Australia has about 10 million tons of lithium sources. Geoscience Australia reviews about 4.6 million tonnes of lithium in ore reserves as of 31 December 2024. Australia leads international lithium manufacturing, largely from hard-rock operations.
As an alternative of ready months for ponds to pay attention brines, miners extract lithium ore, course of it into lithium focus and ship it for refining.
Western Australia is the middle of this method. The Greenbushes lithium mine, operated by Talison Lithium via a three way partnership construction, is without doubt one of the world’s most vital hard-rock lithium mines. Its output feeds the worldwide lithium market and helps provide firms producing lithium chemical compounds for batteries.
Australia’s power additionally exposes a bottleneck. Mining is just one step. China holds a dominant position in lithium refining, with virtually 65 % of worldwide lithium refined in China in 2023. The battery metallic should nonetheless transfer via chemical conversion earlier than it could actually energy electrical autos.
Lithium just isn’t consumed in the identical means oil is burned. It may be recycled many times, which makes used batteries a future supply of provide.
Recycling won’t erase the necessity for brand spanking new mines quickly, however it could actually assist stretch international lithium reserves as demand rises and different international locations, together with Canada, China and the Democratic Republic of Congo, develop sources or processing plans.
We created this text along with AI expertise, then made certain it was fact-checked and edited by a HowStuffWorks editor.
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