Projections of future lithium production and implications for EU

Sammanfattning: Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are critical for the adoption of electrical vehicles vital for the electrification of road traffic as part of our fossil-fuel phasing out plan. This increasing demand for energy storage has expanded lithium production ten folds over the last 10 years and led to a new debate on the availability of lithium resources as well as sustainable challenges in resource exporting countries.  Batteries manufacturing is not only constrained by the available resources but also limited by the production capacity. However, the global supply chain system is influenced by geopolitical issues, which are affected by the rising resources nationalism and worldwide populism. This study is aimed to improve understanding of the current lithium supply chain system and generate explorative scenarios for lithium future production.  Understand the impact of lithium production on the EU`s energy transition scheme, and challenges and uncertainties within the supply chain system may arise in the light of sustainable development.  Employ quantitative models (logistic function and gompertz functions) to conduct qualitative analysis on inherent assumptions in scenarios. The geographical concentration of lithium resources is a prominent obstacle for expanding the lithium yield in the future due to the marginal diminishing effect and concentration of environmental impact along with the extracting procedure. The supply and demand balance of lithium could engage tight scenarios in the next decades according to our models.  Future production would be limited by the yield capacity in Latin America which holds the most currently known lithium resources. Diversifying lithium sources and expanding hard-rock lithium production would be essential to tackle the surging demand. However, Latin America will dominate lithium production by 2050,  when the current known hard-rock lithium resources turn to deplete. Bolivia holds the largest lithium resources will determine the peak of global lithium production, but hard to see its` influence shortly.   The EU accounts for one-fourth of world lithium consumption with a rather small contribution on the supply chain which also makes it extremely externally dependent. However, it could play an influential role in easing the burden of the global lithium supply chain by extracting lithium resources within its border. Furthermore, local lithium material suppliers can securitize the raw material supply chain of the EU and foster its developing battery and EV industry. From the global perspective, the EU can help with establishing a more responsible supply chain system by participating in the raw material supply chain. This thesis also analyzed how the EU can play a fundamental role in upgrading our global supply chain system and how the EU will get benefits from it.