You likely don’t pay much attention to small metals such as lithium, but without this tiny commodity, we wouldn’t have rechargeable batteries for your smart phone or many of the devices you use every day.
And as the world evolves toward a low-carbon future and countries look for opportunities to electrify (think electric vehicles), demand for metals like lithium is increasing rapidly. In fact, the global battery market is expected to be worth $116 billion annually by 2030.
That means the world is going to need a lot of lithium.
Traditional methods to extract lithium from the earth involve lengthy processes, evaporation pools, and damaging impacts to the environment. New methods are emerging to enable companies to get lithium to market faster and in a significantly more sustainable way.
And those new methods are being developed right here in Alberta.
Kelly Krahulic, VP, Technology & Innovation at Summit Nanotech, has a passion for unlocking the potential of green technology to power our energy systems of today and tomorrow.
She joins the show to talk about lithium and why everyone is paying attention to this small metal. She explains the pioneering technology that Summit Nanotech is piloting and why this technology could help advance low-carbon goals.
And she explores why Alberta is the perfect place to develop and export the technology for sustainable extraction. (Hint: we already have the expertise and resources in oil and gas mining.)
In this episode:
- Lithium—where you can find and why it’s important to our energy system
- State of lithium market and global demand
- Lithium in Alberta—opportunities and challenges
- Traditional lithium mining vs emerging methods
- How Summit Nanotech’s denaLi 1.0 technology works
- Using our expertise in resource extraction to advance development of lithium extraction technology
- Lithium and GHG emissions reduction
Resources mentioned
- Growing an Alberta lithium industry (Energy Futures Lab)
About The Energy Evolution
This limited series explores the technologies, future fuels, collaborations, and more that are at the core of today’s energy evolution and how Alberta can lead the charge to a low-carbon world.
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