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In southeastern Norway lies Europe’s biggest plant for recycling used or defective electric car batteries, turning them into a powder, or “black mass”, made up of nickel, manganese, cobalt, lithium and graphite.

These so-called critical minerals — essential components in many clean energy technologies — will be reused to make new batteries, key cogs in the transition to a decarbonised economy.

“The higher the quality of the components, the easier it is to use them for recycling,” said Gronvold, a laboratory technician at Hydrovolt, a joint venture between Norwegian aluminium giant Norsk Hydro and Swedish electric battery maker Northvolt.

The Hydrovolt plant opened last year in the port city of Fredrikstad.

Within the next few months, the site is expected to be able to process 12,000 tonnes of lithium-ion battery packs per year, the equivalent of 25,000 electric car batteries.

Read more at: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/norways-quest-black-gold-used-055407493.html

A Chinese consortium led by Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. plans to spend $1.4 billion to build lithium extraction plants in Bolivia, according to the country’s government, adding to a global rush to secure supplies of the battery material.

The group will build two facilities to make lithium chemicals with a combined production capacity of about 200,000 tons a year, Bolivia’s Ministry of Hydrocarbons and Energy said on Sunday. The investment could eventually grow to $9.92 billion, according to the statement. 

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-20/china-s-catl-leads-1-4-billion-lithium-investment-in-bolivia#xj4y7vzkg

SANTIAGO, June 14 (Reuters) – Chile and the European Union will sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) soon to develop value-added lithium projects in Chile, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said on Wednesday.

Speaking to reporters in a joint press conference with Chilean President Gabriel Boric, von der Leyen said the two parties reached an agreement to develop a strategic association to develop lithium and strengthen supply chains.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/eu-chile-sign-mou-value-added-lithium-projects-2023-06-14/

Norway’s government is readying plans to open an area of ocean nearly the size of Germany to deep-sea mining as it seeks to become the first country to extract battery metals from its sea floor. The country’s energy ministry is racing to submit to parliament in the next two weeks a proposal to open the vast area to applications for exploration and extraction.

The plan would then face a parliamentary vote in autumn. But Oslo faces a battle with fishing businesses and environmentalists over the proposals, and risks opening a dispute with other nations as it pushes to enable mining close to Svalbard, the Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic. Norway argues it commands exclusive mining rights over a larger area of water there than Russia, the UK and the EU contend it does.

Read more at: https://www.ft.com/content/44855d32-82c2-4f4c-b77c-1c21d3c1279f

June 2, 202310:48 AM EDTUpdated 2 days ago

AHMEDABAD, June 2 (Reuters) – India’s Tata Group signed an outline deal on Friday on building a lithium-ion cell factory, based on investment of about 130 billion rupees ($1.58 billion), as part of the nation’s efforts to create its own electric vehicle supply chain.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/indias-tata-group-signs-16-bln-ev-battery-plant-deal-2023-06-02/

OTTAWA, May 29 (Reuters) – Canada’s federal government and the Quebec province will each provide about C$150 million ($112 million) for a General Motors-POSCO Chemical battery materials facility that is expected create about 200 jobs in the country, the Canadian industry ministry said on Monday.

The U.S. carmaker and South Korea’s POSCO outlined their plan last year to build the facility in Becancour, Quebec, to produce cathode active material (CAM) for electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/markets/canada-quebec-provide-about-c300-mln-gm-posco-battery-materials-facility-2023-05-29/