Battery Metals

Batteries have become an incredibly important and largely ignored part of our lives; until of course your phone runs out of batteries! Our digital lives would be impossible without batteries which provide our electronic devices with the on the go power they need. Batteries are truly everywhere and in massive numbers. There are close to 5bn mobile phones in the world, each of which has a battery, and the numbers of batteries around us is truly unbelievable. I counted over 300 batteries in my home ranging from the button sized batteries in my watch to the 120kg battery I use for home storage. The bottom line; batteries are already one of the core components of the digital revolution but going forward their use and importance is only going to increase.

What makes batteries really interesting is that they come in so many different shapes and sizes as well as chemistries, all of which have different characteristics and thus uses. There are batteries that are very cheap. There are batteries that are rechargeable. There are batteries that can only be used once. There are others that can provide lots of power while others that have long lives. But we have, to date, invented no battery that provides lots of power, energy and lifetime at a low cost. That said, all batteries are highly efficient meaning that the losses from converting from electricity to chemical storage and then back again to electricity are minimum. And that is why we use them.

The most common battery in my home is lithium-ion which is used for powering our mobile phones, laptops, power tools, tablets, flash lights as well as garden tools such as the lawn mower and chain saw. In addition, we have a large lithium-ion battery for storing the excess electricity produced from the solar panels on our rooftop. The next most common type of battery is nickel-metal-hybrid which are the standard rechargeable batteries used for portable speakers, bicycle lamps, computer game controllers and for garden LED lighting. I also found a lot of primary batteries in the form of alkaline cells which last longer than rechargeable batteries but can only be used once. These so called primary batteries are found in watches, sensors and remote controls, and even in the pressure sensors in the wheels of our family cars. Finally, there were 3 lead-acid batteries, all of which were used for starting the engines in our two cars and the tractor.

Interestingly, in terms of power capacity there are still more lead-acid batteries produced globally than all other battery chemistries. Lead-acid have proven themselves robust, easy to use and cheap to produce although they lack power and energy density which is why we really only use them in motor vehicles. It will however not be very long before lithium-ion takes over from lead acid as the No1 battery chemistry going forward. It is becoming technology of choice for the electrification of transport. Lithium-ion provides more power and energy than a lead acid battery and then are very close to cost parity with lead acid which means that not only will they be used for powering EVs but also increasinlgy in starter batteries i motor vehicles. However lithium-ion has its limitations. It is very good for providing short bursts of power that is needed in an automobile or many of our digital devices but it is expensive if used for delivering energy over long periods of time.

The good news is that there alternative solutions to lithium-ion batteries such as flow batteries which are very good at providing energy for longer periods of time. This makes them very suitable for storing solar power overnight or even for whole days or weeks. There is also a wide range of promising battery technologies currently under development such as liquid metal, lithium-air, lithium-sulfur, sodium-ion, and nano-based supercapacitors which promise lower cost and better performance. And as these technologies come to market, the usage cases for batteries will only increase. What this means is that we will see batteries everywhere. The biggest growth market for the next years will be the electrification of road transport but in terms of the numbers of batteries, although they are much smaller, it will be the digitalization of our homes, businesses and cities that will be the big driver!

ePower Metals  announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to buy Exploracion Auramex S.A. de C.V. and its Magenta cobalt project from Bowering Projects.

The Magenta project is located in Sinaloa, northwestern Mexico, and consists of five claims totaling 2,274 hectares. The claims are on privately owned ranch land and four of them are in good standing while one, the Magenta #2, is under appeal of cancellation.

None of the claims, however, are subject to royalties.

According to ePower, Magenta hosts numerous high-grade cobalt/gold/silver/nickel vein and skarn style deposits. The miner reports that the La Prieta showing has seen the most development with two adits and one trench and several drill holes.

“Historic sampling by Nordic Gold at La Prieta returned results of 5.54% Co, 5.8 oz/T Au, and 6.5 oz/T Ag, over 0.61 m in Zone #1; and 3.27% Co, 0.26 oz/T Au, and 1.7 oz/T Ag, over 0.5 m in Zone #2. Cobalt mineralization was traced for 325m along strike of Zone #1,” the company stated.

ePower Metals also conducted sampling in Zone 2 and obtained results of 0.39% Co, 0.42 oz/T Au, 2.0 oz/T Ag and 0.36% Ni, over 1.6m and 4.52% Co, 1.49 oz/T Au, 6.08 oz/T Ag and 2.80% Ni in a grab sample in a different horizon.

“The mineralized system is quite extensive, but it is poorly understood. The company believes there is great potential for expansion and definition of a meaningful cobalt/precious metals resource and we look forward to getting to work on Magenta,” Michael Collins, President and CEO of ePower Metals, said in the media statement.

The two-year rally in industrial metal prices came to an abrupt end at the start of June.

The London Metal Exchange Index, a basket of the LME’s major base metal contracts, hit a three-year high of 3499.6 in the first week of that month.

Prices then imploded over the ensuing weeks and the blood-bath has continued ever since. The Index stood at 2845.5 as of Wednesday’s close, back at mid-2017 levels when the rally was just gathering a head of steam.

There’s no mystery as to what caused the crash.

The United States pulled the tariffs trigger on Chinese imports on June 15. China responded immediately in kind.

Trade jaw-jaw had just become war-war.

“The United States has initiated a trade war and violated market regulations, and is harming the interests of not just the people of China and the U.S., but of the world,” was the official Chinese Trade Ministry reaction.

Markets took China at its word and went into free fall as speculators, not least Chinese speculators, targeted the metals complex as a proxy for darkening growth prospects, not least Chinese growth prospects.

Politics has broken the economic cycle for the LME base metal pack, dislocating price from fundamentals and causing both market and supply-chain turbulence.

DISLOCATION AND DISTORTION

It’s instructive that the LME metal to fare best, or more accurately least worst, this year has been tin, down only four percent since the start of January.

The LME tin contract is simply too illiquid to be on the radar of most funds, particularly the macro players who have led the bear charge. As such, tin has been largely left to do its own thing, which is not very much.

Zinc and lead have fared worst. But then zinc had already lost its bull mojo earlier in the year, peaking at $3,595.50 per tonne in February. Retreat turned into rout in June. Lead, tied to zinc by relative value trades, had no choice but to follow its sister metal lower.

The accelerated bear time-line left the zinc price divorced from still bullish fundamentals. Nyrstar, the Belgian zinc smelting giant, issued a profit warning in September as it got squeezed between a falling metal price and stubbornly high charges for its raw materials.

The zinc disconnect is still playing out across the LME trading floor. The cash-to-three-months zinc spread CMZN0-3 hit an unprecedented backwardation of $125 earlier this month and as of Wednesday’s close it was valued at a still hefty $63.50 backwardation with plenty of shorter-term pain for short position holders.

“Doctor Copper” inevitably took the brunt of the macro selling, the LME three-month price slumping from a four-year high of $7,348 in early June to a one-year low of $5,773 in September.

Nickel, buoyed by strength from its traditional stainless steel driver and by future dreams of battery use, held out longest before succumbing to the bear pressure.

The narrative in both metals has turned to producer cost-curve support levels, a strange outcome in markets where physical indicators have remained robust and supply shortfalls are widely forecast ahead.

Aluminium has found itself on the front line of Trump’s trade wars.

U.S. sanctions on Russia’s Rusal whipsawed the price and ricocheted down a complex supply chain that flowed from Guinea to Ireland before hitting European automotive makers.

It too has been crushed by the subsequent trade war selling, even though there is a broad consensus that a deficit in the world outside China is finally eroding the stocks accumulated during the global financial crisis a decade ago.

As for China, it’s a sure sign that local aluminium producers are feeling the margin pain when they call one of their rare meetings to discuss market conditions.

In all cases other than tiny tin, the metals are not where they expected to be at this moment in the price cycle.

Politics has dislocated price and supply chains are still adapting.

DEAL OR NO DEAL?

Can metals recover next year?

It doesn’t help that global growth is decelerating. Nor that we are entering a seasonal low point for metals demand during the northern hemisphere winter.

Shorting copper is a favourite Chinese winter past-time. It has happened in four of the last six years, according to analysts at Citi.

Asia, Europe stocks slide after Fed rate hike

Bulls hope that Beijing’s latest mini-stimulus will mark a resumption of normal bull service after the Chinese New Year.

But all such traditional cyclical bets are off unless the trade war gloom is lifted.

Will there be a deal between the United States and China? That’s the single biggest question facing metal markets next year.

The lifting yesterday of sanctions against Rusal after months of prevarication is a sign that the Trump Administration is prepared to deal.

At a price.

Ironically, the sanctions news has pushed LME aluminium to new 16-months low this morning.

And largely, it seems, on U.S. terms.

What terms and what price will Beijing accept?

If the stand-off between the Administration and China were just about trade, there is plenty of scope for a deal, or even a series of mini accommodations.

If, however, “this is no classic trade war” but rather a “strategic rivalry across many fronts”, to quote James Kynge of The Financial Times speaking at the LME Week seminar in October, then a trade truce alone does not end the stand-off.

It might take some of the immediate pressure off metals prices but for how long?

Industrial metal supply chains are highly globalised, not just in terms of consumption by an equally globalised manufacturing sector, but also in terms of production.

China is not just a dominant producer of steel and aluminium but a global power-house across the metallic spectrum.

In a world where the Trump Administration is leading a return to economic and resource nationalism, it’s hard to see how global metals can break free of global politics.

This year may have just been a taster of the turbulence ahead.

The federal government says it plans to formally renew the mineral leases for the controversial proposed Twin Metals copper-nickel mine on the doorstep of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced Thursday it would grant the 10-year lease extension to Twin Metals Minnesota, a subsidiary of the Chilean mining giant Antofagasta, after a 30-day public review period. The company is pursuing plans for an underground copper-nickel mine near the Kawishiwi River outside Ely, Minn.

It’s the latest of several Trump administration reversals this year of the Obama administration’s moves to declare a large area of federal land in the Boundary Waters watershed off-limits to mining. Several actions in the waning days of the Obama administration had stripped Twin Metals of its leases in the Superior National Forest, but earlier this year those leases were reinstated and are now up for renewal.

In announcing its plans to renew the leases, the BLM Thursday issued a 34-page environmental assessment of Twin Metals’ mining proposal. The agency said the proposal includes updated stipulations to protect natural resources.

The public has until Jan. 22, 2019, to comment on the assessment.

“Twin Metals looks forward to the timely and proper completion of the lease renewal process,” the company said in a statement Thursday. “We continue to look forward to the opportunity to present a formal Mine Plan of Operations for review by the federal government.”

The company said it plans to submit that plan sometime in 2019. But mining opponents aren’t happy with the lease renewal. “The Trump administration is trying to do an end run around the environmental review process and ram through federal approvals while they still can,” said Becky Rom, national chair of the Campaign to Save the Boundary Waters.

• As BWCA turns 40, question remains: How much wilderness to protect?
The mine would be located outside the protected wilderness area, but inside the watershed that flows into it. Environmental groups fear that potential water pollution from Twin Metals and any subsequent mines in the watershed could end up contaminating the Boundary Waters.

The Obama administration proposed a ban on all new mining projects within the watershed for 20 years, and launched an environmental review of that proposal. But the Trump administration ended that study in September, nullifying the proposed ban.

A tug-of-war over mineral leases

The Twin Metals leases have been the target of an intense back-and-forth in the past several years. Twin Metals hopes to tap a rich deposit of copper, nickel and precious metals hidden deep beneath the lakes and forests of northeastern Minnesota. Its opponents argue such mining would threaten the region’s sensitive ecosystem and would imperil the area’s burgeoning outdoor recreation-based economy.

The company has explored the region for valuable minerals for nearly a decade, and has projected that its proposed mine could create 650 jobs and operate for at least 30 years. That tantalizing possibility has earned the company the support of many local officials who see the mine as a major potential job creator and economy booster in Minnesota’s Iron Range.

The company’s two leases date back to 1966, and allow them the right to explore for minerals and propose actual mining projects. The BLM renewed the leases in 1966 and again in 1984. Twin Metals applied for a third renewal in 2012, arguing that under the terms of the lease they enjoyed a nondiscretionary right for a third 10-year term.

But the Obama administration disagreed with that assessment and in late 2016 terminated the leases, citing the “inherent potential risk that development of a regionally untested copper-nickel sulfide ore mine within the same watershed as the BWCAW might cause serious and irreplaceable harm to this unique, iconic, and irreplaceable wilderness area.”

At the same time, the administration proposed to ban mining in an area of more than 250,000 acres within that watershed for 20 years.

Over the past year, however, the Trump administration has reversed those moves.

In late 2017, a Department of the Interior attorney issued a new legal opinion, arguing the BLM did not have the discretion to deny the Twin Metals lease renewal. Then, in May 2018, the agency reinstated Twin Metals’ mineral leases, paving the way for their proposed renewal today.

Legal back and forth

Mining opponents have sued the federal government, arguing it broke the law in reinstating the leases. Becky Rom, who works with the Campaign to save the Boundary Waters, argues that, since the federal government revoked the leases under the Obama administration, Twin Metals should have to to apply for new leases, which would require a thorough environmental review.

“The legal process set forth for acquiring new leases is exactly what the Trump administration is trying to avoid,” Rom said.

Mining supporters have argued that the right time to evaluate the environmental impacts of copper-nickel mining near the Boundary Waters should wait until Twin Metals proposes a formal mine plan. They say environmental assessment shouldn’t happen at the lease renewal stage of the process.

“The renewal of the leases is just one of many important milestones that Twin Metals will work to achieve before entering the robust environmental review process required prior to any mining activity,” the business- and labor-backed group Jobs for Minnesotans said in a statement.

But opponents argue that that’s too late. They say that scientists should first determine whether the Boundary Waters’ watershed is the proper place to conduct this kind of mining, before entertaining specific mining project proposals.

A new kind of Minnesota mining

Copper-nickel mining is different from the iron ore mining already happening in Minnesota, because the minerals are bound in sulfide ore. When it’s exposed to air and water, it can create sulfuric acid, which can drain from mines and leach heavy metals into waterways.

That’s why environmental groups have fought so strenuously against this and other proposed copper-nickel mines. They argue the risk of opening up this new kind of mining near the pristine lakes and rivers of the Boundary Waters isn’t worth the economic benefits the mines would bring.

But supporters counter that mining methods have improved dramatically in recent years, and that no mining project will be approved unless it can demonstrate that it will be able to meet all state and federal environmental laws.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton condemned the BLM’s decision Thursday, accusing the Trump administration of bending to a foreign corporation at the expense of the state’s environment.

“The Boundary Waters Canoe Area is a priceless, irreplaceable environmental asset for our State and Nation that must be protected,” Dayton said. “Endangering its pristine waters and natural wonders for the sake of foreign corporate profits is shameful and wrong.”

The federal government’s announcement about Twin Metals’ mineral leases came on the same day that Minnesota’s Pollution Control Agency granted crucial air and water permits to a separate copper-nickel mining project, this one proposed by PolyMet for a location deeper into the Iron Range. The announcement marked the final state permits the PolyMet project needs to move forward. If the project breaks ground, as PolyMet says it will sometime in the next year, it will become the first copper-nickel mine in Minnesota.

Santa Clara County Fire says it has not yet determined the cause of the battery fire that destroyed a Tesla Model S earlier this week in California. In the meantime, an effort is underway to reduce fire risk in lithium-ion batteries.

Firefighters like to say they’re in the consequence management business. They deal with incidents caused by others.

In the case of electric car battery fires, a Bay Area fire chief says they’re so intense and so difficult to put out, he’s calling for change.

“There’s now enough examples that have happened both locally and around the country and around the world that in the design phase, there needs to a be change. It needs to be modified,” said Harold Schapelhouman, Chief of the Menlo Park Fire Protection District.

A burning lithium-ion battery can generate heat of 900 to 1,000 degrees, Chief Schapelhouman says, and require 3,500 gallons of water to extinguish. That’s seven times more than a typical fire engine carries.

The chief recognizes as smart as tech engineers are, they may be more concerned with keeping batteries dry than allowing firefighters to put out the fires they can produce.

“There needs to be standards out there so there’s common practice, a specific way in which we can deal with putting out certain types of fires,” he said.

A few years ago as lithium batteries caught fire in cell phones, laptops and even hoverboards, improvements were made. Electric cars are more challenging because their batteries are designed to produce high voltage. Still, engineering consulting firms that worked on that issue are working on the vehicle issue.

Kenneth Lee is a thermal engineer at the consulting firm Exponent who says, “There are advances in working with battery chemistries.” Dr. Lee added, “There are advances working with battery containment, so hopefully we can drive that number down.”

Auto makers bring a strong sense of design and style to their vehicles. But not all electric vehicle makers design their battery compartments the same way. With future concerns about battery safety, there could be a call for standardization.

Graphene, in its regular form, does not offer an alternative to silicon chips for applications in nanoelectronics. It is known for its energy band structure, which leaves no energy gap and no magnetic effects. Graphene antidot lattices, however, are a new type of graphene device that contain a periodic array of holes—missing several atoms in the otherwise regular single layer of carbon atoms. This causes an energy band gap to open up around the baseline energy level of the material, effectively turning graphene into a semiconductor.

In a new study published in EPJ B, Iranian physicists investigate the effect of antidot size on the electronic structure and magnetic properties of triangular antidots in graphene. Zahra Talebi Esfahani from Payame Noor University in Tehran, Iran, and colleagues have confirmed the existence of a band gap opening in such antidot graphene lattices, which depends on the electron’s spin degree of freedom, and which could be exploited for applications like spin transistors. The authors perform simulations using holes that are shaped like right and equilateral triangles, to explore the effects of both the armchair-shaped and zigzag-shaped edges of graphene holes on the material’s characteristics.

In this study, the values of the energy band gap and the total magnetisation, the authors find, depend on the size, shape and spacing of the antidots. These may actually increase with the number of zigzag edges around the holes. The induced magnetic moments are mainly localised on the edge atoms, with a maximum value at the centre of each side of the equilateral triangle. By contrast, armchair edges display no local magnetic moment.

Thanks to the energy band gap created, such periodic arrays of triangular antidot lattices can be used as magnetic semiconductors. And because the energy band gap depends on the electron spins in the material, magnetic antidot lattices are ideal candidates for spintronic applications.