The News
The global race to find new sources of lithium to fuel the green transition is encountering a multitude of roadblocks.
In Europe, plans to build the continent’s biggest lithium mine in Serbia have become politically sensitive: The European Union and the US back the project, but officials are concerned Russia may be trying to disrupt its completion.
Meanwhile, India’s ambition to become a major lithium exporter appears to have been dashed. New Delhi announced the discovery of huge reserves of the metal in 2023, but, almost two years later, nothing has happened. Efforts to auction mining concessions have twice failed due to the lack of bidders.
SIGNALS
Serbia’s lithium mine plans are a flashpoint in Russia’s rivalry with the West
Serbia’s $2.7 billion lithium mine project threatens to upset President Aleksandar Vučić’s balancing act of boosting ties with the European Union without burning bridges with Russia, Bloomberg wrote. The US, China, Russia, and the EU all “see Serbia as a key piece on the global chessboard,” and Vučić has so far managed to convince all players that he’s on their team, Politico reported. However, there is some suspicion that the Kremlin may be stirring up local opposition to the mine via a disinformation campaign aimed at driving a “wedge” between Serbia and the West, the US ambassador to Serbia alleged.
Lithium production presents a ‘green’ paradox
The rapid expansion of clean tech like EVs has pushed up global demand for lithium, but simply increasing its production at existing mines “could negate the benefits of the clean technologies they power,” researchers warned in an editorial in Nature last year. Lithium mining is extremely water-intensive, and toxic chemicals used in its production risk poisoning local water supplies. Mining operations in Chile’s Atacama Desert have made an “already dry region even drier,” impacting farming and the Indigenous communities who live there, according to non-profit Natural Resource Defense Council.
Despite government backing, India remains dependent on lithium imports
India’s lithium reserves are far smaller than officials had first claimed and seemingly cost too much to access — an obfuscation that one industry expert told Rest of the World was “irresponsible” of New Delhi in that it presented misleading information to investors. Meanwhile, the country’s dependency on imports of critical minerals like lithium and cobalt makes India highly vulnerable to global supply chain disruptions, a recent report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis argued.