Editorial: Lithium challenge

Besides being very expensive and complex, lithium mining will have adverse environmental impacts

Hyderabad: The Geological Survey of India’s recent discovery of nearly 6 million tonnes of lithium reserves in Jammu & Kashmir’s Reasi district may well be a game changer for India as it plans to transition into clean energy and push for electric vehicles. However, there are several challenges and environmental concerns involved in the mining of lithium, a mineral that is in huge global demand because it holds the key to modern-age projects requiring both chargeable and non-chargeable batteries in fields such as clean energy, transport and medical devices like pacemakers. The first challenge is who will bid and mine the reserves since lithium falls under the restricted list of the Department of Atomic Energy that forbids private players from mining or producing them. Moreover, India does not have expertise in the lithium mining space. Besides being very expensive and complex, lithium mining will have adverse environmental impacts. Environmentalists fear that unless sustainable mining practices are followed, lithium extraction will unavoidably increase greenhouse gas emissions. This will also cause soil and water contamination because of the presence of toxic chemicals. Balancing all these factors could be a challenging task. However, lithium mining in India is likely to reduce its dependence on China and other countries. This will not only save foreign exchange but also strengthen India’s energy security. Often called ‘white gold’, lithium has emerged as a priority metal for India given its ambitious target of achieving 30% sales of electric vehicles (EVs) and increasing non-fossil fuel energy capacity to 500 gigawatt by 2030.

While the lithium-ion battery — whose developers won the Nobel Prize — has already transformed electronic communications, the targets for making EVs and moving away from carbon-emitting fuels are also dependent on lithium. However, the Reasi find is still in the initial exploration stage and it will take some more years before India could mine and refine it to make it consumption-ready. Till then, India will have to keep importing lithium as deadlines for its various projects aimed at zero-carbon emissions draw near. Lithium is a soft, silvery-white mineral which plays a critical role in much of what we do in our daily lives. During the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow in 2021, India vowed to cut emissions towards net-zero by 2070. The availability of lithium would be crucial to meet such targets in future. Lithium is also one of the key components in EV batteries, but according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), global supplies are under strain because of rising EV demand. As per the International Energy Agency (IEA), the world could face lithium shortages by 2025. The IEA estimates that about 2 billion EVs will be needed by 2050 for the world to hit net zero, but sales of EVs stood at just 6.6 million in 2021.

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