Battery Technology Innovation/Electric Vehicles – Page 72

Sudbury’s tailings ponds could hold key to easing EV battery shortage, researcher says (CBC News Sudbury – May 29, 2022)

May 29, 2022

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/sudbury/

Metal-eating bacteria could help extract $7B-$10B worth of minerals at Copper Cliff

The key to supplying the automotive industry with enough electric vehicle batteries may rest in a toxic eyesore: Sudbury’s vast tailings ponds.

Tailings are the waste material left over from ore extraction processes — often mixed with water and stored in ponds. But for several years, the potential for leaks of toxic substances into the surrounding environment has raised concerns about these tailings and questions about what, if anything, can be done with them.

Conference highlights Sudbury’s role in green transportation – by Jim Moodie (Sudbury Star – May 27, 2022)

May 27, 2022

https://www.thesudburystar.com/

Mines electrifying own fleets while supplying ingredients for broader battery market

As they produce the material to electrify traffic on highways and streets, mining companies are increasingly using the same green technology to power their own subterranean fleets.

“We have a responsibility to keep pace with what is happening above-ground,” said Alex Mulloy, BEV program lead with Vale, at a conference Wednesday that drew together a wide range of players in the growing EV scene. Projected on a screen behind him in the Vale Cavern at Science North was a massive green haulage truck the company recently acquired for use at a local operation. It weighs 42 tonnes, but can run without a drop of diesel.

The Trouble With Lithium – by Annie Lee (Bloomberg News – May 25, 2022)

May 26, 2022

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk wants to mine it, China is scouring Tibet for it, battery makers are crying out for it. Lithium, the wonder metal at the heart of the global shift to electric cars, is in a full-blown crisis. Demand has outstripped supply, pushing prices up almost 500% in a year and hindering the world’s most successful effort yet to halt global warming.

The shortage of lithium is so acute that in China, which makes about 80% of the world’s lithium-ion batteries, the government corralled suppliers and manufacturers to demand “a rational return” to lower prices. Analysts at Macquarie Group Ltd. warned of a “a perpetual deficit,” while Citigroup Inc. nearly doubled its price forecast for 2022, saying an “extreme” rally could be coming.

Chinese Companies Seize Indonesian Nickel Resources Amid New Energy Battery Opportunities – by Anne Zhang (The Epoch Times – May 26, 2022)

May 26, 2022

https://www.theepochtimes.com/

The recent big investments Chinese companies are making in Indonesian nickel mines are attracting renewed attention. China’s CNGR Advanced Materials Co Ltd. announced on May 19 that it will expand its nickel matte business in Indonesia, partnering with Singapore’s RIGQUEZA International Co., LTD.

A total investment of $1.26 billion will be put in a production line in Indonesia with an annual capacity of 40,000 tons of nickel matte. This is the second cooperation between the two companies in Indonesia. In 2021, the two sides signed a cooperation project agreement to produce 60,000 tons of nickel matte per year.

Sudbury’s economy to get ‘massive’ boost from electric vehicles – by Len Gillis (Northern Ontario Business – May 26, 2022)

May 26, 2022

https://www.northernontariobusiness.com/

Delegates from government, the mining industry, mining supply, auto industry and battery development companies converge on the Nickel City for BEV In Depth, a major conference on the future of battery electric vehicles

Greater Sudbury’s first ever municipal conference to explore the commercial viability of the battery electric vehicle (BEV) industry was told Wednesday that massive economic opportunities will exist in Sudbury and Northern Ontario because of it.

The conference — BEV In Depth — is being held at Science North, hosted by Greater Sudbury Economic Development with delegates from government, the mining industry, mining supply industry, the auto industry and the battery development companies.

The Lithium War Next Door – by Alexander C. Kaufman (Huff Post – May 23, 2022)

May 25, 2022

https://www.huffpost.com/

A lithium mining startup promised to make a rural pocket of North Carolina a clean-energy boomtown. But perceived slights and concerns over water have turned neighbors against the project.

GASTON COUNTY, North Carolina — Brian Harper opened the door to his back porch, stepped outside, and inhaled the brisk air. Exhaling, he stretched his arms out wide as if to embrace the bucolic scene before him.

Moments like this were sacred — and, he feared, fleeting. On that late afternoon in early January, the sun cast a golden tint over the brown frost-nipped fields behind the Harper family’s stately brick home. Just a few hundred feet away was the red barn containing his workshop, where he makes precision gears for clients like Duracell, Dart Container Corp. and Nestlé.

Legendary lithium riches from Bolivia’s salt flats may still just be a mirage – by Marcelo Rochabrun (Reuters – May 23, 2022)

May 25, 2022

https://www.reuters.com/

SALAR DE UYUNI, Bolivia, May 23 (Reuters) – On Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni, a vast white salt flat that feels almost otherworldly, Karina Quispe is watching from the sidelines a global resource race for the world’s largest – and almost untapped – trove of battery metal lithium.

Her village on the edge of the salar – from where most of the men have migrated to Chile to find work – has so far seen few jobs or benefits from the mineral wealth beneath the plains.

Lithium Sector Needs $42 Billion as Pivot From China Adds Costs – by Annie Lee (Bloomberg News – May 16, 2022)

May 25, 2022

https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/

(Bloomberg) — The global lithium industry needs as much as $42 billion of investment by the end of the decade in order to meet demand for the crucial battery-making material, with attempts to build supply chains outside of China subject to much higher costs, according to a data and market-intelligence provider.

The sector will require $7 billion of investment each year from now until 2028, Benchmark Mineral Intelligence said in a report. That would help it meet forecast demand of 2.4 million tons a year by 2030, which is four times higher than the 600,000 tons that’s estimated to be produced in 2022.

OPINION: So much for the electric vehicle revolution. You cannot make the machines without the metals that power them – by Eric Reguly (Globe and Mail – May 13, 2022)

May 16, 2022

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/

Any successful politician is adept at finding the one bit of good news floating in the ocean of despair, then gushing about it to try to drown our worries.

So it is with U.S. President Joe Biden. A few weeks ago, when the war in Ukraine was propelling gasoline and diesel prices ever higher – regular gas hit a record average of US$4.43 a gallon on Friday – he suggested that painful pump prices will speed the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), fear not. Voila – no more hard decisions about filling your SUV or feeding your kids.

Indonesia’s Jokowi meets Tesla’s Musk after nickel talks – by Stanley Widianto, Ed Davies, Norihiko Shirouzu, Gavin Maguire, Fransiska Nangoy and Kevin Krolicki (Mining.com/Reuters – May 15, 2022)

May 16, 2022May 16, 2022

https://www.mining.com/

Indonesian President Joko Widodo met Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk on Saturday in Texas to discuss potential investments and technology, Indonesia’s government said in a statement.

The meeting between Musk and Widodo, better known as Jokowi, came after a round of working-level discussions on a potential investment in Indonesia’s nickel industry and supply of batteries for electric vehicles, Indonesian officials told Reuters.

Mining Indaba: Robert Friedland: ‘World economy can’t change unless we develop a lot more mines’ – by Henry Lazenby (Mining.com – May 11, 2022)

May 12, 2022

https://www.mining.com/

Global mining personality and financier Robert Friedland has singled out Africa and the Arabian Shield as the venues where the world’s future-facing minerals and metals will be responsibly produced. “This is where humanity is going to make it or break it,” he told the Investing in Africa Mining Indaba currently underway in Cape Town, South Africa.

He points out that the large copper mines in Latin America are aging and declining in grade, requiring increasing amounts of fossil-fuel-derived energy to process ever-increasing tonnages to keep up with historical production.

Musk Back Talking Up Tesla Mining Aspirations – by Glenn Dyer (Share Cafe – May 11, 2022)

May 12, 2022

https://www.sharecafe.com.au/

Elon Musk has again raised the idea that Tesla could buy a miner to speed up the supply of metals essential to the production of electric vehicles around the world. It’s not the first time Musk has made such a comment, but so far he has not done anything about it.

Just how that will speed up production was not explained by Musk who continues to try and assemble a group of investors and bankers to finance his $US44 billion takeover of Twitter. The EV industry is getting concerned that there may not be enough supply of lithium, nickel, copper and other metals to match demand later this decade.

How Canada hopes to buy its way on to the factory floor of the EV revolution – by Gabriel Friedman (Financial Post – May 10, 2022)

May 12, 2022

https://financialpost.com/

Billions in government subsidies are going to keep automakers in the country — and so far it’s working

To the surprise of some, if not many, all five of the global automakers who assemble cars and trucks in Canada have committed to making electric vehicles and hybrids here — or “the cars of the future” in the words of federal industry minister François-Philippe Champagne.

The promises required billions of dollars of enticement from the federal and Ontario governments, but there’s no denying that the decision of Stellantis NV to retool its manufacturing operations in Windsor and Brampton to produce EV’s and hybrids signalled a change in the weather for Canada, a relatively high-cost producer which for decades has been losing auto investments to the southern United States and Mexico.

Pentagon asks Congress to fund mining projects in Australia, U.K. – by Ernest Scheyder (Reuters – May 11, 2022)

May 12, 2022

https://www.reuters.com/

May 11 (Reuters) – The U.S. Department of Defense has asked Congress to let it fund facilities in the United Kingdom and Australia that process strategic minerals used to make electric vehicles and weapons, calling the proposal crucial to national defense.

The request to alter the Cold War-era Defense Production Act (DPA) came as part of the Pentagon’s recommendations to Congress for how to write the upcoming U.S. military funding bill, known as the National Defense Authorization Act.

The Next Frontiers In The Lithium Boom – by Felicity Bradstock (Oil Price.com – May 7, 2022)

May 10, 2022

https://oilprice.com/

Lithium is becoming an increasingly important topic in the oil and gas world as firms realize the importance of lithium-ion batteries in the future of global energy. It will be key to the energy transition, not only for use in batteries for electronic devices but also for electric vehicles (EVs) and to store renewable energy for steady release.

So, what are countries around the world doing to fuel lithium production? Automakers globally are driving up demand for lithium as they increase their EV output, with many car manufacturers planning the rollout of several new EV models by 2030.