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Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles

ETF Buyers Snap Up Lithium as China Fuels Electric-Car Race – by Luzi-Ann Javier (Bloomberg News – September 11, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

The third-best performing exchange-traded fund tracking material producers got a jolt from China after the country said it will set a deadline for automakers to end sales of fossil-fueled vehicles.

Global X Lithium & Battery Tech ETF climbed as much as 5.1 percent Monday to $36.09, the highest in more than six years, as its biggest holdings FMC Corp., Soc. Quimica & Minera de Chile SA, Samsung SDI Co. and Tesla Inc. rallied.

On Saturday, Xin Guobin, China’s vice minister of industry and information technology, said the government is working with regulators on a timetable to end production and sales of internal-combustion vehicles. The shift to electric vehicles is spurring a surge in demand for lithium batteries and the companies that supply the raw materials.

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Electric Cars Reach a Tipping Point – by David Fickling (Bloomberg News – September 10, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Say goodbye to gasoline. The world’s slow drift toward electric cars is about to enter full flood. China, one-third of the world’s car market, is working on a timetable to end sales of fossil-fuel-based vehicles, the country’s vice minister of industry and information technology, Xin Guobin, told an industry forum in Tianjin on Saturday. That would probably see the country join Norway, France and the U.K. in switching to a wholly electric fleet within the lifetime of most current drivers.

The announcement is important because the most influential players in the global auto market have always been not companies, but governments. Diesel cars make up about half of the market in the European Union and less than a percentage point in the U.S., largely because of different fuel-taxation and emissions regimes.

Carburetors have been regulated out of most developed markets because fuel injection — originally a more costly technology — results in less tailpipe pollution. Moves toward electrification of the world’s cars have been tentative.

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We’re Going to Need More Lithium – by Jessica Shankleman, Tom Biesheuvel, Joe Ryan, and Dave Merrill (Bloomberg News – September 7, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

There’s plenty in the ground to meet the needs of an electric car future, but not enough mines.

Starting about two years ago, fears of a lithium shortage almost tripled prices for the metal, to more than $20,000 a ton, in just 10 months. The cause was a spike in the market for electric vehicles, which were suddenly competing with laptops and smartphones for lithium ion batteries.

Demand for the metal won’t slacken anytime soon—on the contrary, electric car production is expected to increase more than thirtyfold by 2030, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Rest assured, Earth has the lithium. The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground, BNEF says. But battery makers are going to need more mines to support their production, and they’ll have to build them much more quickly than anyone thought.

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How green are the batteries?: Electric car revolution boosts business for big Arctic air-polluter – by Thomas Nilsen (The Baren Observer – September 7, 2017)

https://thebarentsobserver.com/en/

Nornickel eyes sharp increase in demand for nickel and copper as tens of millions of electric cars hit the roads over the next few years. Nickel prices leap to new heights, increasing 36% over the last two months. Copper, another key metal for electric car batteries, has seen prices climb by nearly 20% since mid-summer.

That is very good news for Nornickel, one of the world’s largest suppliers of both nickel an copper. With factories on the Taymyr Peninsula and in the Murmansk region, the company’s directors are smiling all the way to the bank. And back. With workers’ salaries to be paid in rubles, and sales abroad in dollars, Nornickel is benefiting from Russia’s turbulent economy with low currency rate.

Nornickel now wants to expand sales to the electric car industry. Recently the company signed an agreement with BASF on possible supply of raw materials for future battery material production for lithium-ion batteries in Europe.

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The battery revolution: balancing progress with supply chain risks (RCS Global – August 2017)

http://www.rcsglobal.com/

For the full report: http://www.rcsglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/rcs/pdfs/RCS-Global%20The-Battery-Revolution.pdf

The lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery is set to fuel a revolution in electric vehicles (EV), home energy storage and even the powering of entire cities. Yet, increasing demand for the Li-ion battery is revealing and amplifying a wide spectrum of risks associated with the materials that make up the battery itself.

As new battery technology transforms consumer markets, there is a growing realisation that the transition to electric is not without social and environmental impact in the countries where battery materials – specifically cobalt, lithium, nickel, graphite and manganese – are mined and chemically processed into battery grade materials.

These risks present significant reputational, legal, compliance and commercial concerns for major industries harnessing the battery revolution including automotive, electronics and utilities infrastructure. For local communities, the risks represent impacts that could exacerbate or even cause environmental and social problems ranging from air pollution to child labour to conflict.

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Water woes may leave green-car hopes high and dry – by Antony Currie (Reuters/Nasdaq.com – August 28, 2017)

http://www.nasdaq.com/

NEW YORK, Aug 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) – Water problems could leave the burgeoning market for green cars high and dry. Ford is the latest to ramp up its electrification efforts with a planned joint venture with China’s Anhui. Trouble is, the industry relies heavily on the Democratic Republic of Congo for cobalt to make electric vehicles’ lithium-ion batteries.

Players like BHP Billiton need secure water supplies for their cobalt-mining operations. They also are big consumers of electricity, which is produced mostly by hydropower. With the Congo River running near 100-year lows after two years of drought, blackouts are a big risk.

Wastewater – the theme of the World Water Week conference that kicked off in Sweden on Sunday – is another problem. Adding untreated industrial sludge back into the river basin would make a bad situation worse: the majority of Congolese already lack access to safe drinking water.

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It’s Party Time for the Metals No One Knows About – by Thomas Biesheuvel and Mark Burton (Bloomberg News – August 24, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

It’s turning out to be a great year for minor metals. Rechargeable-battery ingredient cobalt has gained 83 percent, while ruthenium, used in the chemical industry and electronics, is up 63 percent.

The latest star is vanadium, an obscure silvery-grey metal thought to have been used to harden steel as far back as the Crusades. The metal, which is also used in energy-storage batteries, has surged 67 percent since mid-July, according to Metal Bulletin data.

Much of vanadium’s rise has been driven by policy changes in Beijing. The China Iron & Steel Research Institute has proposed increasing the amount of vanadium required in construction steel, which would boost consumption, according to VTB Capital and SP Angel research. The new standard is expected to be announced in September.

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Is child labor the price for e-cars? – by Helle Jeppesen (Deutsche Welle – August 23, 2017)

http://www.dw.com/en/

Whether in cars, laptops or smartphones, cobalt is in nearly all batteries. The biggest supplier is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where human rights are often violated in the mines.

Young men, armed with only torchlight and tools climb down in a deep, dark hole, without helmet or security gear. The path becomes even smaller as they go further down in the unsecured tunnel. To remove the cobalt, the young miners use chisels and hand hooks and then place the gem rocks into bags, which are then pulled up by another miner above ground.

The rights group Amnesty International witnessed this scene during a research trip in Kasulu, the former Katanga province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). These mine workers are known in the DRC as Creuseurs, loosely translated as the diggers.

The mining work is divided among everyone. Men dig for the rocks in the tunnel, women wash the rocks in the river, and children are tasked with separating the cobalt from the rock with their bare hands.

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Hunt for Next Electric-Car Commodity Quickens as Prices Soar – by Laura Millan Lombrana and Susanne Barton (Bloomberg News – August 23, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Niche metal cobalt is leaving bigger names like copper and lithium in its dust, triggering a hunt for new deposits from Idaho to Chile.

As one of the key components in the new breed of rechargeable batteries and with supply dominated by the Democratic Republic of Congo, prices have surged at four times the pace of major metals in the past year.

That’s caught the attention of governments, explorers and money managers, with annual demand set to increase 34 percent until 2026 as electric cars gain a bigger share of the global auto fleet, according to CRU Group.

Authorities in Chile, the top copper-producing nation, are embarking on a fact-finding mission with a view to restart cobalt production after a more than seven-decade hiatus. First Cobalt Corp. is merging with two other firms to create what it calls the world’s largest explorer of the mineral.

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OPINION: Switch to Renewables Won’t End the Geopolitics of Energy – by Meghan L. O’Sullivan (Bloomberg News – August 21, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Countries that dominate the export of rare-earth minerals will be the petrostates of tomorrow.

In another sign that the age of fossil fuels is waning, the California State Senate has passed a bill to commit the state to use 100 percent renewable energy for power by 2045. Other states and cities — including Massachusetts, Chicago and Atlanta — intend to make similar switches. Proponents highlight a bevy of ways in which the Age of Renewables will improve our lives: lower carbon emissions, cheaper electricity rates, new abilities to bring power to impoverished nations … and independence from the economic and political entanglements of volatile global oil and gas markets.

Yes, there are many reasons to be enthusiastic about a shift toward renewables. Unfortunately, an escape from energy geopolitics is not likely to be among them.

Americans and Europeans in particular are familiar with the geopolitical downsides of a heavy reliance on fossil fuels. Even though energy embargoes are extremely rare, and hardly ever in the interest of the producers, the specter of the 1973 Arab oil remains. For many in Eastern Europe, the 2006 and 2009 gas cut-offs to Ukraine by Russia are an equally disturbing memory. Simply the threat of such actions carries political weight.

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It’s Hard to Keep Up With All That Lithium Demand – by Laura Millan Lombrana and Jonathan Gilbert (Bloomberg News – August 22, 2017)

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Hidden within the salt flats high in the Andes mountains of South America are vast deposits of the lithium that Elon Musk may need for his electric-car revolution. But extracting the mineral from brine ponds created by Orocobre Ltd. has proved more difficult than expected.

Bad weather and pump glitches meant production at the Olaroz facility in northern Argentina was 21 percent below Orocobre’s initial target in the year through June. While things are getting back on track, Chief Executive Officer Richard Seville says the company “either underestimated the complexity or overestimated our capability.”

Producers everywhere have struggled to keep up with demand as electric cars went from almost no sales a decade ago to more than half a million vehicles last year. The battery in a Model S from Musk’s Tesla Inc. uses about 45 kilograms (100 pounds) of lithium carbonate. More mines are planned, but difficulties at Olaroz — the first new South American lithium mine in two decades — are limiting funding for new ventures in Argentina, home to the world’s third-largest reserves.

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Anglo American makes expensive bet on hydrogen fuel cell cars – by Barbara Lewis (Business Day – August 18, 2017)

https://www.businesslive.co.za/

London — Anglo American is placing a contrarian bet on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as it tries to squeeze more profit from its platinum reserves, but risks being left behind as rival miners look to cash in on battery-powered cars.

A push, particularly in Europe and China, for lower-emission transport, raises the prospect of weaker demand for platinum, whose biggest industrial use is in diesel vehicles. Other big miners are positioning themselves for the shift away from the combustion engine by betting on lithium and cobalt, both used in electric vehicle batteries.

Glencore signed a major deal last October to sell 20,000 tons of cobalt products, a hitherto niche material whose production it dominates, while Rio Tinto is sitting on a large deposit of lithium. As the world’s top supplier of platinum, Anglo American is left with little choice but to remain committed to the metal.

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Vedanta explores ways to produce cobalt for batteries – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – August 15, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Vedanta Resources (VED.L) is studying how to produce cobalt for use in batteries as the diversified miner becomes the latest company to seek exposure to an anticipated electric vehicle boom.

Tom Albanese, who steps down as CEO of Vedanta at the end of August, said the excitement around electric vehicles had prompted the company to looking at producing cobalt suitable for batteries from its Zambian copper mines, rather than just treating it as a copper by-product.

Vedanta is also betting on continued use of conventional fuel and in April completed the merger of its Indian metals and mining group Vedanta Limited (VDAN.NS) with oil and gas company Cairn India Ltd (CAIL.NS).

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Why gasoline and Diesel will be around for a long time to come – by Norris McDonald (Toronto Star – August 12, 2017)

https://www.thestar.com/

“If more people buy EVs instead of internal-combustion vehicles, how will
governments make up the tax shortfall? Right now, about 40 per cent of what
you pay per litre for fuel at the pump goes to governments.”

I spend a lot of time these days reading, listening and discussing the use of electricity to propel automobiles compared to conventional gasoline and other alternatives, such as hydrogen. It comes with the job. The ground is shifting, and it’s better to be on top of what’s happening than running to catch up.

So, I’ve been reading about how Big Oil will react when everybody starts running out to buy electric cars. And how the end of internal-combustion will be just like the end of film for cameras — it will (seemingly) come out of nowhere and be so sudden that everybody will wake up one day and wonder what happened.

And that some European countries will ban the sale of gasoline and Diesel-powered cars as of such-and-such a date. And the province of Quebec will soon start fining automakers that don’t sell enough EVs.

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Cornish Lithium project secures 1 million pounds for exploration – by Barbara Lewis (Reuters U.S. – August 14, 2017)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, Aug 14 (Reuters) – British mining company Cornish Lithium has secured 1 million pounds ($1.30 million) to explore for lithium in Cornwall, southwest England, its CEO said, taking the country a step closer to a domestic source of the strategic mineral.

Lithium plays an essential role in electric car batteries, and is produced by evaporation in Latin America, which has been considered the cheapest source. But new technology to extract lithium from brine is helping to make other options more viable.

In January, Cornish Lithium said it had reached a mineral rights agreement with Canada’s Strongbow Exploration. It then said it needed around 5 million pounds to develop its project to extract lithium from underground hot springs and to supply products to the rapidly growing battery market for electric cars and for power storage.

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