Through its rise and fall, the price of lithium followed the trend of global demand for electric vehicles, whose batteries represent one of the primary use cases for the compound. During 2022, approximately 61% of the global supply of lithium was utilized to produce such batteries.
This article explores the geopolitical relations and interdependencies emerging in the lithium extraction and manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries. It discusses the characteristics of the lithium-ion battery supply value chain to argue that lithium is not just a strategic resource.
Australia and Canada are the two countries with the greatest potential to provide additional and low-risk supply to the EU for almost all battery raw materials. Enhancing circularity along the battery value chains has potential to decrease EU’s supply dependency.
The last two stages of the LIB value chain are the most competitive, with US and European manufacturers aiming to compete with Asian counterparts. Once again, China concentrates 60% of battery assembly and dominates almost half the market of EVs and hybrid vehicles (43%) (See Figure 4).
During 2022, approximately 61% of the global supply of lithium was utilized to produce such batteries. As interest rates increased across the globe, vehicle purchases became unattractive for consumers. The dampening of electric vehicle demand generated surplus inventories of lithium, resulting in lower prices of the raw material.
However, the supply concentration globally is projected to remain extremely high for graphite and significant for mined cobalt, battery-grade nickel and manganese. Deficits in the short term are expected for lithium in 2022-2023 (Figure 2).
RMIS
Australia and Canada are the two countries with the greatest potential to provide additional and low-risk supply to the EU for almost all battery raw materials. Enhancing circularity along the …
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,UN Comtrade2012—2020, …
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By continent, Asian suppliers led the charge in 2022, exporting lithium ion batteries worth $1.74 billion, or 53.3% of the global total. Europe was next, with 28.2%, followed by North America, which contributed 17.8% of the worldwide lithium ion battery exports.
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Even though the prospects of the lithium economy seem optimistic, demand for the mineral was met with a significant contraction at the onset of 2023. Through its rise and …
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In the burgeoning literature on renewable geopolitics, lithium has been mostly analyzed from the supply risk perspective for different battery types (Helbig et al., 2018); supply risks inherent in LIB downstream processing stages (Moores, 2021; Sun et al., 2019); and the risks associated to current lithium reserves, mining production, economic ...
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