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Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles

Green Cars Cause Damage of Their Own as Flamingo Flocks Shrink – by Laura Millan Lombrana (Bloomberg News – July 5, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Tesla Motors Inc. and General Motors Corp.’s Chevrolet are preparing to bring out mass-market electric cars next year. If you plan to buy one and help save the planet, people who live near the Atacama salt-flat ask that you spare a thought for the flamingos.

The vehicles will be powered by rechargeable batteries containing lithium, a silver-white metal found in brine deposits under the world’s driest desert in northern Chile. The 1,200-square-foot Salar de Atacama is also known for wild flamingos, who feed and breed in its lagoons. Some locals say that miners sucking water out of the earth to get to the lithium are starving the long-legged birds in the process.

“They are pumping up an absurd amount of water,” says Rolando Humire Coca, a biochemist who heads the Naturalist Society of San Pedro de Atacama and is a member of Chile’s National Institute for Human Rights. “If they keep using the same methods to extract water, the consequences will be disastrous. All forms of life will be destroyed.”

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There are two types of mine operators that are looking at battery technology – by Michael Allan McCrae (Mining.com – June 22, 2016)

http://www.mining.com/

Existing mines that want to go deeper are looking at battery technology, says Andrew Lyon, General Manager for Atlas Copco Mining and Rock Excavation.

Lyon, who spoke to MINING.com at the CIM convention in May, was introducing his company’s new battery operated Scooptram 7. Lowering the overall operating and capital cost of the mine is what’s driving battery adoption.

As well as existing mines, Lyon said that new mines are being considered that will use battery technology entirely. “Currently the mines that are talking to us are about to go deeper,” says Lyon. “They want to continue their mine life without having to put more capital into ventilation infrastructure, which is incredibly expensive.

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What price lithium, the metal of the future? – by Andy Home (Reuters U.S. – June 6, 2016)

http://www.reuters.com/

LONDON – Lithium is shaping up to be The Next Big Thing. Prices are going stratospheric, junior miners are rushing to stake claims on future supply and investment websites are glowing red hot with speculation about the metal’s prospects.

The Global X lithium fund, one of the very few ways to get in on the action, has gained 25 percent over the past three months with assets under management leaping from $41 million to $68 million since the start of the year. It’s a far cry from the 1990s, when the U.S. Department of Energy was selling surplus stocks and mines were closing as the nuclear arms race wound down, reducing demand for one of the materials used in hydrogen bombs.

But the fortunes of this most versatile of metals were transformed in 1991 when Sony commercialized the lithium-ion battery, now an integral part of just about every electronic device.Now, however, it looks set to scale even greater heights as carmakers, led by Tesla, step up efforts to mass produce electric vehicles using an enhanced version of that same technology.

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Battery-powered mining – by Noel Dyson (Mining Monthly – May 25, 2016)

http://www.miningmonthly.com/

A 100% Australian-made battery-powered car is leading the charge to remove diesel engines from underground operations.

After all, the emissions from diesel engines underground are a major challenge so removing them makes a lot of sense. The more diesel burnt underground the stronger the mine ventilation system has to be.

A bit of experimental work was done with fuel cells to get around the problem, however, the recent huge advances in battery technology has brought them to the forefront. Tomcar, the guys that set out to make a car ideally suited to the underground mining environment, have come up with an electric model.

The initial Tomcar prototype was a diesel driven vehicle that looked more like a souped up golf buggy with a serious roll cage.

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China plays long game on cobalt and electric batteries – by Henry Sanderson (Financial Times – May 25, 2016)

https://next.ft.com/

Chinese company’s acquisition of Congo cobalt mine has repercussions for car industry

As China Molybdenum announced it was buying one of Africa’s largest copper mines earlier this month one thing was soon clear: the acquisition was about far more than the red metal.

The $2.65bn deal, the biggest private investment in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s history, is instead designed to secure China’s supplies of cobalt, a once niche raw material that is crucial to developing batteries for electric cars.

The purchase of the Tenke mine, which contains one of the world’s largest known deposits of copper and cobalt, shows how Chinese companies are now moving to take a dominant position in battery materials as the country prepares to shift its economy from heavily polluting industries.

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What the rise of electric vehicles means for lithium and PGMs – by Prinesha Naidoo (Mineweb.com – May 20, 2016)

http://www.mineweb.com/

Growing interest in electric vehicles is set to shake up the automotive industry and cause ripple effects across commodity markets. Lithium is set to skyrocket, oil is to crash and platinum group metals (PGMs) are said to be safe… for now.

Although the electric vehicle market is still in its infancy, tighter emissions regulations coupled with a research and development-driven decrease in production and sales costs are expected to support demand.

Data from EV-Volumes shows electric vehicle sales made up just 0.6% of global vehicle sales in 2015 – despite rising 70% year-on-year to nearly 540 000 vehicles. The total electric vehicle population grew to one million in September 2015. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects 20 million electric vehicle to be on the road by 2020.

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Why Lithium Isn’t the Big Worry for Lithium-Ion Batteries – by Jason Deign (Green Teck Media.com – June 23, 2015)

http://www.greentechmedia.com/

Why Lithium Isn’t the Big Worry for Lithium-Ion Batteries – Cobalt and nickel bottlenecks are a much bigger threat.

Lithium-ion battery production is more likely to be constrained by cobalt or nickel supplies than by lithium availability, experts believe.

Li-ion battery makers use both metals in greater quantities than lithium, which has been the subject of significant supply concerns as battery production ramps up. In fact, none of these minerals are worryingly scarce in nature.

What troubles some observers, however, is that cobalt and nickel are susceptible to greater supply-chain risks because of the countries that control the resources.

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Driving to lower carbon living: Elon Musk and his electric car (Nickel Magazine – July 2014)

https://www.nickelinstitute.org/

Tesla Motors and the driving force behind it, Elon Musk, have captured the attention of the world. Tesla is taking a 20th century idea and shows every sign of turning it into a disruptive force in the automotive world in the 21st century. The man and the machine collectively constitute a game changer, for which nickel is essential.

Battery Evolution

The battery industry is in a prolonged period of research, development and end-use specialization. At the same time, ‘nickel’ is disappearing from the name of the dominant battery chemistries in favour of ‘lithium’.

That, however, disguises the reality that nickel continues to contribute its unique qualities to most lithium-ion chemistries. Sometimes it will be a supporting role (the electrode tabs, for instance) but sometimes it is an essential component of the chemistry itself.

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Norilsk Sees Nickel in Cars Tripling as Tesla Drives Sales – by Yuliya Fedorinova and Andrey Lemeshko (Bloomberg News – April 14, 2015)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Nickel demand from the auto industry is set to rise as much as threefold in five years as output of electric and hybrid cars gathers pace, according to Russia’s largest producer of the metal.

“Hybrid and electric cars make more demand for nickel,” Anton Berlin, head of strategic marketing at OAO GMK Norilsk Nickel, said in an interview in Moscow. “It will rise because many automobile companies, such as Tesla Motors, have very ambitious plans for the future.”

Electric and hybrid vehicles are increasingly becoming a low-cost alternative for consumers as their batteries — which use nickel — get cheaper and more efficient. That may aid a recovery in the market for the metal after prices slumped because of oversupply in the stainless-steel industry.

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OPINION: Jadarite feeds Rio Tinto’s lithium battery-powered future – by Matthew Stevens (Australian Financial Review – May 18, 2016)

http://www.afr.com/

In 2004, a Rio Tinto exploration team went looking for borates in a place called Jadar on the north-western fringe of Serbia. But the drillers found kryptonite instead. Well, but for the lack of fluorine and a green glow, they did.

What Rio recovered is a unique mineral that has since been named jadarite. And it might yet become pretty important to the company because jadarite is rich in boron and, more critically, lithium.

Lithium is, of course, a music anthem of legend by the desperately divine Nirvana. It is also the Earth’s lightest metal and a source of resilience in heat-resistant glass and ceramics. And, increasingly, it is one of the raw materials fuelling the revolution in battery technologies that is already changing the future of automobiles and will probably change the way we use the traditional electricity grid.

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Cobalt: The Bass Player in the Tesla Band – by Peter Clausi (InvestorIntel.com – May 16, 2016)

http://investorintel.com/

Numbers are numbers and facts are facts: we make serious money when we figure out how those statistics could affect the future. For the past year, we’ve been haranguing about the global shortage of cobalt. We’re not alone in this. See John Petersen‘s series of beautifully analytical data-driven articles and Chris Ecclestone‘s thesis. The key facts you need to know:

1. roughly 97% of the world’s supply of cobalt is produced as a by-product of nickel or copper production. Fact;

2. the spot prices for copper and nickel have plummeted to and have stayed at levels that make many deposits uneconomic. Fact;

3. as a result of these economics, the owners of some of those copper and nickel mines are closing the mines, putting those mines on care and maintenance in a Hail Mary that someday the commodity price will recover enough to someday make these mines economic. Fact;

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Can Elon Musk reinvent the wheel with Tesla’s Model 3? – by David Olive (Toronto Star – May 14, 2016)

https://www.thestar.com/

The excitement over the Model 3 has no equivalent since the anticipation of Lee Iacocca’s Mustang more than half a century ago. For weeks now, lineups several metres long have formed at the Tesla Motors Inc. kiosk at Yorkdale Shopping Centre. These are Tesla enthusiasts putting down a $1,000 (U.S.) deposit on an advance order for Tesla’s latest electric vehicle (EV), the Model 3.

The excitement over the Model 3, which holds the potential of making EVs a mass-market product for the first time, has no equivalent since the anticipation of Lee Iacocca’s Mustang more than half a century ago.

And the upfront cash from the faithful at Yorkdale and Tesla’s other sales outlets worldwide meant that when Tesla co-founder and CEO Elon Musk took the wraps off three Model 3 prototypes at a convention centre last month, he already had $115 million in advance-order cash in his back pocket. By now, that figure is about $400 million.

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Tesla Battery Drive Lures China Molybdenum Into Cobalt – by Danielle Bochove (Bloomberg News – May 9, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

China Molybdenum Co. is the latest company to bet on the future of electric cars with its plans to acquire cobalt assets in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

On Monday, Freeport-McMoRan Inc. agreed to sell its controlling stake in the Tenke Fungurume copper-cobalt mine to CMOC, as the Luoyang, China-based company is known, for $2.65 billion. CMOC is also negotiating to buy Freeport’s interests in other cobalt assets.

The deal marks the Chinese company’s entry into cobalt, one of the specialty metals used in rechargeable batteries. The battery market is expanding as more consumers turn to electric cars made by companies such as Tesla Motors Inc. and look to store renewable energy to power appliances when there’s little wind or sunshine.

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Lithium-ion Batteries – The Cobalt Cliff Is Upon Us – by John Peterson (InvestorIntel.com – April 8, 2016)

http://investorintel.com/

I had a very enlightening conversation on Wednesday morning with the experts at Darton Commodities Limited, a U.K.-based metals trader that specializes in cobalt and serves as an intermediary between cobalt producers and European users. A couple days before the call, Darton sent me a copy of their 42 page “2015-2016 Cobalt Market Review.” It was one of the most impressive and data rich industry overviews I’ve ever seen.

Our wide ranging hour and a half conversation confirmed my developing thesis that cobalt is an immense supply chain risk that lithium-ion battery manufacturers and users have blithely dismissed in a headlong rush to build production capacity for markets that may not develop, or may develop more slowly than anyone anticipates. It left me more convinced than ever that my initial risk assessments were understated.

The Cobalt Cliff is upon us and there is no reasonable probability that the battery industry will have the muscle to outbid other essential industries that must have cobalt to make far more valuable products.

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Cobalt – A Coffin Nail for Cheap Lithium-ion Batteries – by John Peterson (InvestorIntel.com – April 1, 2016)

http://investorintel.com/

In early March, I was shocked to learn that only 6% of the world’s cobalt is produced as a primary mine product while 94% is produced as a by-product of nickel and copper mining. I found those ratios alarming because:

-Cobalt is an essential raw material in all high-energy lithium-ion batteries;

-While conservative analysts forecast that the battery industry’s cobalt requirements will double over the next 10 years, rapid and sustained growth in electric vehicles (EVs), stationary energy storage and other lithium-ion battery applications could drive that demand multiple much higher;

-By-product availability is always dependent on sales of the primary metal and miners cannot respond to increased demand for by-product metals that aren’t matched by increased demand for their primary products;

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