Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- Assessing Uzbekistan’s plans for the extraction and processing of critical minerals, EY Partner, Regional Director for Climate Change and Sustainable Development Services in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Ukraine and Belarus, Viktor Kovalenko, noted growing demand, which is critical to the energy transition and achieving climate goals.

In particular, critical mineral resources are used to create components for modern computers, tablets, phones, solar panels, in the military industry, in the creation of rocket engines, for the construction of metal structures and infrastructure projects such as roads, housing, railways and electrical grids. Without them, it is impossible to produce boards for electric vehicle batteries, which are gaining popularity in the country, as well as renewable energy systems.

According to a recent EY study, Central Asia now contains 39% of the world’s reserves of manganese ore, 30% of chromium, 20% of lead, 13% of zinc, 9% of titanium, as well as significant reserves of other critical materials. In this regard, the states of the region are already among the world’s 20 largest producers of certain types of critical materials.

In Uzbekistan, the most actively mined minerals are copper, gold, silver and uranium. The country ranks 11th in the world in terms of copper reserves. Considering that only 40% of the republic’s territory has been geologically studied, and the potential is much wider. In 2023, the government of the country announced preparations to launch production and processing at a large lithium mine.

“The problem is that to meet the growing demand for critical minerals, the mining industry will need to do a lot of work to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” says Victor Kovalenko.

Uzbekistan, through the introduction of various incentive measures and mechanisms for the dynamic development of relevant infrastructure, has already begun to develop a strategy for the development of the electric vehicle industry with the involvement of foreign partners, intending to make the production of electric vehicles and charging equipment in the country one of the main goals for the development of its industry.

Against this background, in addition to the construction of additional power plants to meet the growing demand for electricity, the expert called the construction of a plant for the processing or disposal of lithium batteries, a key component of which contains toxic substances, and without proper disposal they can cause considerable damage to the country’s ecology, a good help.

“Recycling of rechargeable batteries is needed not only for environmental reasons, but also for economic reasons: the role of reusing rare materials will grow as they become more expensive in the context of the boom in electric mobility. At the same time, raw material security also plays an important role - it is necessary “at first” to begin to avoid dependence on suppliers of critical minerals that are used in the production of batteries,” concluded Viktor Kovalenko.