Making all the batteries required will mean opening hundreds of new mines and that will take considerable time
By Kenneth Green
Governments around the world are mandating a shift away from vehicles powered primarily by internal combustion engines and toward vehicles powered primarily with electricity stored on-board in batteries. The timelines for the electric vehicle (EV) transition are beyond ambitious. Here in Canada, Trudeau government targets require that 35 per cent of all new medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold must be electric by 2030, rising to fully 100 per cent by 2040.
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But these government EV transition timelines depend in turn on timelines for producing the metals necessary to manufacture battery-electric cars. Current EV technology requires large quantities of lithium, nickel, manganese, cadmium, graphite, zinc and other rare-earth elements in both the batteries and drive systems.
Thus, barring breakthrough developments in battery or fuel technology — widespread adoption of hydrogen, for instance — this massive, rapid expansion of EV production will require a correspondingly massive, rapid expansion of the mining and refining of metals. In a new study published by the Fraser Institute, I gathered some numbers to see what the timeline mismatch looks like.
According to the International Energy Agency, to meet 2030 EV adoption pledges in Canada, the U.S. and beyond, the world will need 50 new lithium mines, 60 new nickel mines, 17 new cobalt mines, 50 new mines for cathode production, 40 new mines for anode materials, 90 new mines for battery cells and 81 new mines for EV bodies and motors. That’s a total of 388 new mines worldwide. For context, as of 2021, only 270 metal mines operated in the U.S. and only 70 in Canada. If Canada and the U.S. wish to use domestic supply chains for these vital EV metals to meet their ambitious transition targets, they have a lot of mines to establish in a very short time.
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Historically, however, mining and refining facilities are slow to develop and plagued by regulatory uncertainty. Typical production timelines for lithium are six to nine years and for nickel 13 to 18 years. Protesters in Canada and the U.S. will likely lengthen these timelines even more, and if mines are declared subject to Canada’s notorious Impact Assessment Act (a.k.a. Bill C-69), they may be longer still.
Aggressive short-term EV adoption goals conflict with this reality of long production timelines in metal and mineral production. There’s significant risk that mining and mineral production will fall short of projected demands and this could slow planned EV transitions, possibly drastically.
There’s also great potential for disruption in the metals, battery and vehicle markets as the supply of metals fails to meet demand. Resulting price increases could bring dramatic financial losses through the entire EV supply chain, all the way through to vehicle dealerships. And of course, because the EV transition targets are intrinsically political, they’re especially susceptible to political chance and chicanery. Investors will have to be wary of the possibility governments will abandon their targets, leaving them with now uneconomic facilities designed to produce a product that won’t reach high sales without generous mandates and subsidies that may well evaporate.
Canada’s EV transition plans, like all too many plans enacted by the Trudeau government, are unrealistic. Outside wartime, the metals sector has not been able to produce new supplies of needed metals on such scale with such abbreviated timelines. The government should recognize this reality, even if it interferes with its full-speed-ahead EV mandates, and either stretch them out substantially or scrap them. Governments picking winning and losing technologies in a market economy almost never ends well.
Kenneth Green is a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.
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Opinion: Liberals' unrealistic EV targets are completely out of sync with global metal supply
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23.11.2023
Making all the batteries required will mean opening hundreds of new mines and that will take considerable time
By Kenneth Green
Governments around the world are mandating a shift away from vehicles powered primarily by internal combustion engines and toward vehicles powered primarily with electricity stored on-board in batteries. The timelines for the electric vehicle (EV) transition are beyond ambitious. Here in Canada, Trudeau government targets require that 35 per cent of all new medium- and heavy-duty vehicles sold must be electric by 2030, rising to fully 100 per cent by 2040.
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Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.
Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.
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But these government EV transition timelines depend in turn on timelines for producing the metals necessary to manufacture battery-electric cars. Current EV technology requires large quantities of lithium, nickel, manganese, cadmium, graphite, zinc and other rare-earth elements in both the batteries and drive systems.
Thus, barring breakthrough developments in battery or fuel technology — widespread adoption of hydrogen, for instance —........
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