The demand for raw materials used to manufacture rechargeable batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) will grow rapidly as the importance of oil as a source of energy recedes, according to a new United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report.
According to UNCTAD, ongoing efforts to lower greenhouse gas emissions are expected to spur further investment in green energy production, which has been steady over the years, standing at around $600 billion per year, on average.
“Alternative sources of energy such as electric batteries will become even more important as investors grow more wary of the future of the oil industry,” said Pamela Coke-Hamilton, UNCTAD’s director of international trade.
Electric car sales have boomed in recent years, rising 65% in 2018 from the previous year to 5.1 million vehicles, and are expected to reach 23 million in 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.
The report highlights the significant role of rechargeable batteries in the global transition to a low-carbon energy system.
The worldwide market for cathode for lithium ion batteries, the most common rechargeable car battery, was estimated at $7 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $58.8 billion by 2024, according to the report.
“The rise in demand for the strategic raw materials used to manufacture electric car batteries will open more trade opportunities for the countries that supply these materials. It’s important for these countries to develop their capacity to move up the value chain,” Coke-Hamilton said.
Reserves of the raw materials for car batteries are concentrated among a few countries. Nearly 50% of world cobalt reserves are in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), 58% of lithium reserves are in Chile, 80% of natural graphite reserves are in China, Brazil and Turkey, while 75% of manganese reserves are in Australia, Brazil, South Africa and Ukraine.
The highly concentrated production, susceptible to disruption by political instability and adverse environmental impacts, raises concerns about the security of the supply of the raw materials to battery manufacturers.
The report warns that supply disruptions may lead to tighter markets, higher prices and increased costs of car batteries, affecting the global transition to low-carbon electric mobility.
According to UNCTAD, investing more in green technologies that depend less on critical battery raw materials could help reduce consumers’ vulnerability to supply shortfalls in the current mix of materials such as lithium and cobalt, but this would cut the revenues of the countries producing them.
The report indicates that the bulk of value added to raw materials used in making rechargeable batteries is generated outside the countries that produce the materials.
For instance, value added to cobalt ores by the DRC is limited to intermediate products or concentrates. Further processing and refining are mostly done in refineries in Belgium, China, Finland, Norway and Zambia to obtain the end products used in rechargeable batteries as well as for other applications.
The DRC, which accounts for over two-thirds of global cobalt production, has not maximized the economic benefits of the mineral due to limited infrastructure, technology, logistical capacity, financing and lack of appropriate policies to encourage local value addition.
The manufacture of positive electrodes for car batteries is dominated by countries in Asia. In 2015, China accounted for approximately 39% of the global market, Japan 19% and Republic of Korea 7%.
The report shines a light on the social and environmental impacts of the extraction of raw materials for car batteries and underlines the urgent need to address them.
About 20% of cobalt supplied from the DRC comes from artisanal mines where child labour and human rights abuses have been reported. Up to 40,000 children work in extremely dangerous conditions in the mines for low pay, according to UNICEF.
And in Chile, lithium mining uses nearly 65% of the water in the country’s Salar de Atamaca region, one of the driest desert areas in the world, to pump out brines from drilled wells.
This has caused groundwater depletion and pollution, forcing local quinoa farmers and llama herders to migrate and abandon ancestral settlements. It has also contributed to environmental degradation, landscape damage and soil contamination, the report reads.
The adverse environmental impacts could be reduced by increasing investment in technologies used to recycle spent rechargeable batteries, The UN advises.