India will acquire critical mineral assets abroad to ensure that the country will not be “starved” of elements that are critical components for clean energy technologies, mines secretary Vivek Bharadwaj said on Monday.
The assets are currently mainly being looked at in Australia and Argentina, a senior government official told ET.
Speaking at the G20 Energy Transition Working Group side meet in Gandhinagar, Bharadwaj said 55-90% of the world’s critical mineral reserves and processing capacities lie with 15 countries as per a study. “I am sure we will be able to address the criticality of minerals through exploration like in the case of lithium in Jammu and Kashmir,” he said.
The meeting focused on diversification of clean energy sources, in which critical minerals will play an important role with emerging new technologies for renewable energy and energy storage.
Power secretary Alok Kumar, who also spoke at the conference, said India‘s energy transition brings a need to encourage local production of solar equipment. “Things will be a little easier up to 2030…but are going to be challenging beyond that” as India will need a large number of solar modules, cells, and storage, Kumar said.
