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Lithium is a crucial mineral for electric car batteries, and global demand for it is expected to quadruple by the end of this decade. But in the race for lithium, European car makers are behind. They've secured less than a sixth of the global supply of the mineral. That means inside Europe, there is a rush to mine lithium and refine it, but both can harm the environment. As NPR central Europe correspondent Rob Schmitz reports, one company has found a way to extract it without leaving a carbon footprint all in Europe's own backyard.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Lithium, a key to a clean energy future for cars, can be a dirty business. Mining it can leave behind toxic chemicals, water pollution. And for every ton of lithium taken from the Earth, 15 tons of carbon dioxide are released into the air.
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SCHMITZ: That's why massive protests have erupted over a proposed lithium mine in Serbia, a mine the European Union considers crucial for Europe's electric vehicle future. But in Europe's wealthiest country, one company is unearthing lithium without a carbon footprint. It starts here inside a mechanical room in the German city of Insheim along the upper reaches of the Rhine River. Stefan Brand leads me into a space cluttered with pipes, gauges, pumps and valves.
STEFAN BRAND: Here it will be impurity removal. These are precipitation reactions where we remove calcium, magnesium, silicon.
SCHMITZ: Brand, the chief technological officer for Vulcan Energy, walks me through the steps of extracting lithium without leaving a carbon trail. It starts 2.5 miles below this facility. That's where Vulcan has tapped into the scalding hot, briny underground waters of this region which power the company's geothermal energy plan. In addition to providing electricity for more than 6,000 homes, the plant also powers this facility, where brine is pumped to the surface and, in this room, fed through a series of pipes and chemical processes that extract lithium from it before being reinjected into the earth.
CRIS MORENO: So you're extracting two things - heat and lithium. The rest goes back, and you continue that process.
SCHMITZ: Cris Moreno is CEO of Vulcan Energy. Moreno says most lithium is brought out of the Earth through hard rock mining or by similar brine extraction methods that let the fluid evaporate in big ponds in the desert. Both methods leave big environmental footprints. Vulcan's direct lithium extraction method is used by around 10% of companies that produce lithium. Similar projects are running in China and Argentina. Moreno says what's important about Vulcan's operations is where it's located - in Germany, where car makers are desperate for the raw materials for electric car batteries and how much lithium it could potentially provide.
MORENO: For the first two phases, definitely within this decade, if we're producing 48,000 tons of lithium hydroxide, that's 1 million EVs. That's what Europe's forecasting to produce in Europe by 2030.
SCHMITZ: As it stands, after companies extract or mine lithium, they then ship 80% of the global supply to China, where it's refined. And shipping millions of tons of lithium to China each year, where, for the most part, coal is used to power the refining process leaves an enormous carbon footprint, says Moreno. That's why Vulcan's plans include opening a lithium refining facility in Frankfurt in October, a reminder, he says, that Europe's demand for lithium can be met with a European supply. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Insheim, Germany.
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