To stop being dependent on foreign powers to supply minerals is the aim of European countries, especially in the context of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the political tension it has caused on the continent. But a new discovery could offer a solution for Europe.

Phosphates, vanadium and titanium are some of the minerals found in a giant rock in an area of ​​Norway, in sufficient quantities to meet world demand for 50 years.. Some of the artifacts that can be created from these minerals include batteries for electric cars, solar panels, chips, fertilizers, and specialty ships.

This is reported by a news portal of the European Union. there are a total of 70,000 million tons of phosphates in this rock. This was confirmed by the mining company Norway Mining, which emphasized with the discovery Norway will become the country with the largest phosphate reserves, above Morocco and China.

“If you find something of that size in Europe right now, which is bigger than any other resource we know of, that’s significant,” said Michael Wurmser, founder of Norway Mining, the company behind the discovery.

China, Vietnam and Kazakhstan are major distributors of this mineral. But the political and territorial conflict in Eastern Europe causes restrictions on the export of these materials.

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These countries, including the United States, “may try to protect their domestic supplies by limiting exports, as they did in 2008 with China’s export tariffs,” according to an article in the scientific journal Nature. Therefore, future supply disruptions are likely to be geopolitical and economic in nature long before global reserves are depleted.

However, there is a limitation in the extraction of minerals from the rock found in Norway: the process is polluting. Wurmser even pointed out that these materials were produced in the Netherlands years ago, but they stopped because of the pollution generated.

On this occasion, the founder of Norway Mining explained that Norway will be able to meet stricter environmental standards when excavating and refining those minerals than current Asian competitorsthrough the application of carbon capture and storage technology.

According to Wurmser, the Norwegian government has given the project “great support” and announced in December that all critical resource projects in Norway would be fast-tracked.