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Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles

Federal budget could have big implications for Manitoba mining industry – by Jon Hendricks (CTV News Winnipeg – March 28, 2023)

https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/

With an insatiable demand for lithium around the world, new tax incentives unveiled in the 2023 federal budget could have big implications for Manitoba’s mining industry. Lithium – the rare earth material that is a critical component in electric car batteries – can be found here in Manitoba.

“The projections for electric vehicle demand are through the roof, and there’s not enough lithium supply on the planet right now to supply it,” Dave Peck, with Grid Metals Corporation, told CTV News. It’s working with Sagkeeng First Nation to develop the new mines which it estimates are about two years away from being able to extract the material.

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Nickel Revolution Has Indonesia Chasing Battery Riches Tinged With Risk – by Yudith Ho and Eko Listiyorini (Bloomberg News – March 28, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Obi, among hundreds of scattered spice islands in the Maluku archipelago, is an unlikely spot for a metal market convulsion. Only the northern part of this island gets power from the state utility. It’s home mostly to fishermen and coconut farmers.

Harita Nickel’s sprawling complex of processing machinery and conveyor belts tells a different story. One of a new breed of nickel producers, backed by Chinese know-how and cash, it’s using the latest generation of a method known as high-pressure acid leaching, or HPAL, to turn Indonesia’s low-grade ore into metal fit to power a Tesla car.

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Alberta on the cusp of another resource boom – by Diane Francis (Financial Post – March 28, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Alberta may end up leading the world’s transition to lithium batteries

The most important date in 20th-century Canadian economic history took place on Feb. 13, 1947, on a farm near Edmonton, when Imperial Oil made one of the largest oil discoveries in the world.

A plume of oil and flames reached 15 metres toward the sky and Leduc No. 1 ushered in Alberta’s incredible oil industry. Within weeks, 500 oil companies were formed, launching Alberta and Canada into the energy big leagues and becoming a major contributor to the Canadian economy and our standard of living.

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Column: Europe turbo charges its critical minerals drive – by Andy Home (Reuters – March 26, 2023)

https://www.reuters.com/

LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) – The European Union has unveiled the accelerator in its drive to reduce the bloc’s import dependency for critical minerals and metals.

The Critical Raw Materials Act (CRMA) “will significantly improve” Europe’s domestic extraction, processing and recycling capacity for metals such as lithium and rare earths, according to Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.

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Tuesday’s federal budget to offer cleantech credit worth more than $3-billion – by Bill Curry, Marieke Walsh and Niall McGee (Globe and Mail – March 28, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Tuesday’s federal budget will announce a clean-tech manufacturing tax credit aimed at encouraging the mining of critical minerals in Canada, a credit that will be worth more than $3-billion over five years, according to a senior government official.

The 30-per-cent clean-tech manufacturing tax credit can be used to offset the cost of equipment used for mining and processing critical minerals, which are key to the green transition because they are the building blocks of clean-energy technology such as batteries.

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US, Japan Strike Deal on Supply of Minerals for EV Batteries – by Shoko Oda and Eric Martin (Bloomberg News – Mar 27, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The US agreed to boost cooperation with Japan on critical mineral supply chains and to expand access to tax breaks as President Joe Biden aims to counter China’s dominance of the electric vehicle battery sector.

Following the pact, EVs that use materials that have been collected or processed in Japan will be eligible for incentives under the US Inflation Reduction Act, Japanese Trade Minister Yasutoshi Nishimura said Tuesday in Tokyo.

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Budget 2023: Offhanded comment by Biden shows Ottawa can’t take mining boom for granted – by Naimul Karim (Financial Post – March 27, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Apparent difference of opinion on critical minerals during U.S. president’s visit

When Justin Trudeau’s government announced plans to invest $3.8 billion to develop its critical minerals sector in the last budget, many in Canada’s mining sector believed the industry was finally going to get the attention it deserves amidst rising global demand for the minerals used to power electric vehicles.

Some had called the allocation by the federal government a “game changer,” while others described it as an “exceptionally positive” move for the industry.

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OPINION: Electric car makers want to buy mines. Good luck with that – China is way ahead on the supply lockup game – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – March 25, 2023)

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Tesla, the top electric vehicle maker, and Glencore, the mining company that is the world’s largest commodities trader, came up with an idea two or three years ago that would resurrect the spirit of Henry Ford: Tesla would buy a big stake in Glencore, a deal that would replicate the Ford Motor Company’s model of owning its supply chain.

The negotiations, which were acknowledged by neither side but mentioned in media reports, ultimately went nowhere for unknown reasons. Perhaps Tesla boss Elon Musk did not fancy himself a miner, a business alien to his tech fanaticism. Perhaps he considered the price excessive or realized that his ego would ensure clashes with Ivan Glasenberg, the hard-charging boss of Glencore at the time.

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Industrial policy is back in vogue in push for Canada to win on green economy – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – March 23, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Freeland being urged to create framework to guide billions promised to companies to accelerate shift to greener economy

Toronto – An economic idea that fell out of fashion with stonwashed denim in the 1980s appears to me making a comeback: industrial policy, or the idea that the free market alone won’t save the economy.

Earlier this month, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland hosted a hybrid meeting in Toronto with leaders from several environmental non-profits and think tanks, including Clean Prosperity, the Transition Accelerator, Clean Energy Canada, the Pembina Institute and the Canadian Climate Institute, to discuss how Canada can compete with the United States, as its government pours hundreds of billions of dollars into the energy transition.

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The US should get serious about mining critical minerals for clean energy – by Saleem H. Ali (Nature.com – March 21, 2023)

https://www.nature.com/

Green technologies cannot advance without a secure supply of essential metals.

We are living in a time of a mineral impasse. Crucial green technologies, including solar panels, wind turbines and electric-vehicle batteries, require increasing amounts of metals, such as lithium, copper, nickel, cobalt, manganese and rare-earth elements.

Yet the current US administration is in a bind. The climate movement, a core part of President Joe Biden’s base, wants clean energy and electric cars. But it doesn’t want mining of the minerals required — certainly not close to home.

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Electric Vehicle Battery Makers Test a Future Without Lithium – by Yayoi Sekine (Bloomberg News – March 21, 2023)

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — A year and a half ago, China’s CATL put on a flashy event to make an announcement significant enough that Zeng Yuqun, the founder and chairman of the world’s biggest battery maker, served as emcee.

Zeng, who had just passed up Alibaba’s Jack Ma in the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, revealed that CATL was working on battery packs that would use lithium-ion and sodium-ion cells. While sodium is more abundant and offers potential safety benefits over lithium, the latter is dominant in EV batteries. Lithium-ion chemistries offer superior energy density, enabling drivers to travel further between charges.

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Canada must now build on EV investments – by Matthew Fortier and Bentley Allan (Toronto Star – March 27, 2023)

https://www.thestar.com/

We need to define what success looks like for the future Canadian EV sector.

The past two years will be remembered as the moment when the global electric vehicle market achieved hockey-stick growth, with year-over-year sales tripling from 2020 to 2022. Capital investment in the global EV supply chain has similarly surged as governments around the world offer a range of incentives in the scramble to secure vehicle production mandates, new battery plants and critical minerals.

Canadian governments, to their credit, have not been left on the sidelines in this global race. In the past year, Ottawa and Ontario, have deployed incentives to attract multibillion-dollar investments from Stellantis/LGES, Honda, Ford, General Motors, Volkswagen, Mercedes, and Umicore.
Governments across Canada, meanwhile, are building charging infrastructure and supporting EV-focused innovation in both university labs and accelerators. The Volkswagen announcement this month is a testament to that work.

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EU’s new critical raw materials act could be a recipe for conflict – by Larisa Stanciu and Lotte Hoex (EU Observer – March 24, 2023)

https://euobserver.com/

Last week, the European Commission unveiled the Critical Raw Materials Act to reduce its dependence on third countries for key raw materials deemed indispensable for the green and digital transitions.

The proposed legislation seems to be a first step in trying to decouple the EU from its dependencies on third countries for critical and strategic raw materials. However, the continent will never be fully autonomous because of its limited reserves.

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Lithium exploration ramp up: Canada is primed to become a supplier of lithium to help fill the looming gap for the energy transition – by Alexandra Lopez-Pacheco (CIM Magazine – March 20, 2023)

https://magazine.cim.org/en/

In 1950, the authors of a federal government document entitled “The Miscellaneous Non-Metal Mining Industry” noted that Canada had little to no known use for lithium. “Thus, an outside market would have to be found for any production,” the authors concluded.

Such uses for lithium as lubricants, glass, ceramics and pharmaceuticals would subsequently open up niche markets for the white mineral, but over the decades lithium exploration and mining in Canada have remained sporadic, with mines being few and far between.

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Mining lobby warns Ottawa against taking miners for granted in push for more aid – by Naimul Karim (National Post – March 21, 2023)

https://financialpost.com/

Missing link in government strategy is the millions needed to build the mines

The head of Canada’s top mining association said Ottawa’s strategy to build an electric vehicle industry could fail if it doesn’t encourage miners through tax credits and other incentives to construct the mines needed to produce critical minerals that power EVs, such as nickel and lithium.

Existing policies have encouraged the hunt for new mineral deposits in Canada, and have brought investment from big automakers and battery companies such as Volkswagen Group and LG Energy Solutions in the past year, said Pierre Gratton, head of the Mining Association of Canada.

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