LITHIUM DISCOVERY IN THE UK A huge potential source of lithium has been found in the British Isles just as plans for the first UK lithium battery gigafactory are being sketched. If the two firms exploring the area are right, it may not be long before the UK battery industry can cross lithium off its shopping list.
The great lithium ore windfall It didn’t seem to matter so much then. But it does hugely now. Some 34 years ago the UK National Environment Research Council revealed that there was just over three million tonnes of accessible lithium sitting in Cornwall
in the far south-west of England. Put another way there are only two other countries in the world with reserves larger than the UK — Chile with 9.2 million tonnes and Australia with 4.7 million.
Lithium mine production (2020), reserves and resources in tonnes according to USGS Country
Production Reserves Resources
Argentina
6,200 1,900,000 19,300,000
Australia
40,000 4,700,000 6,400,000
Austria
-
- 50,000
Bolivia
-
- 21,000,000
Brazil
1,900 95,000 470,000
Canada
0 530,000 2,900,000
Chile
18,000 9,200,000 9,600,000
Czech Republic
-
-
1,300,000
DR Congo
-
-
3,000,000
Finland
-
- 50,000
Germany
-
- 2,700,000
Ghana
-
- 90,000
Kazakhstan
-
- 50,000
Mali
-
- 700,000
Mexico
-
- 1,700,000
Namibia
-
- 50,000
People’s Republic of China Peru Portugal
14,000
1,500,000
-
5,100,000
- 880,000
900 60,000 270,000
Serbia
-
- 1,200,000
Spain
-
- 300,000
United States Zimbabwe World total
870
750,000
7,900,000
1,200 220,000 500,000 82,000
21,000,000
86,000,000+
There are now only two other countries in the world with reserves larger than the UK — Chile with 9.2 million tonnes and Australia with 4.7 million. 70 • Batteries International • Summer 2021
It suddenly puts the UK firmly at the top table of lithium resources. The US Geological Survey estimates worldwide reserves to be around 21 million tonnes but not all of this is commercially viable. Moreover, Cornwall’s three million tonnes is located with 100 metres of the surface. Benchmark Mineral Intelligence believe there is enough to support what it told the G7 summit in Cornwall in June could be a ‘lithium-ion economy’ in the UK. Back in 1987 at the time of the survey lithium batteries had just been invented. Based on John Goodenough and Stanley Whittingham’s research, Akira Yoshiro had developed a lithium battery two years earlier, but the survey did not rank batteries among the top uses of the element, although its properties for energy storage were recognized. The information about Cornwall’s potential riches was largely ignored — about a third of its use was then in aluminium reduction and about 40% by applications in glass, ceramics and lithium-based lubricants. British Lithium Two companies are licensed to explore Cornwall’s lithium resources in different ways. British Lithium is looking to mine the former clay pit on the St Austell granite that was the subject of the 1987 BGS report. The firm claims the pit has an identified resource of more than 100 million tonnes of lithium, and it would be possible to produce 20,000 tonnes a year — enough to supply a third of Britain’s demand by 2030, when the true EV era will be ushered in. British Lithium chairman Roderick Smith says the Cornish resource is contained in mica as opposed to spodumene, which is exploited in Australia.
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