As automakers all over the world set daring targets for automobile electrification, many within the trade wish to nickel — an integral part of most lithium ion batteries — as a serious hurdle.
Whereas there’s sufficient nickel within the floor to assist a serious EV ramp up, there are usually not sufficient deliberate mining initiatives or processing services to make the kind of high-grade nickel that is wanted for EV batteries.
In the meantime, the nickel content material in battery cells is barely growing, in accordance with Mark Beveridge at Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. That is as a result of extra nickel means power density.
“We’re heading in the direction of, you understand, 90 % of the cathode being nickel for sure particular cell sorts,” Beveridge mentioned.
Russia has loads of high-grade nickel, and its invasion of Ukraine has despatched costs hovering to file highs as a result of fears of provide disruptions, even inflicting the London Metallic Alternate to droop nickel buying and selling for per week.
In the meantime, the U.S. is brief on home nickel assets. The Eagle Mine in Michigan is the nation’s solely main nickel mine, and it is anticipated to shut in 2025.
Enter the proposed Tamarack Mine in Minnesota, which is being developed by Talon Metals and mining large Rio Tinto. Though it is but to undergo the allowing course of, Talon has already secured a provide cope with Tesla to get Tamarack nickel into EV batteries.
Talon Metals workers observe a core pattern onsite on the firm’s proposed nickel mine in Tamarack, Minnesota
Talon Metals
Elsewhere although, the undertaking pipeline for brand new, high-grade nickel mines has largely dried up, and communities usually push again in opposition to proposals for brand new mining initiatives.
The Tamarack mine isn’t any exception.
Paula Maccabee, a Minnesota lawyer serving because the Advocacy Director and Counsel for the nonprofit WaterLegacy, has questions. “How a lot nickel will likely be stepping into our ingesting water? The place will that poisonous nickel go when an underground mine has gaps and fissures?”
Various kinds of nickel deposits
Presently, nearly all of the world’s nickel is used within the stainless-steel trade. Beveridge estimates that batteries make up barely greater than 10% of whole demand, although that steadiness is anticipated to shift quickly within the coming a long time.
“If we go ahead 10 to fifteen years, we’re truly trying to a future the place the battery sector may present greater than 50 % of the demand for nickel items by that point.”
However not all nickel is top quality sufficient to be used in EV batteries — it must be so-called “class one” nickel, with not less than 99.8% purity. No nickel is that this pure naturally; all of it must be refined. However the increased the grade of the unique nickel deposit, the simpler and fewer power it takes to course of it.
The positioning of the proposed Tamarack mine is a high-grade nickel sulfide deposit.
“You already know, a few of our grades we have seen as much as 12 % nickel, which globally could be very excessive. That is a number of the highest grades I’ve ever seen in my profession, ” mentioned Brian Goldner, Chief Exploration and Operations Officer at Talon.
Nickel sulfides are usually discovered deep inside the earth, and are extracted by way of underground mines. Presently, the U.S. sources most of its nickel sulfides from Canada, Norway, Australia, and Finland, however there are only a few new sulfide mines within the works.
Further nickel may come from laterite, a lower-quality however extra prevalent sort of nickel ore that is discovered close to the earth’s floor and extracted by way of open-pit mining. Indonesia and the Philippines mine essentially the most laterites, whereas Australia and Brazil even have giant reserves.
A nickel laterite mine in New Caledonia.
Getty Photographs
The issue is that upgrading low-grade nickel laterites to be used in EV batteries includes extraordinarily energy-intensive processes, akin to excessive stress acid leaching, by which laterite ore is heated to a particularly excessive temperature, blended with sulfuric acid, and pressurized.
“The CO2 footprint can be within the order of about 15 to twenty instances greater than what we will do with a deposit like what you could have on the Tamarack undertaking, ” mentioned Henri van Rooyen, CEO of Talon Metals.
That is one purpose why many within the EV trade consider it is essential to develop new nickel sulfide mines, significantly within the U.S. and allied international locations like Canada, Beveridge says.
“Not solely does it doubtlessly carry provide nearer to an finish person in future, a North American finish person, nevertheless it additionally provides that finish person the power to say that they’re utilizing a cleaner supply of nickel, which is clearly good for his or her advertising and marketing of their product.”
But when home automakers all wish to supply nickel from these much less carbon-intensive mines, Beveridge says that there is simply not sufficient provide proper now to go round. He thinks the federal government might have to incentivize automakers to supply nickel from sulfide mines over laterite mines, thereby encouraging extra exploration and mine growth.
Total although, mining is just one step within the convoluted nickel provide chain. After nickel is mined, it is usually despatched to a different nation to be refined or reworked into nickel sulfate, and despatched abroad but once more for battery meeting. All of this transport simply provides to the carbon-intensity of the entire course of.
Whereas there are plans for home nickel refineries in growth, the U.S. at present does not have any. So even when Tamarack is operational by its goal date of 2026, that nickel nonetheless would possibly get shipped all over the world earlier than ending up in American EVs.
Environmental issues and alternate options
Earlier than anything, the Tamarack mine must undergo the environmental evaluation and allowing course of. And there is no assure that this will likely be as fast and simple as Talon hopes.
The principle concern with sulfide mining is potential air pollution of the encircling groundwater and floor water. In Minnesota, lawsuits have stored a distinct proposed copper-sulfide mine caught within the environmental evaluation and allowing course of for 17 years. Maccabee, who has been a plaintiff in a variety of these lawsuits, says the Tamarack undertaking poses acquainted worries.
“There are loads of group conferences and loads of public relations. However when the group has requested, What’s the proof? The place is your hydrology proof of the place the air pollution would go….? They’ve acquired no data in anyway.”
Talon hopes to start out the environmental evaluation course of by early subsequent 12 months, at which level the general public will acquire entry to the knowledge Maccabee desires. However she’s involved that except all the information is launched upfront, regulators and the general public will prematurely assist the undertaking.
If Talon does face group pushback and delays, that might find yourself voiding its cope with Tesla. The automaker can stroll away from the deal if the mine is not up and working by 2026.
Adrian Gardner, Principal Nickel Analyst at Wooden Mackenzie, thinks that is an excessively bold goal. “It was a superb deal sooner than can be potential, possible in our view, for allowing approval and development.”
However Gardner believes that lithium-ion battery recycling, versus mining, may present a extra fruitful and sustainable provide of nickel anyway. Although this know-how remains to be fairly new, battery recycling corporations like Li-Cycle and Redwood Supplies have already entered into partnerships with main automakers.
Pallets of depleted lithium-ion batteries at JB Straubel’s Redwood Supplies are prepared for recycling.
“There are not less than 5 or 6 corporations inside the USA alone, every of whom have their very own proprietary applied sciences,” Gardner says, although he doubts that recycling alone will present all of the nickel wanted. “Will or not it’s ample to cowl off whole EV demand? I doubt it, however it’s in tandem with the normal applied sciences which can be out there and used immediately.”
At the same time as battery recycling ramps up and will get cheaper, mining for nickel remains to be going to be part of the equation. The Tamarack undertaking, if it does get permitted, would solely make a small dent within the international nickel scarcity. However the Talon staff hopes that this undertaking will assist to show that mining may be accomplished in an environmentally accountable method.
“I might like for our groups to have the ability to say that we discovered it. We developed it… Environmentally pleasant, socially accountable metals, ” van Rooyen mentioned, ” And that it is driving our automobiles and that these metals are going to be recycled into the subsequent battery and the subsequent battery. So I will be lengthy gone and these metals will nonetheless be alive.
Watch the video to be taught extra about nickel mining and to see the work occurring at Talon Metallic’s proposed mine in Tamarack, Minnesota.