Even if new mines were to be opened in the European Union today, experts in the French mining sector say it would be very difficult to achieve the EU objectives for extracting critical and strategic raw materials by 2030.
Read the original French article here.
To achieve its energy and climate goals, the European Union will need to electrify on a massive scale, which in turn, will require more raw materials for the manufacture of electricity-generating and storage equipment such as batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.
To this end, the European Commission presented its proposal in mid-March for a Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), with a view to advancing the EU’s energy and ecological transition.
Under it, EU countries must ensure that 10% of the extraction, 40% of the refining and 15% of the recycling of several dozen raw materials takes place on home turf by 2030.
On top of that, the Commission proposes the EU should no longer be more than 65% dependent on a single non-EU country for a single raw material – a difficult task given to what extent the EU currently depends on imported minerals, notably from China, which accounts for up to 90% of the value chain for certain materials.
Those targets have been at the centre of the debate ever since, with some lawmakers in the European Parliament opposed to their introduction and some EU countries like France and Germany prefering targets for individual minerals.
“It would be absurd to set the same targets for cobalt, 80% of whose reserves are located in a single African country, as for lithium, for example, which can be mined in Europe,” explained French Industry Minister Roland Lescure.
Unexplored subsoils
The French mining industry also supports the idea of introducing sector-specific targets for individual raw materials, saying Europe “lacks sufficient production capacity and time to implement them” for certain metals listed in the CRMA, explained Christophe Poinssot, deputy director general of the French geological and mining research bureau.
But beyond the difficulties of supplying certain minerals domestically, Poinssot also pointed to data gaps due to an unexplored geological potential in Europe.
In France, “knowledge of subsoil resources is extremely patchy and covers only part of the country,” Poinssot said at a conference organised by the right-wing Les Républicains party in early July.
“The inventory carried out 40 years ago was for a long time limited to the first 100 metres underground,” he explained.
Resources in Europe’s subsoil could even be exported, the researcher also said.
Norway, for example, recently discovered a phosphate deposit that could supply a considerable proportion of the EU’s needs. At the beginning of January, Sweden also announced the discovery a major deposit of rare earth oxides.
Under these conditions, “we need to reinvest in learning more about our subsoil and reopening mines. To do this, we need to relaunch an inventory of the mineral resources present in all 27 EU member states,” Poinssot argues.
Even if new mines were to be opened in the European Union today, experts in the French mining sector say it would be very difficult to achieve the EU objectives for extracting critical and strategic raw materials by 2030.
Read the original French article here.
To achieve its energy and climate goals, the European Union will need to electrify on a massive scale, which in turn, will require more raw materials for the manufacture of electricity-generating and storage equipment such as batteries, wind turbines and solar panels.
To this end, the European Commission presented its proposal in mid-March for a Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA), with a view to advancing the EU’s energy and ecological transition.
Under it, EU countries must ensure that 10% of the extraction, 40% of the refining and 15% of the recycling of several dozen raw materials takes place on home turf by 2030.
On top of that, the Commission proposes the EU should no longer be more than 65% dependent on a single non-EU country for a single raw material – a difficult task given to what extent the EU currently depends on imported minerals, notably from China, which accounts for up to 90% of the value chain for certain materials.
Those targets have been at the centre of the debate ever since, with some lawmakers in the European Parliament opposed to their introduction and some EU countries like France and Germany prefering targets for individual minerals.
“It would be absurd to set the same targets for cobalt, 80% of whose reserves are located in a single African country, as for lithium, for example, which can be mined in Europe,” explained French Industry Minister Roland Lescure.
Unexplored subsoils
The French mining industry also supports the idea of introducing sector-specific targets for individual raw materials, saying Europe “lacks sufficient production capacity and time to implement them” for certain metals listed in the CRMA, explained Christophe Poinssot, deputy director general of the French geological and mining research bureau.
But beyond the difficulties of supplying certain minerals domestically, Poinssot also pointed to data gaps due to an unexplored geological potential in Europe.
In France, “knowledge of subsoil resources is extremely patchy and covers only part of the country,” Poinssot said at a conference organised by the right-wing Les Républicains party in early July.
“The inventory carried out 40 years ago was for a long time limited to the first 100 metres underground,” he explained.
Resources in Europe’s subsoil could even be exported, the researcher also said.
Norway, for example, recently discovered a phosphate deposit that could supply a considerable proportion of the EU’s needs. At the beginning of January, Sweden also announced the discovery a major deposit of rare earth oxides.
Under these conditions, “we need to reinvest in learning more about our subsoil and reopening mines. To do this, we need to relaunch an inventory of the mineral resources present in all 27 EU member states,” Poinssot argues.