The transition from ICE to electric vehicles (EVs) is necessary to decrease climate-changing emissions. As deployment increases, so will the demand for EV battery materials such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel. These materials are primarily supplied through two sources: 1) newly mined or 2) recovered by recycling batteries.
Research shows there are enough explored or prospective reserves to electrify the global transportation sector using current technology if a high amount of battery recycling occurs. In this scenario, global demand for EVs in 2100 will amount to about 55% of cobalt reserves and 50% of lithium reserves. If recycling doesn’t ramp up, a shortage of lithium, nickel, or cobalt is likely, and it is estimated that demand would exceed what is economically accessible to extract.
In this scenario, demand in 2060 is more than cobalt reserves and about 90% of lithium reserves
Source: Cleantechnica: Read The Article
PSR Analysis: Without recycling, demand for Lithium will be such that prices (which have already risen dramatically) will continue to grow, meaning battery costs will escalate. Nickel and Cobalt cost impacts can be reduced by switching to low density batteries such as Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries but this results in a lower range battery.
Lithium, on the other hand, is more problematic and recycling is vital. Recycling isn’t a requirement yet, so recycling is done on a purely economic basis, but we should expect recycling policies to come into force soon. In fact, California is already actively exploring such policies, and a group of stakeholders recently submitted policy recommendations to the California legislature. PSR
Guy Youngs is Forecast & Adoption Lead at Power Systems Research
