A massive underground deposit of high-grade phosphate rock recently discovered in Norway is big enough to satisfy world demand for fertilisers, solar panels and electric car batteries over the next 100 years, according to the company exploiting the resource.
And the amount thats actually there might be 3x as much as they evaluated.
It is currently impossible to drill at depths of 4,500 meters so the geologists working on the project evaluated only a third of the volume, down to 1,500 meters from the surface.
Phosphate probably isn't going to be used in batteries for long. Probably better than using an ICE car still and other emerging battery tech will soon replace it. BYD has started shipping sodium-ion batteries, for example. They've decided range is already sufficient I guess and price is a more important factor for consumers. That they are also more environmentally friendly is also great and hopefully part of their decision. There's plenty of other battery technology on the near horizon that doesn't use phosphate though.
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