![]() India is able to satisfy only a small fraction of its oil consumption via domestic production (16.5 percent), less than China (27.4 percent) and Europe (28 percent). Prime Minister Modi has established an ambitious target of energy self-sufficiency for India by 2047, a goal no doubt informed by the depth of India’s energy-import dependence. Until now, one of the key long-term challenges to India’s aspirations appeared to be raw lithium sourcing the country now has domestic resources capable of meeting current and future demand. If successful, India could replicate its success in exporting low-displacement motorcycles and scooters and lower-cost agricultural machinery to the developing world. India is also trying to become an alternative to China as a producer of lithium-ion batteries, both for domestic consumption-India is the world’s fourth-largest auto market-and eventual export. To reach Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s surprising pledge to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2070, made at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26), India will have to significantly boost EV adoption and build solar and wind energy capacity. The Indian government is keen to bring these resources online as quickly as possible. Fears of a “ lithium crunch” putting a brake on EV adoption are driven by insufficient mining capacity, not scarcity of lithium resources per se. ![]() Even countries with leading-edge mining sectors and significant domestic resources like Germany currently satisfy all their domestic demand via imports from Australia and Chile, while the United States has only one operational lithium mine. Many countries with vast lithium resources have yet to begin mining at any appreciable scale (see figure again). ![]() What matters over the medium and near term is how quickly these resources can be developed into reserves, or minerals that are both recoverable and profitably minable in a given price environment. Lithium resources-concentrations of minerals that are potentially economically viable to extract-are not particularly rare. However, the International Energy Agency forecasts that production will need to increase over forty-fold to put the world on a path to net-zero CO2 emissions by 2070. Globally, mine production hovers around 100,000 metric tons per year. The news of new lithium deposits is welcome Large resource discoveries in “peripheral” regions far from the capital and locus of government power are often politically destabilizing, especially when those resources are discovered in areas dominated by ethnic or religious groups that face significant discrimination. The discovery would place India sixth in terms of lithium resources, just behind leading producer Australia and ahead of China, the largest raw lithium importer and producer of lithium-ion batteries (see figure).īut for these benefits to occur, India must address the challenge of tapping this resource in its most politically volatile region, which has been contested in a succession of wars and violent skirmishes between India and Pakistan since they won independence from Great Britain in 1947. The find could enhance India’s aspirations of becoming a green industrial power and change the medium- and long-term outlook for lithium availability, helping avoid a lithium access race between the United States and China. The Geological Survey of India estimates it has discovered 5.9 million tons of lithium resources in the mountainous Salal-Haimana area of the Reasi district in the union territory of Jammu and Kashmir. In a potential game changer for green energy, the Indian government has announced the discovery of a massive amount of lithium, a critical mineral deployed in electric vehicles (EV) and battery storage.
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