Cornish lithium could boost the UK’s role in green tech

Once world famous for its tin and copper mines, an increasing demand for lithium, stimulated by the growth in the electric vehicle and renewable energy markets, could see Cornwall, England’s southernmost county, become a global player in green tech.

Lithium is a key ingredient in the Li-ion batteries needed to run electric vehicles, as well as gadgets such as mobile phones, laptops, and cameras. A new domestic lithium supply could therefore help the UK become a global player in the burgeoning electric car market—Goldman Sachs expects 20.5m electric vehicles to be sold globally between now and 2025.

In mid-January, Cornish Lithium entered into an agreement with Canada’s Strongbow Exploration to explore and potentially develop lithium mining in Cornwall with an eye on benefitting from this boom.

However, lithium extraction is not without its environmental risks. It is usually extracted from brine in salt flats, but Cornish miners hope to produce it from hot spring brines, using geothermal energy extracted from the springs to drive processing costs down. The lithium extraction process uses large amounts of water and chemicals, which, added to the possibility that radioactive radon could be released from the granite rocks that form the geological backbone of Cornwall, could have severe consequences for the area's sensitive ecosystem. Lithium battery recycling is also still not economical.

Jens Horbach has written about the regulation of eco-innovation for IZA World of Labor: He believes that “[r]egulation activities remain a crucial component for the realization of eco-innovations…they may even lead to a higher competitiveness of regulated firms because they redirect firms’ innovation activities toward higher resource efficiency.” Horbach remarks that “‘Present-biased managers,’ who pay more attention to short-term profits than to long-term outcomes, would otherwise not be able to shift their firm’s focus in such a way, as the long-term benefits inherent in resource efficiency measures do not often coincide with short-term profit goals.”

Related articles:
Impacts of regulation on eco-innovation and job creation, by Jens Horbach
Environmental regulations and business decisions, by Wayne B. Gray