Reserves of lithium discovered near Bengaluru, critical for EV batteries
As Electric Vehicle sector is on the verge of rising, there is good news for the EV sector. Reserves of lithium have been discovered in Mandya, 100 km from Bengaluru in Karnataka. This finding could boost the local manufacturing of EV batteries. Atomic Minerals Directorate, a unit of India's Atomic Energy Commission has estimated lithium reserves of 14,100 tonnes in a small area in Southern Karnataka, as per a paper that will be published in the forthcoming issue of the journal Current Science.
Lithium is a rare metal, critical for manufacturing batteries for electric vehicles. N Munichandraiah, Emeritus Professor at the Indian Institute of Science has said that the present data provides a total estimation of available Li2O as about 30,300 tonnes over an area of 0.5 km x 5 km, which works out to about 14,100 tonnes of lithium metal.
If compared the new found reserve is small to major producers such as Chile with its 8.6 million tonnes reserve, Australia with 2.8 million tonnes, Argentina with 1.7 million tonnes, and Portugal with 60,000 tonnes. So far India has been importing all its lithium requirements.
The Indian government has been pushing for an electric vehicle ecosystem. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pushing hard to promote clean-energy vehicles in India, and has unveiled a host of measures, including a $1.4 billion plan to make India a manufacturing hub for EVs.
India's imports of lithium batteries tripled to $1.2 billion in 2019 from $384 million in FY17, as mentioned in the report. In the eight months in 2019, India's lithium battery imports stood at $929 million, as mentioned by Minister of Science and Technology, Harsh Vardhan.
Experts think while India requires lithium for its energy needs, there has been no comprehensive effort to map local reserves of lithium so far. India is yet to etch out a comprehensive plan to map local reserves of lithium. India has set up Khanij Bidesh India Ltd to source and acquire mines in Argentina, Bolivia and Chile.
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