Essential for building electric car batteries and solar technology, lithium is a raw material of the future. Now a German firm is searching for deposits of the valuable resource in the country's Ore Mountains. Geologists believe that some 1.5 billion dollars' worth of the light metal lies underground.
The road sign behind Armin Müller may read "summer trail," but the first thing the business manager does is bundle up. It definitely doesn't feel like summer up here, not even like spring. Cold gusts of wind and occasional rain showers have the head of the Solarworld Solicium company reaching for his black windbreaker. His little troop of guests is shivering too.
Müller's company, which specializes in photovoltaic products, has invited a handful of journalists to the edge of the Erzbegbirge, or Ore Mountains, near Altenberg. Here, on the German side of the border with the Czech Republic, SolarWorld is drilling for an underground lithium deposit. At least 40,000 tons of the light metal is believed to be hidden on the German side alone. It would be a treasure worth some $1.5 billion (€1.14 billion). "And that's the lowest estimate," says Müller.
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Sunday, July 15, 2012
Lithium Exploration Underway at German-Czech Border
Essential for building electric car batteries and solar technology, lithium is a raw material of the future. Now a German firm is searching for deposits of the valuable resource in the country's Ore Mountains. Geologists believe that some 1.5 billion dollars' worth of the light metal lies underground.
The road sign behind Armin Müller may read "summer trail," but the first thing the business manager does is bundle up. It definitely doesn't feel like summer up here, not even like spring. Cold gusts of wind and occasional rain showers have the head of the Solarworld Solicium company reaching for his black windbreaker. His little troop of guests is shivering too.
Müller's company, which specializes in photovoltaic products, has invited a handful of journalists to the edge of the Erzbegbirge, or Ore Mountains, near Altenberg. Here, on the German side of the border with the Czech Republic, SolarWorld is drilling for an underground lithium deposit. At least 40,000 tons of the light metal is believed to be hidden on the German side alone. It would be a treasure worth some $1.5 billion (€1.14 billion). "And that's the lowest estimate," says Müller.
See full Article.
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