Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles – Page 140

The lithium industry needs a $17b injection to meet 2025 demand – here come the deals – by Angela East (Stockhead.com.au – May 15, 2019)

May 16, 2019

https://stockhead.com.au/

Corporate deals in the lithium industry are heating up at a time when there is a predicted multi-billion-dollar cash injection needed to ramp up supply to meet rapidly growing demand.

One expert says at least US$12 billion ($17.3 billion) needs to be invested in new lithium projects by 2025 if the industry is to have any realistic hope of matching supply with demand.

US lithium expert Joe Lowry told delegates at the Latin America Downunder mining conference in Perth that the ‘Big Four’ global lithium producers – SQM, Albemarle, Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium and Tianqi – could not alone meet 2025 lithium demand.

Tesla is turning rivals into roadkill – even in China – by Frik Els (Mining.com – May 15, 2019)

May 16, 2019

http://www.mining.com/

Elon Musk has no shortage of detractors – and judging by the tone struck by some of them, that’s not nearly a strong enough word. Neither does the Tesla CEO have a shortage of short sellers and every so often long sellers get in on the action too. Bears turn bulls with gusto and bulls turn bears with alacrity.

Musk frequently muddies the waters himself, making outlandish – and sometimes ludicrous claims for his current and future vehicles. And the tweets. The tweets. The reckless tweets.

The result is that those those who want to make a sober assessment of the company have few places to go. So how does the rubber really hit the road for Tesla?

The Holy Grail Of Lithium Batteries – by Robert Rapier (Forbes Magazine – May 16, 2019)

May 16, 2019

https://www.forbes.com/

Last year I wrote about A Battery That Could Change The World, which addressed the development of a solid-state lithium battery that won’t catch fire if damaged. More recently, I wrote about a different approach to the problem of fires in lithium-ion batteries, which quickly dissipates the heat released from a fire in a cell before it can spread.

Development of better batteries is critical as more electric vehicles hit the roads, and as electric utilities seek better options for storing power from intermittent renewables. In addition, lithium-ion batteries have become ubiquitous in our lives through any number of consumer electronics.

Three key issues that companies are working to address are safety, energy density, and cost. Safety mainly concerns the possibility that lithium-ion batteries can catch fire if damaged. The two aforementioned stories are mostly focused on that aspect of the problem.

Vale still confident about nickel prices – by Staff (Sudbury Star – May 11, 2019)

May 15, 2019

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

A deadly dam disaster in its home country of Brazil has put Vale SA in the red. On the bright side for Sudbury, however, the company remains cautiously optimistic about the demand and price for nickel.

Bloomberg News reports Vale suffered the first quarterly loss since late 2015 as the company set aside funds to cover damages, legal costs and other obligations related to the dam disaster that left hundreds dead in January.

The agency said he world’s largest iron ore producer set aside US$4.5 billion and posted a loss of $1.64 billion as the company comes under strict government scrutiny that resulted in authorities freezing billions of dollars of its assets to ensure the victims will be compensated and environmental remedies will be implemented.

China surges ahead in lithium production – by Staff (Asia Times – May 15, 2019)

May 15, 2019

https://www.asiatimes.com/

China has reportedly cracked the technical hurdle in mining and extracting lithium from its vast deposits of the soft, silvery-white metal, slashing the unit cost of mining and production to as low as 15,000 yuan (US$2,180) per tonne.

Lithium, the source of power for almost all portable equipment, has thus become significantly cheaper, according to the Beijing-based Economic Daily and other Chinese papers.

The metal that also fuels the world’s drive to green transportation is extracted from brine but experts say separating it from other elements present in the salts is costly.

UPDATE 2-BHP to keep Nickel West, Rio looks to Jadar lithium for battery boom (Reuters Africa – May 14, 2019)

May 14, 2019

https://af.reuters.com/

LONDON, May 14 (Reuters) – Global miner BHP will hold on to the Australian nickel operations it previously put up for sale, while Rio Tinto is working on copper and lithium projects as the mining industry bets on demand for electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

The biggest mining companies say they are well positioned to provide the metals needed for the shift to EV technology, although they acknowledge the political risks and environmental issues in some of the countries where the best supplies are found.

Nickel is in demand to allow cars to travel further on a single charge. Using more nickel also cuts costs by reducing the use of expensive cobalt, a mainstay of current EV batteries.

U.S. faces hurdles in push to build electric vehicle supply chain – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters Canada – May 14, 2019)

May 14, 2019

https://ca.reuters.com/

(Reuters) – The United States faces stiff challenges as it moves to create its own electric vehicle supply chain, industry analysts say, with the extent of the country’s metal reserves largely unknown and only a few facilities to process minerals and produce batteries.

Legislation making its way through the U.S. Congress aims to help offset those gaps, but China remains the global EV sector leader, a dominance seen by some as difficult to supplant. Even some U.S. mines are caught in China’s orbit, with domestic production of so-called rare earth minerals reliant on Chinese processing and now caught up in the U.S.-China trade conflict.

“China has a huge head start,” said Gavin Montgomery, a battery and mining analyst at the Wood Mackenzie consultancy. “They’ve just been at this a lot longer than the rest of the world.”

December fire at Red Lake Mine raises red flags about lithium batteries – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontarion Business – May 13, 2019)

May 13, 2019

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Underground blaze prompts call for new procedures to store, charge batteries for tools

Red flags have been raised about the possibility of lithium ion tool batteries catching fire in industrial settings, such as mines. Newmont Goldcorp’s Red Lake Gold Mines reported that an underground fire took place Dec. 6 when three workers went to get their tools on the 4400 level storage area.

“When the workers arrived, they smelled smoke,” said mine rescuer Loye Halteman at a recent safety conference in Sudbury.

One of the workers was sent back to a refuge station to notify security to “stench the mine,” thus releasing stench gas, a foul-smelling gas used to alert miners of impending danger.

A war is brewing over lithium mining at the edge of Death Valley – by Louis Sahagun (Los Angeles Times – May 7, 2019)

May 8, 2019

https://www.latimes.com/

A small Cessna soared high above the Mojave Desert recently, its engine growling in the choppy morning air. As the aircraft skirted the mountains on the edge of Death Valley National Park, a clutch of passengers and environmentalists peered intently at a broiling salt flat thousands of feet below.

The desolate beauty of the Panamint Valley has long drawn all manner of naturalists, adventurers and social outcasts — including Charles Manson — off-road vehicle riders and top gun fighter pilots who blast overhead in simulated dogfights.

Now this prehistoric lake bed is shaping up to be an unlikely battleground between environmentalists and battery technologists who believe the area might hold the key to a carbon-free future.

[Frontier Lithium] ‘This is a Sudbury story’ – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – May 8, 2019)

May 8, 2019

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

With electrical vehicles poised to explode in coming years, a Sudbury company is hoping to establish what it calls a “battery ecosystem” in Northern Ontario.

“You need to have a lithium mine first, and mines will build chemical plants,” said Bora Ugurgel, manager of investor relations with Frontier Lithium, based in Val Caron.

The junior mining company is developing a lithium mine in northwestern Ontario that hosts the “highest quality deposit in North America,” he said, and expects a processing facility can also take shape in our region.

Chilean Lithium Prices Decline Even as Demand Soars – by Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – May 7, 2019)

May 7, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Lithium export prices from the world’s second-largest producing nation fell in the first quarter, marking the first decline for the mineral that is key to electric vehicle batteries since at least 2014.

Chile exported lithium carbonate at an average price of $12,183 per ton, 0.9 percent down from the same period a year earlier, according to data from Chilean customs compiled by Bloomberg. Prices have soared 167 percent in the past five years.

The South American nation holds the world’s largest lithium reserves, the lightest metal on the periodic table and a key component in the manufacture of rechargeable batteries that power electric cars.

Bill filed to boost U.S. production of electric-car battery minerals – by Keith Laing (The Detroit News – May 5, 2019)

May 6, 2019

https://www.detroitnews.com/

Washington — A group of U.S. senators is introducing legislation to boost domestic production of “critical minerals” that are often imported from China to make electric car batteries.

The legislation, sponsored by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, comes as automakers like Tesla Inc. and Volkswagen AG are making plans to ramp up their electric-car battery production in the United States.

Murkowski said in a statement that it is important for the U.S. not to cede ground to China in the race to power electric cars that several automakers are banking their futures on.

RPT-Wesfarmers’ soft bid for Kidman spotlights lithium’s financing issues – by Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – May 5, 2019)

May 6, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

MELBOURNE, May 3 (Reuters) – Wesfarmers Ltd’s bid for Australia’s Kidman Resources undervalues the lithium miner, analysts said on Friday, reflecting the financing difficulties the sector faces even as electric car makers warn of raw material shortages.

Wesfarmers offered a 47 percent premium for Kidman, which is developing the Mount Holland project in Western Australia through a joint venture with battery chemicals maker Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile S.A. (SQM).

But even that offer, which valued the company at A$776 million ($543 million) or A$1.90 per share, undervalued the company, said analysts at J.P. Morgan and Canaccord Genuity.

Tesla Manager Sees Risk of Battery-Minerals Shortage in Future – by Laura Millan Lombrana and Joe Deaux (Bloomberg News – May 2, 2019)

May 3, 2019

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Booming demand for electric vehicles and insufficient investment in mines could result in a global shortage of minerals needed to manufacture rechargeable batteries in a few years’ time, a Tesla Inc. representative told U.S. officials and mining executives in a meeting in Washington.

Prices for some of the minerals, which include graphite, cobalt, lithium and nickel, could increase as a result of the high demand and the limited supply, Tesla global supply manager of battery metals Sarah Maryssael said in a closed-door presentation Thursday confirmed by the company.

Investment is important to ensure there is sufficient supply for the industry to grow, she said. Funding for projects to mine these minerals in certain countries has been challenging in the past, Maryssael said at the presentation.

Wesfarmers bets on electric cars with $544 million bid for Australian lithium miner Kidman – by Tom Westbrook and Melanie Burton (Reuters U.S. – May 1, 2019)

May 2, 2019

https://www.reuters.com/

SYDNEY/MELBOURNE (Reuters) – Australian retail conglomerate Wesfarmers Ltd offered A$776 million ($544 million) to buy lithium miner Kidman Resources Ltd on Thursday, its second bid in two months to deepen its exposure to high-tech minerals.

The offer, which has the backing of Kidman’s board and major shareholders, was pitched at a 47 percent premium to Kidman’s last closing price and the stock soared to just below the A$1.90 offer price at the start of trade.

For Wesfarmers, which last year sold out of coal mining and in March bid A$1.5 billion for rare-earth producer Lynas Corp Ltd, it is its firmest bet yet on future demand for raw materials behind products from electric cars to wind turbines.