“Because the demand for lithium is skyrocketing in the world, it has become a strategic mineral and is a topic of political interest around the world. The presence of commercial interests is even being seen in the manipulation of the politics of some countries”, declared Dr. Jane Arthur, a researcher at the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics of the UNAM, this Monday afternoon during her conference “Lithium: from the great explosion to the future of clean energy”, as the first session of the cycle ‘Noticias del Cosmos’ organized by El Colegio Nacional.
The specialist in sustainability and energy transition explained that the use of lithium for energy storage worldwide, that is, as lithium hydroxide, jumped from occupying 27% of industrial requirements in 2011 worldwide to 65% in 2019.
In today’s typical electric car batteries, he said, there are between 10 and 20 kilograms of lithium. This is 5,000 times more lithium than in a cell phone.
“And given that the European Union and the United Kingdom have announced that by 2035 they are going to ban traditional car manufacturing in that region, this is, in part, what is driving demand for lithium.”
Another sector for which exponential growth is seen over the next decade, he explained, is stationary storage, that is, that associated with the generation of intermittent renewable energy, such as wind and solar.
“Banks of lithium batteries are being built the size of a trailer, where the generated energy that is not used immediately is stored. In each of these large storages there are around 700 kilograms of lithium”.
deposits on the planet
The most famous terrestrial lithium deposits are in the salt flats of the Atacama desert, in South America, in the so-called Lithium Triangle, on the border of the countries of Bolivia, Argentina and Chile. In this case, explained the specialist, the extraction of the element is by brine evaporation. She noted that another type of deposit is hard rock mines found mainly in Australia. Its extraction is carried out with traditional mining techniques: extraction and pulverization.
Finally, there are lithium deposits in clays. This is the type of deposit found in regions such as Nevada, in the United States; in Serbia and in Sonora, Mexico.
However, whether it is the ideal element for the energy transition or is it another possibility of environmental disaster, is one of the big questions that we must address, reflects Jane Arthur.
The issue in the political context
Jane Arthur’s conference is given at the same time that the 2023 North American Leaders Summit is taking place in Mexico, among whose central issues to be addressed by the leaders of Mexico, the United States and Canada, it was announced, is change climate change and the presentation of Mexico’s plan for the generation of clean energy, the production of the necessary technologies for batteries and the use of lithium.
More about the speaker:
Jane Arthur completed her doctoral studies in Applied Mathematics at the University of Leed, UK. She arrived in Mexico 30 years ago to carry out a postdoctoral stay at the Institute of Astronomy of the UNAM and currently she is a researcher at the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics on the Morelia campus of the highest house of studies. She has also dedicated part of her work to issues of sustainability and energy transition.
