Forensic geologist Dr Duncan Pirrie explains explains why we need to explore for new mineral deposits if we are going to achieve our ambitions for the use of electric vehicles.

Find out more: southwales.ac.uk/research

Hello and welcome to Sixty Second Spotlight. I’m Associate Professor Duncan Pirrie, a geologist at the University of South Wales. My research focuses on how minerals help society.

Before our news became dominated by the Coronavirus pandemic, there was a lot of media coverage of the importance of climate change and how we can reduce our impact by switching from fossil fuels.

One aspect of a low carbon future is the use of electric vehicles and governments across the world have ambitious targets for these vehicles of the future.

What is less commonly discussed is that all of the existing battery technologies need raw materials – and these come from mining minerals for elements like carbon, lithium, cobalt and nickel.

Let’s take cobalt as an example.  This element is rare and only naturally occurs in a few minerals.  Most cobalt today comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but future demand will completely outstrip supply.

So, if we are to have the planned electric vehicle revolution we need to find new cobalt mineral deposits and fast – from starting exploration to opening a large mine can easily take 10 years.

So the hunt is on.  In December 2019 I met to discuss research with Mawson Resources in Lapland, where they are exploring a potentially huge gold and cobalt deposit.

Finland also has other nickel, carbon and lithium deposits, which makes it Europe’s future leader for battery mineral production. Only time will tell if we can find the raw materials needed and that exploration needs the geology and engineering graduates of the future.