Managing the coming lithium boom (and bust) in select African states
Lithium-rich African countries would benefit from aggressively localizing refining and pursuing mine ownership structures that eliminate informational asymmetries vis-á-vis multinational companies.
I: Can African states ride the lithium boom?
The current push for accelerated energy transition raises questions not only about African states’ development prospects in an era of climate change, but also whether they will benefit from producing green metals.
Take the example of lithium. All over the world carmakers are hungry for the crucial mineral that goes into the making of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs). Currently, the demand is far higher than the supply, a fact that sustains mouthwatering margins for producers. This year the average cost of a ton of lithium has been over $50,000 — an estimated five to ten times the cost of production. With some projections indicating that the “supply of lithium has to increase 42-fold by 2050 to support a transition to clean energy,” there is reason to believe that demand will remain high (despite recent developments towards possible alternatives like sodium-iron batteries and demand shocks related to the EV industry).
