Common assumptions that state that demand for battery metals will continue to increase for the foreseeable future, as they are essential for high-performance lithium-ion batteries, may be misleading, a new report by CSIRO states.
According to Australia’s national science agency, unsophisticated models based on current supply levels and basic recycling rates are promoting many mischaracterizations of the real opportunities in both metal mining and recycling.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) has added nickel and zinc to its proposed list of 50 ‘critical minerals’ – defined as those essential to economic or national security and with a supply chain vulnerable to disruption – while four others, including potash, have fallen off the draft 2021 list.
The USGS has released its draft revised list of critical minerals and is allowing public comment until December 9. “The USGS’s critical minerals list provides vital information for industry, policymakers, economists and scientists on the most important minerals when it comes to US supply chains, says Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Water and Science Tanya Trujillo.
The electric car revolution will stall in the West if supplies of crucial battery elements like lithium fail to keep up with the forecast huge increase in demand.
This will drive battery prices higher, decimate profit margins, and the coveted $100 per kWh battery, which would have signaled the arrival of affordable green vehicles, will remain on the launch pad.
BHP is looking at investing in additional early-stage development projects as the company aims to grow its copper and nickel portfolio.
BHP chief executive officer Mike Henry spoke at the company’s annual general meeting on Thursday, suggesting the success of its current copper and nickel projects should inspire more developments to follow.
Can Ontario become a one-stop shop in electric vehicle manufacture unlike any other market in all of North America? Premier Doug Ford thinks so. And in the abstract, he makes a good case. In the specific, there are major hurdles to be overcome.
Consider, first, the long-troubled Ring of Fire, the much touted and frequently stymied reserve of mineral riches in the James Bay Lowlands. The Ford government’s economic outlook of a week ago promised that the Ring of Fire, with its reserves of nickel, cobalt, manganese and more, will play a key role in the future of clean manufacturing in Ontario.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
First Cobalt unveils ambitious expansion plans to create battery metals industrial park in northeastern Ontario
For Trent Mell, it makes little sense to mine the metals needed to power the coming electrical vehicle (EV) revolution here, ship it overseas to Asia refiners to make into battery-grade material, and then send it back to North America to use in car production.
If the president-CEO of First Cobalt has his way, the Temiskaming district will be this continent’s centre of production to deliver many of those key ingredients, shorten the logistics journey, and help create a secure home-grown supply chain for EV makers for the first time ever.
Saskatchewan’s energy minister celebrated the first targeted lithium well drilled in Saskatchewan at a Tuesday event where she said the element is “having a moment” that can help the province diversify its mineral sector.
“I just held a jar of the first lithium carbonate produced here in the province of Saskatchewan out of 400-million-year-old lithium brine water,” Energy and Resources Minister Bronwyn Eyre told media gathered at a Prairie Lithium facility in Emerald Park, just east of Regina.
https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/
Refinery developer wants to supply battery-grade metals for North American car market
The Toronto company behind the refurbishment of a mothballed Temiskaming hydrometallurgical refinery said it’s going all in on creating a “battery park” to feed refined cobalt and nickel to the electric vehicle market.
First Cobalt announced it’s making a name change and other strategic moves toward providing North American automakers with a domestic source of raw material with a proposed industrial park outside the town of Cobalt in northeastern Ontario.
The hype and mythologizing over electric vehicles (EVs) afflicts policy-making and leads to costly subsidies that produce little environmental benefits, according to Danish climate expert Bjorn Lomborg.
“In Norway, there are more EVs per person than anywhere in the world and studies show that people have two cars — a (subsidized) EV car to go `virtue signalling’ and the real car for use for real stuff,” said Lomborg, president of the Copenhagen Consensus think tank and a visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, in an interview with the Financial Post.
https://ipolitics.ca/
Mark Travers is executive vice-president of Vale Base Metals. Pierre Gratton is president and CEO of the Mining Association of Canada.
While the federal election is behind us, the global race to develop an integrated electric-vehicle supply chain is gathering momentum. Canada has a generational opportunity to leverage the country’s collective fight against the pandemic to build a strong, vibrant, and green economic recovery.
But we won’t get there without agility, hard work, partnership — and a sense of urgency. Issues that animated the recent federal election demand a comprehensive and pragmatic policy agenda, be they climate change or reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
Julian Kettle is Senior Vice President, Vice Chair Metals and Mining at Wood Mackenzie.
To the uninitiated, rugby is a technical and complicated game. As young schoolboys it was all a wee bit confusing and we invariably ended up on the wrong side of the score line. However, we had a wonderful Welsh coach called Billy, who, when the chips were down, would always roll out his go-to phrase: “back to basics!”
These wise words seem quite pertinent right now. With COP26 underway, the world awaits tangible evidence that the huge expense and carbon footprint of the conference will be worthwhile. With that in mind, delegates do need to go back to basics in terms of what must be achieved: clear commitments that will put us on the pathway to net zero.
Quebec has “a lot to offer” electric car companies when it comes to establishing a supply chain for battery cells, including sourcing key raw mineral components to cheap power, the province’s economy minister said.
“Quebec has a lot to offer for the supply chain for [electric vehicles]. We’ll start with the minerals – we have lithium, nickel, graphite,” Quebec’s Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon said in an interview Tuesday.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/
Company confirms it’s in talks with suppliers to electric vehicle market in effort to ‘grow our exposure’
Vale is aggressively promoting the low-carbon footprint of its mining and processing operations in Newfoundland and Labrador, with hopes of positioning its eastern Canadian operations as a preferred supplier to the burgeoning battery electric vehicle market.
The company is touting a third-party assessment of its N.L. operations that revealed nickel rounds produced in the province go to market at a substantially lower environmental cost than the industry standard.
TOKYO — Chinese companies have splurged over $1 billion on rights over three lithium mines in Argentina in as many weeks as a race to secure supplies of the “white gold” critical to most production of electric car batteries revs up.
Argentina, which has lagged Chile and Australia in lithium output, has been reforming laws, reducing taxes and improving infrastructure with an eye toward boosting export revenues.
(Bloomberg) — Sherritt International Corp.’s new boss sees the electric-vehicle revolution stretching all the way to Cuba, with the Canadian miner planning to boost output of battery-grade nickel and cobalt.
In its first major move under Chief Executive Officer Leon Binedell, the Toronto-based company wants to increase production at its Moa joint venture in Cuba by 15% to 20% from the 34,876 metric tons produced last year.
