Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles – Page 156

BATTERY MATERIALS CONF: Nickel intermediates can fill class one supply gap – Vale – by Charlotte Radford (Metal Bulletin.com – April 26, 2018)

April 26, 2018

https://www.metalbulletin.com/

Nickel intermediates could provide the most cost-effective means of bringing on-stream additional class one nickel units to serve the growing battery market, according to Frank Nikolic, head of base metals intelligence at Vale.

Nickel demand from the battery sector could increase to 1.8 million tonnes by 2030 from 700,000 tonnes by 2025, according to Vale’s upside forecast. Its more conservative forecast suggests demand of 350,000 tonnes in 2025 and of 1 million tonnes by 2030.

“Can the nickel market respond to such massive demand drivers? Look at intermediates – it’s something that is going to serve the market,” Nikolic said at Metal Bulletin’s inaugural Battery Materials conference in Shanghai last week.

Charging ahead: The move to battery-powered underground mining fleets is gathering speed – by Peter Braul (CIM Magazine – April 23, 2018)

April 26, 2018

http://magazine.cim.org/en/

It is also opening up miners to a new realm of possibility.

Battery electric vehicles (BEVs), once considered fringe, have rapidly come onto the radar of every OEM in the underground mining industry. Almost all of them are working on new battery-driven models or ways to convert existing products to electrical power. That shift might seem a little outsized, given the number of mines that have actually deployed battery electric technology to full effect.

But Goldcorp’s vice-president of corporate affairs and energy, John Mullally, predicts that the rate of adoption of BEVs will accelerate rapidly over the next five years and expects many underground mines built in Canada will choose battery-powered vehicles over a diesel fleet, and even underground mines already in operation will consider a shift to an all-electric underground fleet.

“By moving away from diesel and by achieving other reductions associated with the use of clean technologies, Goldcorp can avoid more than 7,000 tons of CO2 and eliminate three million litres of diesel fuel, one million litres of propane and 33,000 megawatt hours of electricity every year,” said Mullally, who also stressed the positive impact on air quality and noise level that has already been noted by the development miners at the company’s all-electric Borden mine near Chapleau, Ontario.

Daimler joins China’s Responsible Cobalt Initiative – by Yilei Sun (Reuters U.S. – April 25, 2018)

April 25, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – German carmaker Daimler has joined the Responsible Cobalt Initiative, a program established under a Chinese industry body to tackle risks in the cobalt supply chain arising from artisanal mining.

Cobalt consumers are under pressure to ensure the material they use is not tainted by child labor in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the source of about 60 percent of the world’s cobalt.

Amnesty International says about a fifth of the country’s cobalt production is mined by hand by informal miners including children, often in dangerous conditions. Daimler, owner of the Mercedes Brand, joined the RCI at the start of April, RCI Chairman Sun Lihui told Reuters.

Raw material suppliers join Finland battery factory project – by Mariaan Webb (MiningWeekly.com – April 25, 2018)

April 25, 2018

http://www.miningweekly.com/

JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Five companies that can supply essential raw materials for an emerging battery industry in Finland have joined a cooperation network that aims to obtain international investment in the battery cluster.

The cooperation network includes the cities of Vaasa and Kokkola, Freeport Cobalt, the world’s largest cobalt refinery and producer of battery chemicals, Norilsk Nickel, the producer of nickel metals and nickel chemicals in Harjavalta, Terrafame Group, the parent company of Terrafame producing nickel, zinc, cobalt and copper in Sotkamo, Keliber, which is preparing to start lithium production in Kaustinen and Kokkola, as well as Beowulf Mining, the owner of a graphite deposit in Heinävesi.

Kokkola Industrial Park, in Kokkola, is home to Freeport Cobalt’s cobalt refinery and Keliber’s lithium refining chemical plant will also be located there.

Scarcely ahead: tech titans and the resource race (part 1) – by Jessica Clarence (The Strategist – April 20, 2018)

April 20, 2018

https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/

In 1980 US President Jimmy Carter established the Carter Doctrine, asserting the right of the United States to protect strategic interests in the Middle East. The doctrine reflected the reality that oil sustained the US (and world) economy, and without it economies would collapse. ‘Energy geopolitics’—competition between states for energy security—reflected this worldwide resource race; a race as relevant today as it was in the 20th century.

Today we’re approaching an era where clean energy technology outstrips fossil fuels. This means that there will again be an energy race—but the essential component will be the humble battery. Western tech companies and their Chinese counterparts are competing, and right now Western tech companies are on their own, while Chinese companies have the full backing of their government.

Batteries are essential to all wireless electronic equipment. There are many battery technologies, but lithium-ion batteries are the most widely used in portable electronics. Raw materials account for up to 39% of a lithium battery’s cost. The hardest to obtain is cobalt, one of 27 ‘critical’ minerals.

Electric vehicles not denting oil demand (IT-Online – April 20, 2018)

April 20, 2018

IT-Online

Short-term oil demand is still growing strong and will continue to do so through the end of 2020; a trend taking place despite the market’s increasing focus on electric vehicles and the forecasted future plateau in oil demand, according to new analysis from IHS Markit.

Refined product demand growth has averaged 1,2-million barrels per day over the last five years, IHS Markit says in the new report from its oil markets and research team.

Current global total liquids oil demand growth is at similar levels to what was recorded during the 2003 to 2007 commodity super-cycle, referred to as the ‘golden age’ of refining. At present, current global total liquids oil demand is approximately 100-million barrels per day, the report says.

An ugly truth behind ‘ethical consumerism’ – by Laura Kasinof (Washington Post – April 19, 2018)

April 20, 2018

https://www.washingtonpost.com/

Laura Kasinof is a freelance journalist based in Tbilisi, Georgia. Reporting for this story was supported by the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

KACHUBA, Congo — The way to the mine wound upward past fields of cassava and sweet potato, a patchwork quilt of small farms set among villages of round, thatched-roof homes. An hour’s climb up, the Kachuba tin mine community is a collection of shacks that serves as a home-away-from-home for the hundred or so men who come here hoping to make a living wage out of what the mountain provides.

Men toted 110-pound bags of cassiterite — the most common tin-producing ore — down the footpath to a station below, where it would be prepared for export. For each bag a porter carries, he earns around $4. If the mine is producing well, a porter might make the roundtrip a handful of times a day.

On the other side of the makeshift village, down a sharp hill, the serenity of Kachuba’s natural beauty suddenly gave way to the grit of hard manual labor. Here there was a nearly 500-foot-deep pit, at the end of which men spend their days picking at the earth with rudimentary tools. The miners said, on a good day, they can make almost $30 in the pit, working from morning until dark.

UPDATE 1-Chile’s SQM says lithium industry needs at least $10 bln investment over 10 yrs – by Ton Daly (Reuters U.S. – April 18, 2018)

April 18, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

SHANGHAI, April 18 (Reuters) – The global lithium industry will need $10 billion-$12 billion of investment over the next decade to meet surging demand amid the electric vehicle boom, an executive of Chilean miner SQM said on Wednesday.

Demand for the metal is set to grow by 600,000-800,000 tonnes of lithium carbonate equivalent over the next 10 years, Daniel Jimenez, senior commercial vice president at SQM, said. Lithium carbonate is a chemical used to make batteries for electric vehicles.

“So a lot of capital needs to be put on the table for this to materialise, which is a challenge,” Jimenez told the Metal Bulletin Battery Materials Conference in Shanghai.

BHP Billiton to produce nickel sulphate next year, eyeing cobalt on battery boom – by Tom Daly (Reuters U.S. – April 18, 2018)

April 18, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – BHP Billiton is expanding its business as a supplier of battery minerals at its nickel refinery in Western Australia, planning to start producing nickel sulphate next year and looking at cobalt output as well, a company executive said.

Cobalt and nickel are both critical ingredients for lithium ion batteries, and are expected to see a boom in demand as global automakers transition into producing electric vehicles.

Most of the world’s cobalt supply comes from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has been beset by governance and human rights concerns. After the DRC, Australia has the world’s second-largest mineral reserves.

UPDATE 1-Nornickel exec says in talks with battery makers on investments, cooperation – by Tom Daly (Reuters U.S. – April 18, 2018)

April 18, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

SHANGHAI, April 18 (Reuters) – Russia’s Norilsk Nickel , or Nornickel, is in talks with battery makers over possible investment in its mining assets, but is also interested in downstream joint ventures in return, a company executive said on Wednesday.

“We might be interested in having some deeper cooperation, say on the battery side, and building a more complete value chain,” Anton Berlin told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a battery materials conference in Shanghai.

Nornickel is looking for “more than just an offtake (sales) agreement,” he said, adding that a downstream joint venture in China would be a possibility. Discussions are at an early stage however, and the company is “not in any rush,” he said.

Cobalt Firm Says Chinese Car Companies Keen to Secure Supplies (Bloomberg News – April 16, 2018)

April 16, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Cobalt 27 Capital Corp., owner of the world’s largest private stockpile of cobalt, said it is in talks for potential tie-ups with major Chinese companies seeking to secure supplies of the key metal in batteries powering electric vehicles.

Car and battery makers from China have approached Cobalt 27 to discuss long-term partnerships and supply contracts, Anthony Milewski, chief executive officer of the Canadian firm, said in an interview in Beijing on Monday. Milewski said he has at least 17 such meetings lined up in major Chinese cities over the next three days.

“There’s a lot of interest and it is natural because it is where all this will happen,” Milewski said, declining to identify the companies. “China is going to be the world leader of electric vehicles.”

‘Urban mining’ in South Korea pulls rare battery materials from recycled tech – by Jane Chung and Ju-min Park (Reuters U.S. – April 12, 2018)

April 12, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

GUNSAN, South Korea (Reuters) – Workers at a rural South Korean factory are busy extracting some of the world’s most coveted metals, used in the batteries that power electric cars.

But they’re not digging in the ground or refining ore. Instead, they are sorting through a pile of lithium-ion batteries from old mobile phones and laptops.

As China’s aggressive hunt for overseas cobalt and lithium for electric vehicles pushes up prices and causes a global shortage of the key metals, South Korea is increasingly turning to such “urban mining” to recover cobalt, lithium and other scarce metals from electronic waste.

Vanadium Batteries Need Elon Musk Moment to Kick-Start Market – by Ranjeetha Pakiam (Bloomberg News – April 9, 2018)

April 10, 2018

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Vanadium needs Elon Musk or another big player in the global battery market to get behind the metal in order to share center stage with other energy-storage components such as lithium and cobalt.

“When we get that moment, we’re off to the races,” Vincent Algar, managing director of Australian Vanadium Ltd., said in an interview at a mining conference in Hong Kong. The industry needs a Tesla Inc. or Panasonic Corp. to say “we like vanadium-flow batteries and we want to make them in addition to lithium-ion batteries,” he said.

The world’s biggest lithium-ion battery was installed in record time in Australia last year after billionaire Musk successfully bet he could help solve an energy crisis in the Pacific nation by deploying his Tesla technology to plug a supply gap.

CRU/CESCO-Electric cars no game changer for copper demand in short term – by Peter Hobson (Reuters U.S. – April 9, 2018)

April 10, 2018

https://www.reuters.com/

SANTIAGO, April 9 (Reuters) – Copper bulls predicting a rapidly changing demand landscape due to the electric vehicle (EV) revolution and supply shortages are likely to be disappointed, as the amount of extra metal needed is expected to be small, at least over the next few years.

For some years now, copper producers have pushed the idea of surging copper demand as EV sales gain momentum due to governments and consumers around the world looking to cut carbon emissions from fossil-fuel cars.

The theme is likely to be a focus again at CESCO, consultancy CRU’s annual copper conference in Santiago this week, a gathering of senior executives from producing and consuming industries.

The ongoing electric vehicle war – by Yoichi Funabashi (Japan Times – March 9, 2018)

April 10, 2018

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/

Yoichi Funabashi is chairman of the Asia Pacific Initiative and a former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun.

Postwar Japan’s economic development would have been impossible without the growth of its automobile industry. American journalist David Halberstam vividly described the post-World War II “economic reversal” that occurred when Japan overtook the American motor vehicle manufacturing empire in his 1986 book, “The Reckoning.”

Thirty years on, a new battle between nations in the automobile manufacturing space is emerging, as China in addition to Japan, the United States and Europe compete to develop and sell electric vehicles. More precisely, this competition centers around the development of CASE — an acronym derived from the words “connected,” “autonomous,” “shared and services” and “electric” — technologies.

The race is on to determine which country will come to control this new mobility industry, characterized by the production of electric vehicles that are connected to the internet, self-driving and shared.