CINOVEC, Czech Republic — A surge in global use of lithium, a key component in electric batteries, is leading to the revival of a centuries-long mining tradition in the Czech Republic’s Ore Mountains.

Demand for the light metal, which is already used in smartphone batteries, is expected to triple in the next decade as it is used in far greater quantities in electric cars and electric storage systems.

With major car manufacturers increasingly focused on electric cars, Goldman Sachs calls lithium “the new gasoline.”

Tesla Motors thinks it’s worth betting on. Its CEO, Elon Musk, has plans to build a “gigafactory” to produce lithium-ion batteries somewhere in Europe, on top of the $5 billion plant it’s constructing in Nevada.

The potential of lithium’s boom is already having a knock-on effect for the village of Cinovec, which has a tin and tungsten mining tradition dating back to 1378. Its mines were abandoned in 1991, but recent explorations have found the biggest deposit of lithium in Europe.

Jaromir Stary, head of the Department of Mineral Resources at the Czech Geological Survey, said lithium resources in the Czech Republic could amount to 1.3 million to 1.5 million tons, mostly in the Cinovec area. Only Serbia has a similar deposit in Europe, estimated at 1.1 million tons.

Australia’s European Metals Holdings, or EMH, has had an exclusive license to explore the resources and the right to seek permission to mine since 2014, when it acquired Czech exploration company Geomet, which first confirmed the ore’s presence.

“You can have a splendid idea but you need money to make it reality,” said Otto Janout, one of Geomet’s founders.

EMH Managing Director Keith Coughlan said it was planning to open a mine at Cinovec in the coming years to produce over 22,000 tons of lithium carbonate (about 4,200 tons of lithium) a year. That would place the country among the world’s top five lithium producers.

“I believe it is a danger for Europe to continue to think that it can rely on Asia for its supply chain of battery-related materials and in particular lithium,” Coughlan said.

According to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey, Australia was the leading lithium producer with 15,800 tons in 2016, followed by Chile with 13,200 tons. Argentina is third with 6,200, while China, the biggest consumer, was fourth with 2,200 tons.

Global output was 38,600 tons in 2016, 12 percent more than the previous year, the report said. A Deutsche Bank study in 2016 forecast global battery consumption growing threefold in the next ten years.