Lithium News

Global demand for lithium has been propelled due to a rise in demand for electric vehicles and stationary energy storage systems; expectations are that these industries will continue to grow.

• SQM has recently announced significant production capacity increases at their Chilean based lithium brine asset.
• Advanced junior lithium companies are still very much needed in the market to ensure enough supply hits the market beyond 2020.
• The junior lithium exploration market has seen a significant number of new companies enter the space; they will likely be pushed out of the market soon.
• Lithium supply will remain in an under supply scenerio until meaningful low cost, high grade material reaches the market between 2020-2022.

Over the past year the global automotive business has begun to announce transformational plans to build out electric vehicle and battery manufacturing capacity. In parallel with these efforts there has been a flood of investment capital looking for ways to capitalize on this emerging business. This has led investors to purchase shares in companies who are active in the lithium, cobalt, and graphite markets along with select electric vehicle and battery manufacturers. The lithium industry is very well established but only now is going through a significant step-change, as new applications such as electric vehicles require a significant amount of lithium chemicals per vehicle.

The demand side of the equation is clear, the growth in demand is coming from the widespread adaption of electric vehicles and new applications such as stationary energy storage systems and consumer devices. The supply side is much less clear as many companies are making various claims around short development times for Greenfield projects while existing producers continue to announce an increase in production over the next years.

In a recent document, Deutsche Bank provided an estimate that global lithium demand increased by over 30% in 2017 to around 280,000 T LCE. In addition, they expect demand to further increase to around 345,000 T LCE in 2018, representing another increase of 23%. This increase is primarily led by a 25% increase in Chinese electric vehicle manufacturing to over 1 million units in 2018. Based on the 280,000 T LCE demand figure, it is clear that Deutsche believes that the market is growing at the most bullish demand scenario. In 2017, the Chinese government mandated that all automotive manufacturers who produce more than 30,000 vehicles per year must deliver at least 10% of the capacity as new energy vehicles. With a buildup of electric vehicle manufacturing capacity now well underway, battery and materials manufacturers have likely begun to increase capacity and stockpiled the required lithium chemicals throughout 2017 to ensure that sufficient feedstock is available to keep production lines moving. Based on the graph below, their 2018 lithium demand figure is also represents the most bullish case scenario possible.

Australia is on the cusp of a new commodities boom as a lithium exporter, and Chinese investors are well ahead in the race to secure their supply.

As the critical ingredient in next generation battery storage and electric vehicle technologies, global demand for lithium is forecast to grow at a compound rate of 18% in the decade to 2025, according to Macquarie Research.

In 2015, Australia supplied around 36% of the world’s lithium. By 2021, that proportion is forecast to grow to 48% of a much larger global market.

Australian exports of spodumene, the mineral ore containing lithium, have increased 84% in the three years since 2014.

“The increasing demand is a game changer for producers at the higher end of the cost curve in Australia,” explains Patrick Cocquerel, global head of natural resources at Australian bank Westpac.

Cocquerel says that until recently the lithium market was dominated by lower cost products from South America produced in vast salt lakes.

With increased demand and higher prices, exploiting higher quality Australian lithium – secured through open cut mining – has become economic, unleashing new exploration and opening new mines.

The price of processed lithium carbonate in China increased by more than 30% over calendar year 2017. Still, the lithium market is volatile. Speculative investors piled into lithium stocks in 2017 but the expected boom has not arrived, yet.

Shares in several big lithium players were pounded last week on news Chile’s Sociedad Quimica y Minera de Chile, or SQM, one of the world’s biggest producers, may soon receive government permission to more than triple its current level of production.

There is now arguably an oversupply of lithium as miners overproduce at a time global industry leaders are yet to fully develop the battery plants and electric vehicles of the future.

Undeterred, Chinese investors have positioned themselves for the long term in Australia’s lithium industry, not just in mining but in the pre-export processing of spodumene ore.

Australia’s lithium story is part of a rising global race for the commodities needed in next generation technology, comprising not just lithium but also cobalt and nickel.

Chinese companies spent over US$80 billion in 2017 on overseas resources projects, including deals at cobalt mines in the Congo Democratic Republic, home to the world’s largest cobalt reserves.

In securing access to Australia’s lithium, the Chinese are well ahead of investors from other Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea which are also developing lithium-ion battery production.

Westpac’s Patrick Cocquerel points out that unlike Chinese involvement in the iron ore industry, where the raw commodity is simply exported from Australia, Chinese investors are becoming involved in Australia’s value-added lithium supply chain.

Chinese investors are also “pre-buying” their lithium by investing in mines in exchange for offtake deals, where the mines being opened on the back of the deals.

Chinese company Tianqi Lithium has announced an investment of around US$600 million to construct a lithium processing plant in Kwinana, Western Australia.

That plant is currently under construction and when complete will ultimately produce 48,000 tons of battery grade lithium hydroxide each year.

Tianqi is also a shareholder, with US company Talison, in the Greenbushes lithium mine south of Perth, where a US$250 million investment is set to double production.

Last year, Chinese car maker Great Wall paid over US$20 million for a stake in another Australian producer, Pilbara Minerals, becoming the first car maker to secure an off-take agreement.

Japanese auto giant Toyota has followed suit this year, confirming a much larger investment of US$224 million in Orocobre Ltd, an Australian Security Exchange (ASX)-listed lithium producer with interests in Argentina.

Another Chinese company involved in Australia’s lithium industry is Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium, which has a 25% stake in the Mount Marion mine in Western Australia operated by ASX-listed Mineral Resources.

The fundamentals for lithium demand are compelling. Bloomberg New Energy Finance has forecast that by 2040 more than half of all new car sales and a third of global light duty vehicles will be electric.

China’s electric vehicle industry is already the world’s largest, and Chinese companies are responsible for 25% of the world’s lithium-ion battery supply.

Australia’s recent relationship with China has been built on exporting “old world” commodities in iron ore and coal as part of China’s growth story.

But recent Chinese investments in Australian lithium demonstrate that this close economic relationship is set to continue and thrive in a new era of next generation technologies.

Off Grid Energy, leading manufacturer of power solutions for the construction, marine and automotive industries, is set to launch its new Universal Hybrid Power Unit at this year’s Executive Hire Show (EHS), taking place February 7-8 in Coventry.

The gridtogo™ Ingenium Series reduces generator running hours and allows for the use of smaller generators, which result in significant improvement in fuel efficiency, substantial reduction in polluting emissions and CO2 as well as noise pollution – all while cutting costs. The Ingenium is designed and tested to withstand the rigours of the most demanding applications, with steelwork and lifting gear stress tested and built under military quality assurance standards to ensure that it is capable of being handled by any method, and fully compliant with Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations.

“We realised that what the industry needed was a game changing product format, so we developed the Ingenium series to be smarter, more powerful, more stable, more efficient, more robust and more resilient, whilst being both easier to use and integrate,” said Danny Jones, CEO at Off Grid Energy. “The Ingenium is the result of all of our learning and experience over the years since pioneering hybrid power. It is a product that sets the bar for this sort of technology and maintains our position as innovators and industry leaders.”

The Ingenium features V50 power™ battery technology and is offered either with single-string OPzV-S lead acid or Lithium-Ion battery technology. It also features an ESI touch™ interface with remote connection and trending display, as well as a Smart-Switch bypass for system flexibility and resilience to ensure power is never lost to the load. The Ingenium series is available in models up to 90kVA and with battery capacities ranging between 60 and 180kWhrs.

“What we do is of increasing significance as the construction industry is under more pressure than ever before for environmental impact. Noise and air quality as well as CO2 emissions are major issues, especially in London, and many are only just waking up to this. Demand, especially in the capital, will hit very soon and the industry needs to be prepared for that,” said Jones.

At EHS, the company will also display a range of other Hybrid Power Units, including the gridtogo™ NANO, a hand-portable unit offering an alternative to a petrol generator, and both the single phase and three phase gridtogo™ POWERCUBE. Other large scale and specialist products as well as monitoring and system management solutions will also be on show.

“We offer a broad range of products that cover needs as modest as running a computer through to powering an entire construction site,” said Jones. “We have applied our expertise to develop smart technology that delivers affordable, high performance solutions. Our systems can combine conventional power generation with renewable resources like solar PV and wind power where the result is a unique and innovative tailored solution for independent energy needs.”

Off Grid Energy, which is delivering environmental and financial benefits in the construction and events industries, saves its customers many thousands of pounds in fuel costs while also reducing pollution emissions and noise from construction sites.

“With EHS being the biggest national showcase for suppliers in the plant rental industry, it’s the perfect place for us to launch the Ingenium and discuss the latest industry developments with other leaders in the field,” added Jones.

Exhibition at the show comes after being Highly Commended in the Manufacturing, Energy and Utilities category in the Mills & Reeve: Innovation 50 Report for 2017.

EHS 2018 visitors can find Off Grid Energy at Booth #H134 at the Ricoh Arena.

Remember when “quinoa” and “acai” were just words you wondered how to pronounce? Now we find them in the aisles of every grocery store and on the menus of many a fast-casual lunch chain.

What if the next health craze wasn’t centered on our food, but on our built environment? The water, air, and materials in our homes and yards have received little scrutiny when we consider how neurotic we are about what we put inside our bodies.

With the West coast assaulted by wildfires and the deadly mudslides that California’s years-long drought has wrought, some green building experts are turning to technology to help us improve our built environment and protect us and our homes from natural disasters.

Former venture capitalist Sara Gutterman partnered with Ron Jones, an experienced green builder, to form Green Builder Media 12 years ago. The group works on educating the public about sustainable living. A major component of sustainability, of course, is resilience. For Gutterman, a resident of Lake City, Colorado, that means trying to thwart and mitigate fires first and foremost.

Her firm recently brought a prototype of affordable, “smart,” sustainable living to CES 2018: the Flex House. The home utilizes the full array of smart home and yard software and hardware that Gutterman’s company espouses. The Flex House uses net-zero energy, sure, but it also uses the latest water treatment, conservation, and management technologies to help reduce the risk of fire.

“I think there’s a very visceral response” as people have seen their homes threatened by wildfires, drought, and mudslides in recent months, Gutterman says. “Resiliency is a top area of importance.”

So how does the Flex House do it? Well, “smart homes” can mean more than convenience.

Take Rachio, a smart irrigation system. Rachio can test soil’s dryness so that a homeowner knows when to water and when it’s not necessary. Better still, it can do so with gray water from Nexus eWater, a home water system that takes gray water from faucets and sinks and filters and recycles it for later use in your home and garden.

“We really reduced the home’s water use” with Nexus, says Gutterman, “and Rachio was very discerning about how to use it.”

One wildfire victim in Australia reportedly saved his farm with a smart irrigation system, using its sensors to alert him when the fire had reached his property and allowing him to turn on the sprinklers remotely.

Then there’s Phyn Plus, a new product that one-ups even Rachio/Nexus’ teamwork by “learning the water footprint of each device” in your home, Gutterman says. Phyn alerts you when water usage gets out of balance. The result is conservation as well as the means to avert disasters like frozen pipes or a flooded basement.

Of course, in a sustainable home the building materials matter a lot. Choosing fiber cement siding and composite over wood make for a more sustainable and fire-proof home. And don’t forget the air quality indoors—something many people never consider—which could be full of volatile organic compounds or just not have enough oxygen compared to the carbon dioxide. Thankfully there’s Awair, which will monitor that for you and alert you that it’s time to open a window, or just to simply dust. If there’s a fire in your area, it can tell you when the air becomes unhealthy to breathe.

“Technology is enabling green building,” Gutterman says. And building codes are changing as headline-grabbing disasters accumulate, further encouraging people to adopt these new technologies. “We’re seeing a lot of changes in codes, as, frankly, our climate continues to change and drought continues to intensify,” she says. Some day soon, that Rachio might be mandatory.

Technology, of course, requires power, and power is often disrupted during a natural disaster. That’s where the Tabuchi Electric comes in. The solar-power storage system uses lithium batteries to run your tech for hours when other power is disrupted, and it’s way safer than a conventional generator. Tabuchi can also help with sustainability every day. “Battery storage is an essential component of a solar system, as it allows a homeowner to draw energy when needed and, if connected to the grid, enables net metering—selling energy back to the grid—and energy arbitrage: drawing energy from the grid when prices are cheapest to reduce monthly utility bills,” Gutterman says.

Which brings us, of course, to the bottom line—all these technologies cost money. But the surprising fact about the tech in Flex House is how attainable most of it is. The Rachio, for instance, starts at $139. Phyn Plus ticks in at $850, but that sum will likely go down in the coming years if competitors come to the market and newer technology is developed.

Because Flex House has a small footprint—just 760 square feet—it’s expected to be a lot more affordable than most homes. Houses modeled after the prototype are expected to cost between $120,000 to $150,000 per unit, once produced on a larger scale, Gutterman says. They’re projected to hit the market in June. Of course, the land is extra. But you might save on fire insurance.

According to Climate Action Tracker, America’s climate policies as outlined in the Paris international climate Agreement are rated as “critically insufficient.”

Sadly, the international rating comes at a time when a greater commitment on a global scale is needed to mitigate the impacts of climate change. It also comes at a time when, in the U.S., states, and cities are being left to contend with climate change without the help of the federal government.

This is because, on June 1, 2017, President Trump announced that the United States would pull out of the Paris Agreement because he felt the country wasn’t being given a fair shake, even though the U.S. is the world’s second-largest producer of greenhouse gasses. Then, on August 4, 2017, the administration formally communicated the country’s intent to withdraw from the climate pact to the UN.

And as most American’s already are aware of, since January 20, 2017, the Trump administration has been aggressively revoking, removing and otherwise destroying the Obama Administration’s climate policies, science, and research policies. And while promising to bring jobs to Americans during his campaign, Trump has also tried his best to revive the coal industry.

Transition from fossil fuels is not fast enough

It appears President Trump’s efforts to shore up fossil fuels is failing, especially with the number of coal-fired power plants closed in 2017, and the additional ones slated for closure in the coming years.

But when 2020 comes around, the next president will have to play catch-up and come up with a plan for accelerating the country’s transition away from fossil fuels. It will be hard to recover lost ground due to the current administration’s policies, which are totally contrary to climate science or the health and welfare of the population and the environment.

Currently, According to the latest data from the Rhodium Group, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions continued to decline in 2017 by just under 1.0 percent year-on-year, due entirely to changes in the power sector — including falling electrical demand, and growth of wind, solar and hydropower generation.

However, data also shows that in the transportation, industrial and buildings sectors, GHG emissions rose in 2017. In fact, transportation now outpaces the power sector as the largest source of GHG emissions for the second year in a row. The Guardian is reporting transportation and power generation each account for about 30 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions.

The case for renewable energy

In its “Renewable Power Generation Costs in 2017” report published in January this year, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) concluded that by 2020, “all the renewable power generation technologies that are now in commercial use are expected to fall within the fossil fuel-fired cost range.”

Yes, this was a global report that looked at about 15,000 utility-scale projects globally, but in the United States, renewables appeared to be a huge winner in 2017, with the latest figures showing that solar and wind power represented 94.7 percent of the net new electricity capacity.

As Digital Journal noted, when looking at the numbers, “it is either a testament to the triumph of renewables or a death knell for fossil fuel power generation.” Actually, because of renewables, emissions in the power sector are now below 1987 levels, and that is cause for celebration.

However, emission levels in the transportation sector have been rising fast since 2012. The levels of GHG emissions are higher than in 2000 and 20 percent higher than they were in 1989. Almost 60 percent of the emissions come from light-duty (passenger) vehicles, while medium- and heavy-duty trucks account for another 23 percent of emissions.

Clean EVs need clean energy sources

Comparing the amount of GHG emissions between electric cars and trucks and gasoline or diesel-powered vehicles is not necessarily easy because it depends on the source of the electrical generation for EVs. And this can vary from place to place. For example, in the clean power state of California, EV carbon pollution is 80 percent lower than fossil-fuel powered vehicles.

Nationwide, the Department of Energy estimates that EV carbon pollution is about 50 percent lower than fossil-fueled vehicles. And it makes sense to see that as renewable energy sources continue to expand, EV carbon pollution will continue to fall. It is only hoped that the federal government will finally implement a climate policy like other countries, including a price on carbon pollution.

Cost and battery range improving for EVs

Battery technology has gotten quite interesting recently. Due to a global increase in production of lithium-ion batteries used to power electric vehicles, their price has dropped significantly. And with stricter fuel efficiency requirements making gasoline-powered cars more expensive, this will help in the transition to EVs.

Basically, as battery technology continues to improve, the cost of an EV will continue to drop. And another plus for EVs is the cost of fuel and maintenance. On average, in the U.S., a 30 mpg sedan costs twice as much as charging a comparable EV. For the average American driver, this would amount to about $600 in fuel savings per year.

Everything we need is already in place for a rapid transition to clean energy and clean-running electric vehicles. All of America’s automotive manufacturers are shifting away from fossil-fueled vehicles and investing in clean energy powered cars and trucks. All of the big tech companies and many states have taken it upon themselves to stand up for a cleaner future. This leaves the federal government – standing alone against a shift to clean energy and zero emissions.

Ohio researchers are developing a new battery that can last longer between charges, coming as welcome news to iPhone users who recently learned Apple is slowing down older phones to preserve battery life.

Research is underway at the University of Akron where Dr. Yu Zhu has a prototype he and his assistants are testing. He says it lasts thirty to fifty percent longer than the best lithium ion battery on the market. That’s the kind of battery used in the iPhone and lots of other electronic devices. Zhu says the improvement comes in the material that binds the electrodes together.

“Usually, if we use the conventional polymer binding material, those cells only last for 10-20 cycles. And with the new type of binding material we can actually cycle, those batteries for several hundred to even a thousand times with very limited capacity fading,” he says.