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Let’s get started on lithium. More than 20 battery production “giga-factories” are planned in Europe, including three in France, to switch from internal combustion engines to hybrid and electric ones. The first, from the Northvolt group, started at the end of December 2021 in Sweden.

→ ANALYSIS. Industrial projects and the environment: mines that want to be responsible

But, there is a but “. This “Battery Airbus” that the European Union (EU) wants to quickly set up suffers from an important missing link: the raw material, lithium itself. The EU consumes 6,000 tonnes per year of this metal. It will need 10 to 18 times more by 2030, according to estimates, when global consumption will also soar, to be counted in the hundreds of thousands of tonnes.

A “critical” metal yet relatively abundant

This appetite has propelled this white gold to the rank of “critical metals” while it is relatively abundant on Earth. Lithium mining is in the hands of Australia, Chile, Argentina and China. The latter concentrates almost all of the refining and production of batteries. “Producers are in a strong position and China wants to sell finished products, batteries, and even probably electric cars, not lithium,” argues Guillaume Pitron, author of The Rare Metal War. The hidden face of the energy and digital transition (1).

The European awakening is as late as it is brutal. The EU accounts for only 3% of global battery production. It took twenty years of delay, recognizes Philippe Varin in his report “Securing the supply of the industry in mineral raw materials”, submitted to the government on January 10. “Europe and France considered that the supply of metals was no longer a major issue, that it was possible to obtain supplies on the markets, the extractive activity and the production of goods containing metals started from Europe, summarizes Blandine Gourcerol, economist geologist at the National Geological Service (BRGM). It took the rare earth crisis in Japan in 2010 (when China, in the midst of a diplomatic dispute, dried up supplies, editor’s note) to create awareness. The Covid has accentuated the need to secure supplies. »

Europe begins to look under its feet

So Europe begins to search under its feet. Because there is lithium everywhere, in granitic or magmatic rocks, as well as in geothermal waters and brines near the great fault in the Rhine basin, on both sides of the Franco-German border. A European inventory had reported, in 2017, 527 occurrences of lithium including 39 significant deposits, in particular in France, Portugal, Spain, Finland, Austria, as well as, outside the EU, the United Kingdom and Serbia. .

→ READ. In Portugal, controversy over a lithium mine project

“Theoretically Europe might be independent for part of its supplies”, says Patrick d’Hugues, director of the Mineral Resources and Circular Economy program at BRGM. It might produce 30% of its needs by the end of the decade, including recycling, anticipates the Varin report. But the lights are far from all green.

In the Massif Central, one of the largest deposits

Only the do Romano mine, in Montalegre in Portugal, is operated in Europe. It provides 1% of European needs for the ceramics industry, and not for battery-grade lithium, that is to say of high purity. For an industrial exploitation of European deposits, which are said to be “unconventional”, it remains to develop extraction and treatment processes.

Four mining projects exist in Germany, Austria, Finland and the Czech Republic. In France, the only exclusive mine research permit (PERM) was granted to the company Imerys Ceramics France to study the lithium reserve under the Beauvoir kaolin quarry, in Échassières (Allier). “It is one of the largest deposits in Europe”, notes Jean Cauzid, from the GeoRessources laboratory at the University of Lorraine. This laboratory houses the Steval station, which is testing the feasibility of switching to industrial exploitation of lithium extracted from the granite rock of the Massif Central.

“We oppose dirty oil to clean batteries”

Hopes are also turning to geothermal waters, pumped for the production of heat and electricity, potentially rich in lithium. Four PERMs are being studied in Alsace. And the three-year European EuGeLi (European Geothermal Lithium Brine) research program ended in December 2021 with a first: a few kilograms of lithium carbonate from geothermal brines were produced at the Soultz-sous-Forêts site ( Lower Rhine). A first step towards a possible industrial perspective. As long as the people are part of it.

→ EXPLANATION. A major lithium site has been discovered in Alsace

The Jadar Valley deposit in Serbia did not survive public protest. On January 19, Belgrade gave up the project of the Anglo-Australian giant Rio Tinto. In Portugal, demonstrators regularly denounce the Barroso mine project, north of Porto, another of the largest European reserves. The socialist government of Antonio Costa will have to decide. However, some consider the Beauvoir Échassières mine to be promising because it is already exploited, and the geothermal springs have a more positive image.

“We oppose dirty oil to clean batteries, we praise the post-oil world as if it were a world of nothing, with the illusion of zero-emission green technologies that would have no impact on the environment, laments Guillaume Pitron, so that makes it difficult to open mines. » And makes it more difficult, without privileged access to the raw material, the creation of the entire value chain – refining, battery production and recycling –, provider of jobs.

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Tools to secure the sector

In the wake of the Varin report on “securing the supply of mineral raw materials”, submitted to the government on January 10, it was decided to secure the sector by creating:

– a critical metals observatory with the Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM), for lithium but also the other metals needed for batteries such as nickel, cobalt and graphite.

– a one billion euro investment fund, including 500 million in state aid, subsidies and advances, to secure the supply of critical metals, in particular by taking stakes in mines.