The demand for Green Energy Metals (GEMs) as processed fine chemicals and high purity metals and alloys, ready for use in both consumer and military goods, already exceeds their supply.
A good example of this is Tesla’s decision to put back its pickup truck introduction, originally scheduled for Fall 2021, until sometime in 2022 due to a “shortage” of the correct type of battery cells.
This is explained as a shortage of processing capacity, but, in fact, is obscuring an even more important shortfall, that of the supply of mineral raw materials, such as those of lithium, cobalt, and the rare earths – the heavy rare earths.
One primary reason that the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 was its central planning of industrial output with no other goal than increasing supply with the assumption that the demand was infinite.
This was not socialism, fascism, or capitalism. It was stupidity in the form of the intellectual commandments of a self-appointed elite class of bureaucrats who knew what was good for the “masses.”
For the rest of this column: https://investorintel.com/market-analysis/market-analysis-intel/for-lithium-party-like-its-1790/