No mines, no Tesla
The good news: neither copper nor lithium is missing. The bad? The energy transition requires mining projects that no one wants.
American company Albemarle’s lithium extraction site in the Atacama salt flats in northern Chile. According to the sector, global production of lithium in metallic form could reach 750,000 tonnes by the middle of the century.
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Will Europe, like California, run out of lithium, nickel, cobalt or copper to switch, before 2035, to an all-electric car? The threat is brandished by a succession of alarmist reports. In competition with electronics – but, above all, with the enormous “buffer” batteries smoothing the current of solar or wind farms – rechargeable vehicles would see their generalization threatened.