilled.
Nemaska Lithium was working to get a mine into operation, one of many greatest on the planet. Nevertheless, it bankrupted in Might of final yr after spending over $400 million.
“In Nemaska Lithium Inc.’s failure to launch a lithium mine in Quebec, analysts see a few of Canada’s disadvantages within the world lithium market coming to bear. The corporate headed into creditor safety in late 2019 after spending about C$411.4 million on the C$1.27 billion Whabouchi lithium challenge as of Dec. 31, 2019.
“Distant challenge places missing infrastructure and proximity to finish markets, specifically China, together with weak lithium costs stay obstacles for the budding sector in Quebec and different components of North America, in accordance with analysts.”
Once they stated “distant challenge places,” what they actually imply is “center of nowhere.” Individuals who haven’t spent any time in Canada’s north actually don’t get how a lot nowhere we now have. It’s about 800 km north of Montreal and 200 km east of the closest water, James Bay. That location has a highway of types, an airstrip hacked out of muskeg and scrub pines, and flying in could be a messy affair regardless given hostile climate. There’s no straightforward technique to get one million tons of lithium to wherever from there, as particular rail infrastructure throughout some deeply hostile territory would in all probability should be constructed to James Bay, after which ships couldn’t use it for six months of the yr. It’s extra Siberian than something, however with no railway by it.
The failure of the Quebec mine implies that the lithium locked within the Defend will doubtless keep there for many years to come back. However that’s not the extent of Canada’s reserves. I used to be talking with Alex Grant of Jade Cove Companions, a world lithium extraction skilled, not too long ago about Alberta’s assets. Numerous lithium exists in brine reservoirs underground in oil and fuel areas, and Alberta has its share.
That’s often called unconventional extraction, in that it isn’t brine flats that do the evaporation for you or laborious rock mining, and requires some reasonably subtle processing tools, but it surely’s very doable. Grant pointed me at E3 Metals, which is proposing a pilot challenge in Leduc, Alberta.
 
Picture courtesy USGS
It’s a little bit of an uphill battle in Alberta, in fact, as a result of its first three solutions to any questions are oil and fuel, oil and fuel, then oil and fuel, so lithium extraction, whereas extremely aligned as deep subterranean fluids mining within the vitality sector, makes loads of Albertans scratch their heads.
And lithium has large reserves globally which are simpler to get to. Lithium is a comparatively low-cost commodity. It’s operating $8,000 – $15,000 per ton, however gold is operating $46 million per ton and platinum is round $41 million per ton. It is sensible to mine for treasured metals in the course of nowhere, however cheaper commodities when it’s important to ship tons of completed product require good infrastructure, ideally near water that isn’t impassable more often than not.
Alberta’s assets are fairly good. It has current rail infrastructure, trucking expertise and pipeline expertise, in addition to numerous folks searching for work. If it wasn’t caught on oil and fuel, it’d be doing much more lithium brine and geothermal. Lithium is rather a lot increased priced as a commodity, as Alberta’s crude is round $340 per ton and lithium is 30 to 40 instances that. They’re a great distance from water nonetheless, the identical downside that beleaguers its crude, however at higher costs per ton it ought to be viable.
However that’s true of brine deposits in oil and fuel areas in all places on the planet, and as with the disparate price construction that Alberta’s middle-of-continents vs rivals edge-of-water situations present, the demand and worth should be very excessive to make Alberta’s merchandise aggressive. Count on extra brine extraction within the Permian Basin, the place they’re exploring simply separating lithium out of waste water from oil and fuel extraction.
There’s loads of lithium on the planet. There’s no specific worries about operating brief, and plenty of innovators comparable to E3 are working to make locations the place it isn’t grime low-cost and straightforward not less than aggressive. Canada’s oil and fuel area might need a secondary product as demand for its major output dries up.
is Board Observer and Strategist for Agora Vitality Applied sciences a CO2-based redox movement startup, a member of the Advisory Board of ELECTRON Aviation an electrical aviation startup, Chief Strategist at TFIE Technique and co-founder of distnc applied sciences. He spends his time projecting situations for decarbonization 40-80 years into the longer term, and helping executives, Boards and buyers to select properly at this time. Whether or not it is refueling aviation, grid storage, vehicle-to-grid, or hydrogen demand, his work is predicated on fundamentals of physics, economics and human nature, and knowledgeable by the decarbonization necessities and improvements of a number of domains. His management positions in North America, Asia and Latin America enhanced his world viewpoint. He publishes frequently in a number of retailers on innovation, enterprise, know-how and coverage. He’s obtainable for Board, technique advisor and talking engagements.
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