Sustainable extraction focus of Serbian president's visit to German lithium mine
Clean Energy Wire / ARD
Serbia’s president Aleksandr Vucic visited a lithium mining project in eastern Germany together with German chancellor Olaf Scholz in a bid to underline the two countries’ ambitions to engage in an industry partnership for trading the mineral needed for electric vehicle batteries. “If the transition to electric mobility is to succeed, we must ensure an adequate supply of lithium for our industry,” Scholz said in a speech delivered during the visit to the mine in the Ore Mountains in the state of Saxony.
Domestic mining would be one element for German industry to cover its growing lithium demand, Scholz said. Beyond that, diversified supply chains and trade partners would help to complement the strategy laid out in the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Act, he added. “Demand for this resource will be enormous, which is why it’s important to implement as many projects of this kind as possible in Europe,” the chancellor said, adding that these would be supporting each other rather than compete.
Earlier this year, Scholz visited Serbia to agree a deal on importing the mineral from the southeastern European country, where major lithium deposits have led to large-scale mining activities that were met with fierce resistance by many Serbians. “Citizens often have worries that these projects come with negative consequences for the environment,” Scholz said, adding that high sustainability standards would therefore have to be implemented at the project in Saxony that could then help to provide expertise to the project in Serbia.
President Vucic said he appreciated the expertise Germany could provide to Serbia’s budding mining industry, which besides lithium also plans to expand the extraction of other rare earth minerals and resources. “There’s no doubt that this can bring many economic advantages to Serbia,” Vucic said, adding that “we lack know-how in some areas” that could be provided by partners like Germany.
The project, led by the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology, could provide valuable expertise for lithium extraction in Serbia, said Martin Bertau, director of the Institute of Technical Chemistry at Freiberg University. In a report by public broadcaster ARD, Bertau said the extraction procedure at the project in Saxony would remove carbon emissions rather than create new ones to produce lithium carbonate.
Moreover, the project would also integrate the use of residual matter from lithium mining to reduce disposal costs and make extraction more sustainable. “Usually, we would throw stuff away that once cost us money. And then we pay for disposing of it. The times when we could afford to do it this way are over,” he argued.
