General Discussion, page-632

Source: Sydney Morning Herald 21/10/22

2.34pm
PM announces $50 million critical minerals fund

By Nigel Gladstone

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says the government will spend $50 million over four years developing critical minerals to boost renewable energy opportunities. Next week’s budget will include $50.5 million over four years to create a “critical minerals research and development hub” that combines “expertise from agencies to work with industry to address challenges and support research”, as well as grants for projects, Albanese, speaking at Curtin University in WA, said.Prime minister Anthony Albanese in Perth on October 21, 2022.

“We have some of the world’s best reserves are critical minerals and it will set a new vision for the sector and complement other initiatives including the national battery strategy and the electric vehicle strategy which we are rolling out,” he said.“One of the lessons of the pandemic is that we need to be more self-reliant, we need to be more resilient, we cannot sit back at the end of global supply chains, we need to make more things here.“Not export minerals and import them back at much higher values.

”The international energy agency projects that demand for critical minerals including lithium and other rare earth minerals used in electric vehicles, and battery storage could grow by at least 30 times to the year 2040, the PM said.“The development of a battery industry here in Australia could contribute $7.4 billion annually, each and every year to our economy and be supporting over 34,000 jobs by the end of this decade,” he said.The new funding adds to the $50 million recently committed to six projects around Australia.