Lithium, Brexit and Global Britain

Autor(en)

Gavin Bridge, Erika Faigen

Abstrakt

As demand for electrical energy storage scales, production networks for lithium-ion battery manufacturing are
being re-worked organisationally and geographically. The UK - like the US and EU - is seeking to onshore lithiumion
battery production and build a national battery supply chain. Governmental, industrial and research actors
are engaged in securing battery mineral materials and developing battery manufacturing capacity, in the context
of the country’s exit from the EU and a perceived ‘global battery race’ in which geopolitical goals shape links
with new and old partners. We identify the primary global networks of lithium mining and refining, battery
chemical production, technology development and finance in which the UK’s battery manufacturing capacity are
increasingly embedded. We foreground the role of the UK state, and how it has sought to assemble discrete
capacities in automobile manufacturing, battery R&D, materials chemistry, minerals exploration, mining and
green finance into a national battery sector. We mobilise a Global Production Network (GPN) perspective to
highlight the cross-border geographical and organisational structures through which onshoring is taking place.
We extend GPN research on the role of the state by showing how the UK’s growing lithium networks intersect
with a plural and differentiated state accumulation project of green industrial transformation. We outline the
selective nature of this state accumulation project, highlight instances of coupling creation as the state seeks to
strategically couple regional assets with firms in GPNs, and point to a convergence of industrial and innovation
policy characteristic of the entrepreneurial state.

Organisation(en)

Institut für Geographie und Regionalforschung

Externe Organisation(en)

Durham University

Journal

The Extractive Industries and Society

Band

16

ISSN

2214-790X

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2023.101328

Publikationsdatum

12-2023

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

507026 Wirtschaftsgeographie

Schlagwörter

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Geography, Planning and Development, Economic Geology, Development, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

Sustainable Development Goals

SDG 7 – Bezahlbare und saubere Energie

Link zum Portal

https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/de/publications/6c2de28d-17bf-46ab-ac8f-7543696f9363