EIA report on Vaasa anode material plant has been submitted

Epsilon Advanced Materials Oy and Finnish Battery Chemicals Oy, a project company owned by the Finnish Minerals Group, have submitted an EIA report on the anode material plant to the Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment for South Ostrobothnia (ELY Centre), which is the coordinating authority for the project. The anode material plant is planned to be established in the GigaVaasa industrial area located in Vaasa.

The EIA report examines the environmental impacts of production at the anode material plant and the feasibility of the project from an environmental standpoint. The EIA report includes information about the project and the implementation of the environmental impact assessment procedure; a description of the current state of the environment and the environmental impacts of the project, their mitigation and monitoring; and a comparison of the implementation alternatives.

The main environmental impacts of the plant’s operations would be noise, dust and other air emissions, traffic impacts, climate impacts from energy consumption and waste and by-product management. The criteria used to assess significance include the magnitude of the predicted impact and the sensitivity of the receiving environment.

The EIA report examines two implementation alternatives

The following options are described in the EIA report:

• Option VE0: The project is not implemented.
• Option VE1a: To implement an anode material plant with a production capacity of 10,000 tons
• Option VE1b: To implement an anode material plant with a production capacity of 50,000 tons

An annual capacity of 10,000 tons corresponds to approximately 10 GWh of battery production, and would meet the annual needs of about 200,000 full electric vehicles. An annual capacity of 50,000 tons corresponds to approximately 50 GWh of battery production, and would meet the annual needs of about one million electric vehicles.

In addition to the anode material, the by-products of the production process would include pitch oil and fine particles of natural graphite and coke.

The technical description of the project was updated after the EIA programme phase. A few changes have been made to the processes on the basis of the additional information provided by the assessment.

Processing to continue during the second half of the year

The coordinating authority will collect written opinions on the EIA report and request any necessary statements. After all parties have been heard, the authority will issue an informed ruling on the report to Epsilon Advanced Materials and Finnish Battery Chemicals.

The coordinating authority has published the EIA report at www.ymparisto.fi.

Public event to be held in August

A briefing and discussion event concerning the EIA report will be held in Vaasa on August 27th 2024 at 6-8 pm in conference room Prima on the first floor of Futura I (address: Yrittäjänkatu 17, 65380 Vaasa). The event can also be attended online.

It will include presentations of both the project and EIA report. The general public will have the chance to share their views on the environmental impact assessment work, obtain more information, and discuss the project with representatives from Epsilon Advanced Materials and Finnish Battery Chemicals, the coordinating authority and the experts who prepared the EIA report.

Further information:

Timo Strengell, SVP, Finnish Minerals Group
firstname.lastname(at)mineralsgroup.fi, +358 40 738 4860

Sini Eskonniemi, VP, Innovation and Technology Development
firstname.lastname(at)mineralsgroup.fi, +358 40 753 5509

EIA procedure to start on anode material plant for Vaasa, Finland (5 April 2023)
Finnish Minerals Group and Epsilon Advanced Materials sign a MoU on anode materials project (28 October 2022)
 

Key terms:

Anode – the negative electrode in lithium-ion batteries, paired with cathode materials in a lithium-ion cell. The charging speed and the number of charge cycles of a battery is largely determined by the anode material.

The mission of Finnish Minerals Group is to responsibly maximise the value of Finnish minerals. We manage the State’s mining industry holdings and strive to develop the Finnish value chain of lithium-ion batteries. Through our work, we contribute to Europe moving towards electric transport and a more sustainable future. www.mineralsgroup.fi