![]() ![]() According to the IEA, 70 per cent of production capacity for cathodes is in China, with South Korea and Japan playing smaller roles. In effect, it’s glued or laminated onto the battery’s cathode and stores energy. This material, typically a powder, contains many of the battery metals mentioned above. One of the most crucial materials is known as cathode active material, or CAM. The federal government has earmarked $1.5-billion to fund development of critical-minerals projects, such as preconstruction studies, and planning and consultations with Indigenous peoples. Given the many years it takes to develop a mine and acquire the necessary permits, near-term prospects for greatly accelerating Canada’s output of battery metals are slim. A 2022 report by the Trillium Network for Advanced Manufacturing, a non-profit that promotes manufacturing in Ontario, noted that the success of their projects will depend heavily on market conditions and commodity price fluctuations. But many mining companies guiding them are small juniors whose cash balances seem unequal to their lofty ambitions. That could change early-stage exploration projects abound. Yet, so far, Canada is a tiny player in all but one of the battery metals. And, after all, mining has long been one of Canada’s strengths. It is one of a small handful of democratic countries that has reserves of most of them. The federal government’s standard line, contained in its critical-minerals strategy, is that Canada is “extremely well positioned” to supply these materials. Lithium-ion batteries, the dominant EV technology, require lithium, nickel, cobalt, graphite and manganese – and rising demand for them has added volatility to commodity prices in recent years. One implication of shifting from vehicles with fossil-fuel powertrains to EVs is that the latter need six times as many mineral inputs. It also highlights how long the road to powerhouse status might be. That Canada went unmentioned betrays its late arrival. China featured prominently, as did Australia, South Korea and Poland. Ford Motor Co., which builds cars in this country, reported earlier this year that it had mapped four of its battery supply chains back to the mine sites. Yet talk of Canadian companies seizing “first-mover advantage” – a phrase often invoked by government and corporate officials seeking to convey why additional investment is urgently needed – overlooks the fact that China’s government and industry (and, to lesser extents, competitors in South Korea and Japan) did that more than a decade ago. RMI estimates that as many as 400 gigafactories could be built worldwide by 2030, which it called “the biggest capacity ramp-up since World War 2.” In a report published this week, RMI, a U.S.-based clean-energy think tank, said battery sales have been doubling every two to three years, and the global market for them will soon exceed that for solar panels and wind turbines. Given predictions that the battery market will continue to grow exponentially, this is heady stuff. In a commentary published earlier this month, lawyers at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP declared that, thanks to Canada’s “numerous competitive advantages,” the country is already poised “to emerge ahead of the pack as a powerhouse.” In a recent assessment of countries’ readiness to provide key inputs such as renewable energy, raw materials and battery cells, EY, a consultancy, ranked Canada fifth, ahead of traditional automaking nations like Germany and Japan. With fresh investments announced regularly, it might seem that Canada has already carved out a pre-eminent position in the EV revolution. The federal government adopted the phrase “from mines to mobility” to express its sweeping ambitions. ![]() Any company that can provide crucial inputs – everything from raw minerals to finished battery packs – stands to reap a fortune and create coveted, high-paying jobs. Ontario’s automaking industry must pivot quickly to churning them out. The rationale for such generous incentives, potentially worth tens of billions of dollars, is that demand for EVs is growing so rapidly that, by 2030, they might account for half of new passenger cars sold worldwide. To lure them to Canada, Ottawa and the provinces have offered huge subsidies to the likes of Stellantis NV and Volkswagen. In the global scramble to profit from the electric vehicles that are expected to flood roads and highways the world over, few trophies are as vigorously contested as gigafactories – the term for giant battery manufacturing plants. Read the most recent story published from the series here. ![]() This story is part of Mission Critical, a Globe series that looks at the issues around whether Canada can become a mining superpower in critical minerals used in the clean energy transition. ![]()
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