Thank you, Madam Chair.
My thanks to all committee members for inviting me to appear.
I'm going to take a very practical approach to the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. We've seen what Mr. Biden has proposed and we're seeing what Europe is proposing. Never in our history have we seen so many billions of dollars being spent on green economic recovery, and it all depends on critical minerals. We see what the Americans and the Chinese are doing. I feel that, in Canada, we don't fully understand the situation.
I've been a mining operator and mine owner around the world for 25 years. I am in the process of trying to buy a lithium mine in Quebec. People don't realize today that the green economic recovery depends on critical minerals. We hear a lot of talk about Lion Electric, which is going to open a bus factory in Quebec. That's very exciting. Tesla is also opening factories in the automotive sector around the world.
However, did you know that today in the mining sector, 0% of graphite is made in Europe or the United States and 56% of graphite is made in China?
Every battery has two components, the anode and the cathode. Anodes are 100% produced in China right now, and 82% of cathode production takes place in China. If the Chinese stopped exporting anodes today, Tesla would close its factories around the world. The anode is graphite. So we need to have control over our natural resources.
I own nickel, copper, cobalt and graphite mines, and I am trying to buy a lithium mine. Do you know who our customers are? They are all Chinese. Now China has made it clear that they don't want to export raw materials anymore, not even anodes and cathodes, and they want to sell us cars or batteries instead.
The green industrial revolution hinges on the battery in the solar energy sector. When you have good sunlight, solar panels and solar power plants are cheaper than hydroelectricity and all the other energy sources. That is all about batteries. So everything related to batteries is very important. I'll take this opportunity to tell you that intellectual property and critical minerals need to be managed very tightly and not openly.
Next week, a huge lithium deal is going to be announced. Who is the buyer? It's a Chinese company. In Quebec, there have been two transactions in the last few years: the one involving Nemaska Lithium, in the lithium industry, and the one involving Nouveau Monde Graphite, in the graphite industry. Who are the owners? Europeans.
It's like vaccines: when we really need them, you're going to see that we won't have them anymore. That's what is going to happen. Two hundred and forty battery plants are being built in the world right now. Canada has none. That's incredible. In 10 years, 70% of the battery plants will be in China, 12% will be in Europe, 8% will be in the U.S. and elsewhere in the world, and we will have nothing.
We can't let our critical minerals go. In fact, the Government of Canada has put together a very good document on the subject. It says clearly that ownership of critical minerals is very important, because otherwise we are going to be in a situation of total dependence, much like we would have been with oil. Our situation today is actually similar to the one in 1908 or 1910, when oil was becoming the primary resource in the world. Energy storage is the new oil. Everyone says so, including the Goldman Sachs Group. We need to manage this. It's very important.
We have very few mines. A mine like the one I'm trying to buy in Quebec is going to produce 25,000 tons of lithium a year. A single battery plant needs 25,000 tons of lithium, 19,000 tons of nickel, 33,000 tons of graphite and 6,000 tons of cobalt, and 240 plants are being built around the world.
So as you can see, it's inconceivable that we would let our natural resources go, if we want to avoid being 100% dependent on other countries for our “oil 2.0”, or energy storage. The Government of Canada must act quickly on this, because we have let some projects go in Quebec and, in my opinion, that's unacceptable.
Thank you for your attention.