the critical minerals that can save European industry

Brussel·lesThe war in Ukraine and the blackmailing of Vladimir Putin’s regime with gas have shown the dependence of the European Union in energy matters on Moscow, but also on Beijing. For this reason, the European Commission wants to rapidly deploy a package of measures to boost the green transition industry – batteries, solar panels or, among others, mills – and end the lack of rare earths, such as lithium, magnesium or , for example, cobalt. Now, despite the fact that they are key minerals for the manufacture of these new technologies related to renewable energy, the Twenty-seven countries hardly extract them in their territory and import them mainly from China.

Extraction of rare earths in the EU

Percentage of production for European consumption

Member states are looking for areas potentially rich in rare earths, which are already known as the new oil, and have different localized territories that can save the future of Europe’s industry. Large quantities of lithium could be extracted, for example, in Cáceres or Beauvoir (France), but these are exploitation projects that are just in the infancy or are stuck for bureaucratic and legal reasons. Also, earlier this year, the Swedish authorities announced that Kiruna (Sweden), which already has the world’s largest iron deposit, is very rich in rare earths. On the other hand, even though they represent a very low percentage of the total critical minerals consumed by the European Union, there are already exploitations that have been in operation for years, such as those for strontium ore, which is considered critical by Brussels and all that is used in Europe is extracted from Granada.

These deposits must be very extensive and are therefore very aggressive for the environment

Brussels has set itself the goal that by 2030 the Twenty-seven countries will obtain from their territory 10% of the critical raw materials they consume each year, that they will process 40% and recycle 15% ; and wants to prohibit any of these materials considered strategic to come from more than 65% of a single country. However, the European Union is still very far from reaching these percentages. 98% of rare earths and 93% of magnesium, for example, come from China, and 98% of borax from Turkey, 78% of lithium from Chile and 71% of platinum from South Africa.

According to the estimates of the European Commission itself, the EU bloc will use more and more of these critical minerals. “Our needs in rare earths will multiply fivefold by 2030,” assured the president of the Community executive, Ursula von der Leyen, in the State of the Union speech last September. Specifically, Brussels calculates that the Twenty-seven will need eighteen times more lithium and five times more cobalt in about ten years and, in 2050, it will need an amount 60 times higher than today.

The difficulties of extracting rare earths in the EU

Rare earths are not in short supply, neither in Europe nor anywhere else. The problem is that, despite the fact that they are found in almost all kinds of rocks, they are found in very small proportions. This low concentration is what makes it difficult to exploit and what means that the deposits must be very extensive and, therefore, very aggressive for the environment. In addition, the process of separating critical materials from the rest of the elements is expensive and polluting. For this reason, the member states and, in general, the West, have so far chosen to invest in deposits of rare earths located in Asia, Africa or Latin America. Many rare earth mining projects have been blocked by neighborhood opposition and environmental movements or because, directly, they do not meet the environmental requirements demanded by the European Union itself.

In fact, as long as no new mining operations are opened in Community territory, the objective of the European Union to stop depending on China is to diversify its suppliers of critical materials, and it is already working with initiatives and reaching agreements with different more reliable partners, such as Chile or Mexico. However, in the long term the community block wants to achieve more autonomy in matters of critical materials and the European Commission has already proposed different initiatives to facilitate obtaining procedures to obtain exploitation permits, create a single window for requests not involve different administrations and finance with public funds and offer tax incentives to the company that is interested.