The mining company Vulcan He obtained five new licenses explorations on the German territory, in order to look for strands of lithium to be extracted for the growing demand of the large electronics and car market. The company, in fact German-Australian, would like to start producing lithium in 2024, and therefore is strongly interested in speeding up the times: the local administrations have agreed, with these licenses, to the continuation of the plan.
According to Reuters, the licenses are for the Rhine Valley, covering an area of 325 square kilometers. Considering what has been achieved previously, Vulcan can now work on a territory of over 1000 square kilometers. The geothermal lithium of this part of Germany obviously interests other companies, and therefore this (white) gold rush has just begun. It will be up to governments to guide it or stop it with decisions that may not be digested by environmentalists.
In May 2021, a quantity of lithium was assumed, deposited precisely in the Rhine valley, capable of giving the boost to 400 million electric cars. According to Automotive News, Vulcan Energy Resources claims to be able to extract lithium through geothermal energy, which is also carbon neutral. The company had planned, in the spring, to invest 1.7 billion euros to build the necessary plants, and to collect 15,000 tons of lithium hydroxide per year. Vulcan has entered into agreements with Renault and Stellantis.
The company also acquired, from 1 January 2022, an operational geothermal power station for renewable energy in the Upper Rhine Valley in Insheim, in Germany. A new German branch of Vulcan, based in Karlsruhe, will own and operate the plant, which was purchased for approximately 31.5 million euros, using part of the proceeds of the recent capital increase of 200 million Australian dollars. Owned by the regional energy supplier Pfalzwerke AG, the plant currently has the technical capacity to produce a maximum of 4.8 MW of renewable energy, equivalent to approximately 8,000 households, with an additional capacity to produce heating. The plant produces an average of 2.9 MW of electricity. The Insheim plant currently pumps a lithium-rich saline solution to the surface for geothermal power generation, before the brine is reinjected into the tank.
#German #lithium #puts #turbo #exploration #licenses #FormulaPassionit