The Nova Scotia government’s growing support for lithium exploration has boosted mining investigation this year, but the pursuit of this critical mineral for the clean energy transition faces a struggling market, lengthy approval processes and calls for lithium-ion battery recycling.
Currently, Nova Scotia has eight lithium exploration projects underway, which are part of the province’s strategy for increasing economic and energy security.
Along with developing critical minerals for domestic use, Nova Scotia is seeking export markets “as more companies look for reliable supplies in stable regulatory environments,” a representative of the Department of Natural Resources writes in an email.
Because of its essential role for energy grid storage and electric vehicles, lithium could see global demand skyrocket 1,500% from 2022 under a net-zero 2050 scenario and has strong potential for extraction in Nova Scotia’s southwest and east, according to a 2023 strategy document released by the department.
Natural Resources Canada estimates that battery applications such as EVs and grid storage account for 87% of global lithium demand. According to the Mining Association of Nova Scotia (MANS), lithium mining is important not just for EV batteries and energy storage but also wind turbines and solar panels, and promises more jobs and government revenues to offset health and education costs.
The International Energy Agency projects that the world will need six times more lithium by 2040 than it produced in 2024. That would mean more than 750 kilatonnes. China, Australia and Chile mine about three-quarters globally, with China refining nearly two-thirds.
Nova Scotia has long wanted to join the international market for lithium. Pegmatite, a primary geological source of lithium, was discovered at Yarmouth County’s Brazil Lake in 1960, along with lithium ore spodumene and other critical minerals such as tantalum and rubidium. For decades, Champlain Mineral Ventures Ltd., a private drilling and prospecting company based in Bridgetown, N.S., has explored the site.
John Wightman, a Champlain Mineral Ventures engineer leading the Brazil Lake Lithium Project, selected Australia’s Lithium Springs Limited to drill the site. With $8 million already spent and only a fraction of drilling done, a long road lies ahead to get a mine running, but with the eventual promise of supplying lithium to markets around the world.
Lithium-bearing spodumene concentrate extracted from the Brazil Lake mine would be shipped abroad, to supply lithium carbonate and lithium hydroxide, and used by companies such as South Korea’s LG Electronics to produce batteries, Wightman says.
But to first open a lithium mine, “it takes about two-and-a-half years to get the permitting done, and then a year to two years to build out the facilities at the mine to process the ore,” Wightman says. “We’d be very optimistic to say that we could be in operation by 2030, but if the market turns around sufficiently over the next 12 months, we might be close to that.”
Despite the need for lithium to help slash global emissions over the next 25 years, this critical mineral has struggled on the market. In 2023, the price plummeted 32% due to oversupply and weak sales and hasn’t significantly recovered since, though Wightman estimated in September that lithium had rebounded 10 to 15% off August lows.
Minerals are a finite resource, and we should reduce, reuse and recycle them as much as possible.
– Sean Kirby, executive director, Mining Association of Nova Scotia
Wightman anticipates lithium’s value doubling over the next year, bringing more mineral deposits and companies back into the game. Business consulting firm Grand View Research further projects that the global lithium market will see a compound annual growth rate of 18% between 2025 and 2030, reaching US$74.8 billion.
This year saw a “major turnaround” for lithium prospects in Nova Scotia, Wightman says, thanks largely to Premier Tim Houston’s outspoken support for the sector, including at an international mining conference in Toronto in March. Houston has helped put Nova Scotia on the map for the lithium market, Wightman says, and has made it easier for companies to obtain granting approvals from the province.
Still, Champlain Mineral Ventures must raise $25 million more to “move the project to the next level,” which includes conducting mining feasibility studies, analyzing mineral content and cutting into the lithium bed using diamond. He says the Brazil Lake mine, if approved, would create 100 to 200 local jobs.
Mining’s environmental footprint
Many lithium deposits in Nova Scotia lie on farmland, including around Annapolis Royal, and “raise a bit of a red flag,” says Abbygail Lefebvre, energy coordinator for the Ecology Action Centre (EAC). Following a drought spell, record temperatures and strict water limits in the province this summer, “it’s just scary to think that now you’re going to start mining, which does require a lot of water,” she adds.
If mining moves forward at Brazil Lake and other sites, Lefebvre would want to see strict water use and discharge limits, prevention of watershed contamination, land and biodiversity protections, and climate accountability plans.
But the industry is confident that bringing lithium mining to Nova Scotia would be both environmentally and ethically sound. Wightman explains that the pegmatites of lithium “are completely environmentally benign, so there’s no chance of acid rock drainage or other threats to the environment from this type of mining.”
Mining domestically also ensures an ethical supply, MANS executive director Sean Kirby says in an email statement to Corporate Knights. “If we do not extract minerals in places like Canada, more mining will be done in countries that do not share our values, or take proper care of the environment and worker safety,” Kirby says, criticizing Chinese export markets for poor environmental and safety records. “Blocking a mining project in Canada does nothing to protect the environment – it just offshores impacts to a jurisdiction where they will likely be worse.”
But while “modern mining takes excellent care of the environment,” Kirby adds, the industry must keep doing all it can to slash emissions and consumption of energy and water. “All mining operations, for any mineral, need to meet the highest environmental standards.”
Potential for circular economy
As the industry pushes ahead, Lefebvre sees big potential for Nova Scotia to establish battery recycling infrastructure in conjunction with its lithium mining ambitions. “I would hope, too, that even if they decided to break ground, that they would still look into the economic investment and opportunity of getting into the recycling industry,” she says. “This is a circular-economy integration that we could start in the coming years – as soon as you put a facility on the ground, create a bunch of green jobs.”
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Natural Resources Canada deems lithium “infinitely recyclable,” and Kirby echoes the importance of battery recycling, which recovers up to 95% of material, including lithium, cobalt and nickel. “Minerals are a finite resource, and we should reduce, reuse and recycle them as much as possible,” he says. “Lithium batteries are just one example of where society needs to further improve recycling efforts.”
Cirba Solutions, which operates across the United States and in Trail, B.C., reports recycling 36 million pounds of lithium-ion batteries over three decades. In Quebec, Lithion Technologies says it’s slashed average greenhouse gases from battery recycling operations by 75%, using wet shredding technology to salvage 98% of minerals.
In a March 2025 report, EAC said it hopes Nova Scotia’s government will pivot toward battery recycling as the critical-mineral industry grows.
Lefebvre emphasizes that without such facilities anywhere in Atlantic Canada, Nova Scotia is well positioned to establish itself as a hub for the battery recycling industry and potentially even manufacture new batteries in province, rather than focus on exploiting raw lithium.
Evert Lindquist reports from Revelstoke, B.C. He has reported in Uganda on nature-based solutions and written for Canada’s National Observer, Climate Stories Atlantic, The Energy Mix and The Narwhal.
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