Lithium: Imerys will exploit lithium mine in France

 World leader in industrial minerals Imerys announced monday 24 october that in the french town of Echassières, writes Le Monde: 

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https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/10/24/first-lithium-mining-project-launched-in-france_6001570_19.html

On Monday, October 24, the Imerys group, the world leader in industrial specialty minerals, announced the launch of a major lithium mining project in Echassières (central France). Since the end of the 19^th century, this open-pit mine – named "de Beauvoir" after the former operating company and located on the edge of the Colettes forest on the border between the Allier and Puy-de-Dôme departments – has produced 25,000 to 30,000 tons of kaolin for ceramics every year.

Studies and core sampling predict the presence at a great depth of high concentrations of lithium hydroxide, a total of 1 million tonnes containing between 0.9% and 1% of oxide, confirming the estimates of the French Geological and Mining Research Bureau (BRGM). This deposit will enable 34,000 tons to be extracted over 25 years, making Imerys a leading supplier to the European market, with a capacity to equip 700,000 vehicles per year with lithium-ion batteries.

In addition to the studies already carried out for €30 million, the project will require a minimum investment of €1 billion, based on an estimated lithium production cost of €7-9 euros/kilo. Imerys considers this "very competitive, particularly on the European market, and sufficient to guarantee a return on investment in line with group guidelines."

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https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/10/24/first-lithium-mining-project-launched-in-france_6001570_19.html

Northvolt: the new european battery giant

 Former Tesla employees have built the biggest european battery factory in Skelleftea in the north of Sweden, a report by french newspaper Le Monde:

A decade ago, the future looked bleak in Skelleftea. In the town of 71,500 inhabitants, the size of Corsica, 800 kilometers north of the capital, Stockholm, most mines had closed. Those that still produced minerals had replaced men with machines. In search of a brighter future, the young people headed south. In a burst, in 2015, the municipality set itself the goal of reaching 80,000 inhabitants by 2030. "But we knew it would be very hard," admits today the director of municipal services, Kristina Sundin Jonsson.

This was without counting the miracle that occurred in the fall of 2017, when the company Northvolt, created two years earlier in Stockholm, chose Skelleftea, among 40 Swedish municipalities, to set up its “gigafactory” of electric batteries. At first, the locals only half believed it. The hill above the construction site in the east of the city has been renamed "the hill of the skeptics". Locals have gotten into the habit of climbing up to follow the progress of the work. First, we had to cut down trees over an area the size of 280 football pitches, then level the pitch with explosives. On October 15, 2019, construction of the buildings could finally begin.