The businessman behind plans to bring the UK's first lithium hydroxide plant to Teesside Freeport says plans continue apace as demand for the chemicals is "off the scale".
Paul Atherley owns 50% of Alkemy Capital Investments plc and is non-executive chairman of the investment vehicle behind Tees Valley Lithium - the company that aims to bring a £216m factory to Teesside Freeport that will produce the vital chemicals used by electric vehicle battery makers.
He says the touted capacity of forthcoming electric vehicle battery gigafactories - including Britishvolt in Northumberland and Envision AESC in South Tyneside - is around 700GW, dwarfing the 75GW of installed electricity capacity currently in the UK. But there are currently no producers of the key component, lithium hydroxide, in Europe.