Underpinning Canadian government and corporate plans for a homegrown electric-vehicle battery supply chain are the country’s deposits of battery minerals. But as automakers and battery companies invest in new or retrofitted plants to support the shift to EVs, mining experts warn that development of the mines and refineries at the base of the value chain is not keeping pace.
But with roughly seven times more nickel than lithium by weight in a typical EV battery, the International Energy Agency expects demand for the valuable commodity to balloon through the 2020s. In a May report, the organization said nickel demand will nearly double to about 5,000 kilotonnes in 2030 from 2,640 in 2021.Canada’s reserves of Class 1 nickel, the grade needed for batteries, give it the opportunity to advance its global standing, said Jeffery Lewis, a spokesman for Vale S.A.
The proposed nickel-sulfate operation would be a first of its kind for the country as Canada does not currently have a plant capable of processing nickel into the form needed for EV batteries, said Photinie Koutsavlis, vice-president of economic affairs and climate change at the Mining Association of Canada.
The federal government’s recent commitment to spend $3.8 billion on a critical-mineral strategy will spur more projects, Koutsavlis said. But the window for action is narrow.
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