Metals Tech

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released a report in mid-December lambasting the United States for its dependence on foreign minerals. The Interior Department’s USGS found that the nation is entirely reliant on imports for 20 key minerals (cobalt, graphite et al), with China often being the main producer of these minerals. The administration is using the report to push for more domestic extraction of critical minerals, even though the only major graphite discovery in North America since 2001 has been in Canada, as is the vast majority of new North American cobalt exploration companies.

Since mining projects typically take around a decade to launch, the US is simply going to have to remain dependent for a short while longer. The only significant graphite mine currently active in North America is owned by Imerys Graphite & Carbon and is expected to be empty by 2020, but just over the border, Nouveau Monde Graphite Inc. (TSXV: NOU | OTCQB: NMGRF) (“Nouveau Monde”) is expecting a full feasibility study to be completed during fall 2018, as well as an environmental and social impact study on its Matawinie project just 150 km North of Montreal. So while it seems unlikely that the US will be able to produce significant quantities of graphite anytime soon, battery manufacturers will have a nearby accessible supply.

Lithium-ion batteries (“LiBs”) are at the center of a global environmental revolution, driven by a growing shift to electric vehicles and off-grid energy storage. Larger LiB manufacturers are investing heavily into battery gigafactories in China and North America, meaning that while the mining of critical minerals will almost certainly increase in the US, it won’t be for quite some time. With up to 150 kg of graphite required for the LiB in an electric vehicle, new sources of graphite are needed much sooner, especially in North America where supply is limited and manufacturing activity is expected to be high.

Nouveau Monde will begin marketing its graphite flakes from its demo plant later this year, but has already sourced the necessary manufacturing equipment and stripped the rock for the extraction of the first 40,000 tonnes. Last year, the company undertook a metallurgy optimization program aimed at refining its process flow, which increased overall recovery rate and confirmed the homogeneity of the mineralization at Matawinie. In October 2017, a pre-feasibility study revealed a pre-tax NPV of CAD$498.7 million and an IRR of 32.4% for just one part of the Matawinie graphite property that has probable mineral reserves of 33 million tonnes grading 4.39 % Cg.

Nouveau Monde also signed a letter of intent with a leading Chinese anode material producer to effectively penetrate the North American Li-Ion battery market. The companies aim to form a joint venture owned 51% by Shinzoom and 49% by Nouveau Monde to exclusively distribute Shinzoom Anode Materials in North America in order to gather market data. Once customer needs are clear, a processing joint venture owned 51% by Nouveau Monde and 49% by Shinzoom will potentially develop an anode materials processing facility in Quebec that could put out 20,000 tpy.

A sustained increase in North American mining activity should be expected over the next few decades, but in terms of the United States, they are going to have to continue to import vast quantities of minerals until they can supply their own gigafactories. This is essentially an attack on China’s long-held dominance over global mineral production, but the US is entirely incapable of competing with these supply volumes at present, even after China’s environmental crackdown, and so Canadian exports will have many gaps to fill. In the case of graphite, this will almost certainly fall to Nouveau Monde.

Important regional electricity markets and whole countries are blowing past old record levels of wind and solar power by taking a variety of simple, practical steps to improve grid flexibility.

Current trends make a mockery of doubts peddled by system incumbents who keep promoting new subsidies (like capacity payments) for old-school gas and nuclear power as the best way to assure electricity supply security.

As we outlined in a report published this week—“Power Industry Transition, Here and Now”—there is nothing hypothetical about the global rise of renewable energy grid integration.

The report’s nine case studies show how markets from Texas to Tamil Nadu, India, to California to Denmark are making use of tools and policies that grid experts and academics have long argued are needed to achieve a larger presence of variable renewables.

Our research shows how the market share for wind and/or solar made up from 14 to 53 per cent of generation in various markets, up to 10 times the global average of 5 per cent as estimated by the International Energy Agency.

These case studies prove that renewables can be (and are being) safely integrated into the grid, can assure ongoing security of supply, and can promote system flexibility—all through an assortment of mechanisms that vary by specific national circumstances.

Uruguay, for example, has become the world’s fastest growing wind market, by integration with its strong domestic hydropower resources—a highly flexible power source that the country can tune up and down according to the availability of wind power. Uruguay last year got 33 per cent of its electricity from wind, up from 1 percent in 2013.

Other countries have achieved similar flexibility. Denmark stands out as the world’s No. 1 market by share of wind and solar power, achieving 53 percent of net generation from wind and solar last year. Denmark has done this by successfully balancing the variability of wind generation with cross-border, sub-sea cables whose capacity is equivalent to more than half the country’s domestic generation.

In this way, Denmark exploits the diversity of generation of its bigger neighbors, especially by tapping into hydropower from Scandinavia and renewables and thermal generation in Germany. Such interconnection allows Denmark to import and export power according to the status of its domestic wind generation, a mechanism that allows it to balance its grid.

Meanwhile in South Australia, the world’s No. 2 market by share of wind and power (48 percent), grid operators are ramping up tech-driven flexibility through demand response and battery storage.

South Australia is a global leader in major grid-scale and residential battery deployments, with at least five of such installations completed or announced at the time of writing. Tesla’s 100MW lithium-ion battery (the world’s biggest) was completed in late 2017 alongside a 315MW wind farm to help balance the grid.

An additional 30MW of battery capacity is being built on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia next to the Wattle Point Wind Farm. Planning is underway for three more major grid-scale, residential projects.

South Australia has also contracted for nearly 1 gigawatt of demand response this year, which allows users to be paid to reduce consumption in the event of demand surges.

Other ways of increasing electricity system flexibility include new grid controls that force renewables themselves to respond to changes in electricity supply and demand (in Germany) and market reforms (Texas) to pay generators more for responding to near-term peaks and troughs in demand and supply.

Our case studies show that flexibility is key to the expansion of wind and solar power. Having focused this research on options already proven at scale, we know that such initiatives are achievable.

Only one of our nine case studies (Spain) was of a market that has capacity payments, where power plants—often conventional coal, gas, nuclear and hydropower—are subsidized simply to be available as back-up. Spain’s electricity system has excess capacity, and therefore no need for such subsidies.

We see no evidence that capacity markets are needed in the global transition to renewables, notwithstanding keen lobbying by fossil fuel utilities such as Germany’s RWE (and many others) to sustain the status quo.

California-based drone company UAVOS successfully completed a round of test flights of its new electric UVH-EL drone using the company’s own SURVEYOR-HE unmanned aerial system. According to UAVOS, this electric multipurpose helicopter drone can automatically take off, fly, and land while carrying a 13.2-pound payload for a duration of up to 45 minutes. With UAVOS’ own lithium-ion high-capacity batteries, that flight time is extended to 1.5 hours, however, making this nifty little copter quite enticing for industries in need of transporting materials through harsh weather conditions and high altitudes.

The test flights were conducted in conjunction with the company’s SURVEYOR-HE UAS Complex, which is reportedly comprised of the vehicle and a command module. It’s unclear whether or not two items, one of them being the drone itself, should be labeled as a “system,” but the company certainly feels it should be. The range of the drone is reportedly 93.2 miles, with a maximum altitude of 11,483 feet. Not only that, but this thing can zip across the skies at up to 75 mph. All in all, pretty impressive for a respectably-sized copter drone powered by an electric engine unit.

“The unmanned complex is all-weather, and can perform in flights at temperature difference from -4F to +104F (-20C to +40C). Radius of data transmission in direct radio visibility in the basic configuration is 43.5 miles (70 km),” explained Vadim Tarasov, board member and investor at UAVOS.

“Our complex implements retransmission of data on the command line, which significantly increased the area of safe operation of the complex. The EW countermeasure function makes it possible to carry out research operations in the conditions of jamming or satellite radio navigation signals and the command line channel.” In other words, the UVH-EL UAV can function in temperatures and frequency conditions that most other drones cannot, providing an enticing roster of solutions for various scenarios across industries. As the press release states, this system is intended for surveillance operations, monitoring of the Earth in a wealth of conditions, communications, and anti-drone scenarios. “Created on an already proven, reputable platform, this helicopter has superior characteristics that increase the reliability of the vehicle,” said Tarasov. Have a look at this thing in action, if Tarasov has piqued your curiosity.

According to DroneLife, UAVOS used a gas-powered drone in Kazakhstan last year to monitor and inspect oil refineries using an optoelectronic video system which allows for safe, remote viewing of potentially dangerous items. Regardless of how unnecessary this all-weather helicopter drone may be to the casual, recreational drone enthusiast, there’s certainly a market for this machine. Surveying dangerous objects in cruel weather conditions definitely requires the right technology to do so, and UAVOS seems to be making all the right moves.

Elon Musk wants Australia to change its power grid to get ready for more big batteries.

Having deployed the world’s largest battery in South Australia and shot a Tesla Roadster into space, the US billionaire’s company now wants to change the face of Australia’s National Electricity Market.

Tesla has called for the nation’s outdated electricity network to evolve and prepare for a transition to a new power system as part of the Australian Energy Market Commission’s review into the grid’s reliability.

In its submission, the electric car and solar battery maker outlined how when coal-fired power stations have failed – for example during Loy Yang power station generator’s recent outages –  batteries were able to put power back into the grid and return it to normal operation in less than 200 milliseconds.

By comparison, the fastest non-battery technology – such as gas-fired power stations and other technology known as Frequency Control Ancillary Services (FCAS) – needs six seconds to get energy flowing, Tesla said.

FCAS is used to ensure that supply and demand levels remain balanced; if there is not enough supply for demand a blackout occurs, but if there is too much supply then the system will shut down to protect the equipment, causing a blackout.

“As greater penetrations of utility scale energy storage and aggregated distributed energy resources are rolled out, the benefits [of batteries] to the broader markets should become clear,” Tesla said.

The company wants Australia’s energy market to incentivise the use of large-scale batteries, and ensure they can join the wholesale market in the same way that gas-fired plants and other FCAS systems currently can.

Backing batteries

Australia’s big three electricity generators and retailers are also getting on the battery bandwagon.

EnergyAustralia chief executive Cath Tanna told Fairfax Media large-scale batteries would play a major role in its future.

“We need to learn how to integrate batteries at scale; this is another piece of the puzzle, learning how to integrate this into the new energy system – learning by doing,” Ms Tanna said.

“You’ll see us actively participate in that and you’ll see some positive news on it soon.”

Rival energy giant Origin currently buys power from Lakeland, a project in Far North Queensland, which features a 5.3 megawatt hour battery. It is also part of a knowledge-sharing partnership with BHP and Conergy to help take major energy consumers off the grid; and is in advanced stages of setting up battery storage trials at its power stations.

AGL has also planned to install large-scale batteries at the Liddell power station once it ceases coal-fired generation at the site.

A new report has found that the United States now sources almost one-fifth of all its power from renewable energy.

This figure has doubled in a decade with wind, solar and hydropower leading the charge. The findings come from the sixth edition of the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

All renewable generation increased by 14 percent in 2017, thanks to increased amounts of available hydropower on the West Coast and very high levels of new build solar and wind farms. 23 gigawatts of added capacity from these technologies had their first full year of generation in 2017.

At the same time, traditional fossil fuel generation declined over the past year with natural gas down 8.1 per cent and coal 3 per cent. This progress has meant that carbon emissions in the power sector have fallen by 4.2 per cent year-on-year, which are the lowest level in 27 years, according to the Factbook.

The economic benefits of renewable energy have also become more apparent in the latest analysis. The low-cost of power means consumers have contributed a tiny 1.3 percent of spending towards electricity. In addition, the solar and wind sectors created 98,650 new jobs between 2015 and 2016, and in total now employ an estimated 475,000 people.

Jobs in the energy efficiency sector are also booming with a huge 2.2 million people involved in ensure homes and businesses are properly insulated.

“The performance is proof that clean energy delivers for the American economy,” said Lisa Jacobson, President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.

“The 2018 Factbook demonstrates that energy efficiency, natural gas and renewable energy are generating jobs and cleaner air while reducing energy use and boosting the productivity of the American economy. The focus of national energy policy in 2018 and beyond should be to further enhance and promote the continued growth of these clean energy sectors.”

The report also shines a light on the growing role of electric vehicles (EVs) in the US. Sales of the cars, including hybrids and battery versions, jumped by 23 per cent on the previous year, reaching 194,000. This helped the price of lithium-ion batteries plummet by the same amount.

“Sustainable energy deployment soared to record levels in 2017, cementing its role as a key contributor to U.S. energy,” says Rachel Luo, the lead BNEF author of the report. “At 18% of the power mix, renewable energy resources including hydropower are making nearly as large a contribution to U.S. electricity generation as the country’s nuclear fleet. Meanwhile, the falling price of newer technologies such as lithium-ion batteries is fueling the transformation of both the transportation and power sectors.”