Insights on public acceptance of major European lithium mine projects

Lithium is a highly important element for the green energy transition. The European Union (EU) has promising hard-rock lithium projects, while public acceptance (PA) is a prerequisite for their viability. In this paper, the PAs of four European lithium projects are discussed using data from several sources, including protest event analysis (that is, assessment of media reports and social media) as well as the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas). The investigated projects are EMILI (Beauvoir Mine) in France, Mina do Barroso in Portugal, Keliber (Kaustinen project) in Finland and Greenbarrow in the UK. The present analysis contributes to the green energy transition debate by presenting several aspects pertinent to PA.Introduction Lithium (Li) is a strategic metal with excellent physical and chemical properties. Its demand is expected to sharply increase in the following years for the production of Li-ion batteries and other energy-storage devices, which are required to meet the goals of the green energy transition. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the global electric-vehicle (EV) fleet will be almost 140 million by the end of this decade. The annual demand for EV battery materials in 2030 is estimated at 185 kt for Li, 180 kt for cobalt (Co), 177 kt for manganese (Mn) and 925 kt for class I nickel (Ni). The main Li resources are brines with approximately 0.1 percent Li2O grade, and hard-rock deposits with 0.6 to 1.0 percent Li2O grade. The biggest hard-rock lithium deposit is located at Greenbushes in Western Australia, whereas almost 60 percent of Li is produced from brines in South America, China and the United States. On the other hand, in Europe, except for its potential extraction from groundwater in sedimentary basins, only Li hard-rock deposits are considered for exploitation. The Li-bearing minerals of the highest economic importance are spodumene, petalite, lepidolite and zinnwaldite as well as amblygonite. Public acceptance PA is an informal social contract that was developed at the end of the 1990s to bridge the gap between the mining industry and the expectations of society. PA became an important issue as opposition to mining was escalated at that time. It indicates the approval of mining activities by the local community, incorporating the principles of the Global Mining Initiative (GMI), aiming to assist the mining industry toward sustainability. PA is a major challenge in the mining life cycle of energy transition metals involving the use of traditional or emerging technologies. It depends on several factors, including project location, associated land uses, corporate conduct, commodity type, mining history in the country/region, and level of trust between the industry and the society. Fig. 1 Flow chart of data acquisition and the analytical process used. Methodology The present assessment of PA in four selected European case studies involves the application of protest event analysis (PEA). PEA, which is based on analysis of online media reports, is used to identify and map natural resource conflicts in diverse scales. Protest movements need publicity for their campaign and requests, while disputes appear also in the media in which numerous reports are available. Thus, they can be detected and studied using online surveys and analyses. In this paper, online media reports for the investigated case studies and the involved industries were searched to identify related disputes.However, instead of using simple Google queries that focus on commercial aspects, the Meltwater media analysis software was systematically used to detect relevant critical news and social-media posts. Data acquisition as well as the analytical process used are illustrated in Fig. 1. Results and discussion The PA-related issues of the four projects under study are summarized in Table 1. As shown in Table 1, three of the investigated case studies — EMILI, Kaustinen and Mina do Barroso — were recently selected by the European Commission as strategic projects under the Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA). The objective of this selection was to substantially improve European capacity and strengthen its raw-material value chains by modifying and broadening the sources of supply.Based on the results of the present study, only the projects of Mina do Barroso and EMILI face community-based opposition. There are also environmental concerns and resource nationalism related to the Greenbarrow and Mina do Barroso projects. Furthermore, Mina do Barroso and EMILI are the only cases reported within the EJAtlas. The first one is the only project regarding a dispute case for which critical academic papers are published in scientific journals. This literature seems to be quite biased and favors opposition’s perspectives. It mainly expresses political ecology and environmental justice views using peculiar concepts and terminology, while it systematically opposes the green transition and is in favor of degrowth. On the other hand, apart from some complaints, Kaustinen does not seem to face any organized public opposition. Conclusions The present study shows that the lack of PA in the wider mining industry may challenge future attempts to develop Li mines in Europe, reduce its supply security and jeopardize the green energy transition. Environmental activism is an important driver for responsible mining. However, one issue that deserves further attention is related to social (psycho)geology: a sudden change in mindset when the same site shifts, for example, from kaolin or quartz and feldspar production for the ceramics industry to Li extraction, and/or from an openpit to underground mining as, for example, in the Mina do Barroso and EMILI projects. Lithium mining controversy needs to be critically assessed and clarified by considering socioeconomic and environmental aspects as well as the attitudes of the people living in the vicinity of each affected region. Acknowledgment The authors acknowledge the financial support of EXCEED project, https://exceed-horizon.eu/, which has received funding from the European Union’s Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Horizon Europe under Grant Agreement No. 101091543. References A list of all references is available in the full paper.

Insights on public acceptance of major European lithium mine projects

Authored by: Toni Eerola1 and Konstantinos Komnitsas

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