Uranium One, a division of Rosatom, intends to launch lithium production by 2023, gradually reaching a share in global production of 9-10%. The company is considering projects in the Chilean Atacama Desert and Zimbabwe. The investment in lithium can pay off handsomely, as this element is key to the "industry of the future" - the production of batteries, while economically viable lithium reserves are even more limited than petroleum.
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The lightest metal found its niche in the economic activity of people long ago. Since the 19th century, it has been actively used in the production of glass and porcelain, in metallurgy, and since the middle of the 20th century - in nuclear power. Nevertheless, for the time being, the total consumption of lithium was insignificant, and the cheap sources of the metal looked endless.
The situation began to change in the last decade of the last century. In 1991, Sony Corporation released an inexpensive and reliable lithium-ion battery, which soon conquered the world. The main advantages of lithium-ion batteries in comparison with nickel ones were their lightness, charging speed, and a very weak memory effect. Almost negligible demand for lithium as a key component of batteries in the shortest possible time increased by several orders of magnitude and exceeded a third of the global consumption. Initially, the demand for batteries and, consequently, lithium was dispersed by the revolution of gadgets, which began in the 1990s, especially mobile phones. But in the last decade, they have been added to the explosively growing production of electric vehicles. In 2010, it did not reach even 100 thousand electric cars, and by 2019 it exceeded 2 million cars. The total number of electric vehicles on the world's roads by the end of last year amounted to 7.2 million units. Deloitte predicts that total sales of electric vehicles will reach 12 million units by 2025, and about 20 million by 2030, thus making up about a quarter of the global car market.
This growth will have the most direct impact on the lithium-ion battery market. If now the share of cars in the total demand for lithium is about 50%, then by the end of the next decade it will reach 75%, while the consumption of lithium in other industries will also increase, albeit not so dramatically.
Accordingly, the demand for metal is also growing. Consumption of the equivalent of lithium carbonate (mainly lithium is used in the form of two compounds - carbonate (Li2Co3) and hydroxide (LiOH), for convenience in economic statistics, a carbonate equivalent is used) in 2000 was 68 thousand tons. By 2019 it reached 315 thousand tons. t, that is, more than 4 times more. By comparison, global oil consumption increased by less than a third over the same period. The lithium industry has become one of the fastest growing in the mining industry.