London-based mining company Savannah Resources revealed on Monday that it is in talks with several major European industrial groups, including carmakers, as it gears up to start commercial lithium production in northern Portugal in 2021.
Portugal is regarded as Europe’s largest producer of lithium, but the miners sell almost exclusively to the ceramics industry. It has taken years in order to make preparations to produce the higher-grade lithium that is used in electric cars and to power electronic appliances.
Savannah already mines feldspar, quartz and pegmatites in Barroso, a mountainous region in the north.
In a statement Savannah Resources revealed that the commercial production of lithium concentrate was scheduled to start in 2021, with the first full year of production being in 2022 “to coincide with the anticipated increase in demand for lithium for European electric vehicle production”.
“Savannah is in offtake and investment discussions with a number of major European industrial groups including car manufacturers and with a series of other international groups,” the company stated.
Interest in lithium mining has been spurred on by a predicted growth in the sales of electric vehicles, which are cheaper to run and more environmentally friendly than regular cars.
However, Portugal will face fierce global competition, and warnings of a bubble effect and oversupply have pushed down lithium prices and caused strident discussion between political figures.
The Government is currently finalizing plans for an international licensing tender for lithium exploration to start this year, despite fierce intense objections from environmental groups.
Last month, hundreds of people protested in Lisbon against lithium mining. A petition signed by thousands said the Barroso project would cause irreversible damage, from soil pollution to destruction of the natural habitat of various endangered species.
Barroso was declared a world agricultural heritage region just last year by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization, but at the end of the day it seems that money always prevails.
Portugal’s biggest environmental NGO, Quercus, opposes any large-scale lithium exploration, warning that it would jeopardize the country’s carbon-neutrality goals, due to the amount of fossil fuels used to mine the lithium.
Comments
What is their alternative?
Mine it somewhere else [Not In My Back Yard principle], don't mine it, or sit at home in the dark?
I'm all for environmental responsibility, but that means taking responsibility. With 7.7 billion greedy life loving humans on the planet, there has to be reality in planning.
These groups would have a lot more credibility if instead of simply opposing every project that's proposed, they would demand environmental safeguards, standards and controls.
Get on the inside and help instead of standing on the outside in perpetual opposition.
Opposing things is popular and easy. Getting to grips with the technology, science, and legalities of big projects is hard, but that's what we need, especially in Portugal.
The two extremes of total exploitation and total environmentalism have to find a balance that works in the real world, because otherwise it won't be the environmentalists who win, it will be all of us who lose.
I suspect that the pollution of this means of transport is centralised at the power station, not that it is reduced; and we take no account of the loss in energy in transmission.
More electric cars means more power is required. Where will it come from? Burning coal, or gas, or oil? All environmentally dirty. Solar or wind power? We shall need a vast investment, and it may not be enough. Which leaves nuclear power as the only reliable option. But as the Japanese have shown, not without risks, and the Portuguese want no more nuclear plants upstream in Spain.