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Reuters
22-07-2025
- Automotive
- Reuters
Germany gives Vulcan Energy 104 million euros to produce clean lithium
BERLIN, July 22 (Reuters) - Start-up Vulcan ( opens new tab has received 104 million euros ($122 million) in German government grants to produce clean lithium, it said on Tuesday, as Berlin aims to boost electric vehicle output and reduce reliance on raw material imports. The grants, issued by the federal government and states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse, will go towards a project "designed to assist with building Germany's and Europe's critical raw materials supply chain resilience", said Vulcan. Germany's lithium demand could reach 170,000 metric tons annually by 2030, according to the German Raw Materials Agency. To meet its battery production needs, the country's auto industry currently depends on imports from Australia, Argentina, Chile, and China. But Germany could have enough lithium reserves to cover its domestic needs for several decades, a study by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources and the Fraunhofer IEG showed in March. Vulcan said last year its first large-scale industrial plant, with an expected annual output of 24,000 tonnes of lithium hydroxide, enough for 500,000 electric vehicles, would be commissioned by the end of 2026. Vulcan is investing 690 million euros in the project. It will build a facility in Landau, Rhineland-Palatinate, extracting lithium chloride which will be converted into lithium hydroxide, a key component for lithium batteries production, in a facility near Frankfurt. The funding will be disbursed from October 1 over 36 months, the company said. Around 30% of state support will be co-financed by the federal states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse, respectively, the economy ministry said. "In times of increasing geopolitical challenges, it is necessary to intensify efforts ... to open up alternative sources of raw materials for our domestic economy," Economy Ministry State Secretary Stefan Rouenhoff said in a statement. ($1 = 0.8548 euros)
Reuters
06-03-2025
- Automotive
- Reuters
Germany's lithium reserves could sustain domestic needs for decades, study finds
BERLIN, March 6 (Reuters) - Germany could have enough lithium reserves to cover its domestic needs for several decades, a study showed on Thursday, as Berlin seeks to boost its electric vehicle production and cut dependency on critical raw material imports. The German Raw Materials Agency estimates the country's lithium demand at up to 0.17 million metric tons per year by 2030. Germany's automotive industry relies on imports from Australia, Argentina, Chile and China to cover its battery production needs. Researchers and companies have been exploring ways to extract lithium as a byproduct of geothermal energy production in Germany's Upper Rhine Valley to boost domestic supply and renewable heating and power solutions. A study by the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources and Fraunhofer IEG institute found that Germany had up to 26.51 million metric tons of lithium reserves, dissolved in deep underground waters, particularly in the North German Basin and the central Thuringian Basin. "This assessment of potential is new. When you add everything up, it turns out there could indeed be surprisingly high lithium resources lying dormant underground," Katharina Alms, the research leader at Fraunhofer IEG, told Reuters. In 2021, geologists estimated that the Upper Rhine Valley in the Black Forest area of southwestern Germany held enough lithium for more than 400 million EVs. Lithium exploration has gained momentum in Germany despite concerns over difficulties of extracting it. ExxonMobil (XOM.N), opens new tab subsidiary Esso Deutschland received four exploration licences in Lower Saxony in December. German oil firm Neptune Energy said in August it received exploration permits for the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt. However, Alms said extracting lithium in Germany faces several challenges as not all locations contain high concentrations, making exploration unpredictable. Many identified lithium resources are also trapped in low-permeability rocks, making extraction technically difficult and surface extraction techniques sometimes require specialized methods that can be complex and time-consuming to implement on a large scale, she added. Germany imported 23.7 billion euros worth of batteries in 2023, with lithium batteries accounting for 86%, according to trade group ZVEI.
