Forum Topics Battery Metals Discussion Forum
Byrnesty
3 years ago

I concur with your thoughts on battery/lithium thematic.


I had been doing some research in preparation for plunging into the Lithium/Battery thematic  but couldn’t get over the line for the following concerns:


1. Lithium mining appears to come with some fairly adverse environmental consequences. It requires 750t of mineral rock brine and 1900t of water to extract just 1t of lithium.

2.Cobalt – 70% of the world’s cobalt is sourced from the DRC with serious child labour /human rights, safety and corruption concerns.

3. Battery Life – My personal experience with a LI Battery powered electric bike was soured when the battery failed within 2 years. 50% cost of the bike to replace the battery.

4. Hydrogen powered vehicles are commercially available now (ie Toyota Mirai & Hyundai Nexo).

5. Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles (FCEV) (ie hydrogen powered) are more suited for longer travel distances than Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV).

6. Existing fuel stations can be re-purposed for hydrogen refuelling avoiding the need for a re-charging network.

7.Refuelling is quicker than re-charging.

8. No mining or fossil fuel sourced charging required for hydrogen powered vehicles.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) believes that hydrogen production at scale is only 5 to 10 years away.
Jeremy Clarkson (albeit not a electric vehicle fan) recently wrote “its like we are all racing to buy CD’s when we don’t know the internet is coming”.

I can't help but feel that BEV are just a stop gap measure until something better comes along.
 

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Shapeshifter
3 years ago

Interesting discussion.  To put in a counter argument against hydrogen powered vehicles:

- Most hydrogen (95%+) is made from steam methane reforming usually from natural gas and produces carbon dioxide and consumes energy.

- This CO2 is released into the atmosphere or captured and stored (CCS).  Long-term predictions about underground storage security are very difficult and uncertain.  Current CCS processes are usually less economical than renewable sources of energy and most remain unproven at scale. Many CCS projects have failed to deliver on promised emissions reductions.

- Hydrogen can also be made by methane pyrolysis and produces solid carbon as a by product but this is also usually made from natural gas.  This technology is currently at pilot plant stage at research labs such as the chemical engineering team at University of California.

- The greenest method of hydrogen production is electrolysis of water.  This accounts for about 4% of world production.  This is currenly very expemsive and requires about 7 times the energy compared to other methods.  Electrolysers at scale are expensive and require metals such as nickel and platinum.

- Storage of hydrogen is difficult and expensive.  It can be liquefied by reducing its temperature to -253C.  Achieving such low temperatures requires significant energy.  It can be compressed under high pressure (5000 - 10,000psi!) in tank systems in vehicles which are based on carbon-composite materials. Rupture of a compressed fuel tank during a vehicle accident would be both spectacular and a disaster.

- Effeciency of hydrogen powered vehicles is not that great.  A fuel cell vehicle has a tank-to-wheel efficiency of about 36%.  By comparison a diesel vehicle has a tank-to-wheel efficiency of about 22%.  Taking losses due to fuel production, transportation, and storage into account hydrogen stored as liquid has a power plant-to-wheel efficiency of only 17%.

- In summary the likelihood of hydrogen powered vehicles leapfrogging EV's in the next 20 years is low.  What is more likely is a technological leap in battery technology such as the lithium sulphur battery Li-S energy is currently working on.  Hydrogen will most likely remain in niche applications (such as fork lifts) only.

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Bear77
3 years ago

10-Sep-2021:  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-10/storage-battery-will-create-renewable-energy-solution-and-jobs/100448940

One of the reasons I have not fully embraced the battery metals megatrend is that I believe it is still unclear which metals are going to be the biggest long-term winners from this thematic, other than the obvious ones like copper.  In this article published this morning on the ABC News website (link above), they talk about recent developments, in particular the ‘Gelion’ battery, which uses a specialised zinc-bromide gel technology, designed to overcome the limitations of traditional lithium ion and lead acid batteries.

I think backing copper is a no-brainer because everything needs to be wired up, and copper is still the most cost-effective solution for most wiring, however as far as cobalt, lithium and some of the other metals, while they will certainly play a big part in the next few years, there is certainly still plenty of potential for somebody to "build a better mousetrap" in the battery sector.  While certain types of batteries will suit certain conditions better than others, the biggest winners are likely to be the metals that end up being the ingredients in the batteries that provide the best bang for your buck in terms of battery life versus cost, IMO.  

This forum might be a good place for people to argue the case for lithium or any other battery metal and why they think it will end up being one of the bigger winners in terms of being used in the majority of batteries in, say, 20 years time.  My own thoughts are that we have no idea what the best state-of-the-art batteries will look like or be made of in 10 years, let alone 20, so it's difficult.  If you take a shorter-term investment timeframe, like 5 years, I think metals like lithium look really good, however I am concerned by an expected rapid supply response to increasing demand, as I've discussed previously.  There are big lithium mines that are currently on C&M just waiting for increased demand to feed into a higher lithium price, and those mines can be fired up in a relatively short space of time, because all of the infrastructure is already in place.  One example is Wodgina, one of the largest known hard rock lithium deposits in the world (they claim it is the largest), owned by Mineral Resources (ASX: MIN) and Albemarle.  Those two via their MARBL Lithium JV are also building two 25ktpa lithium hydroxide modules in Kemerton, WA (in the SW, just north of Bunbury), so they are setting themselves up to be vertically integrated and get the most bang for their bucks from their lithium production.  Another company taking a similar approach is IGO, via their hook-up with Tianqi.  Once in full production, their Kwinana processing plant will be the largest lithium hydroxide-producing operation and the biggest spodumene converter in the world, so IGO are clearly making a BIG bet on lithium.  They started producing from Kwinana last month (August 2021).  Both IGO and MIN have seen their SP more than double over the past 12 months, and there's likely more upside from here, however I'm not entirely convinced that there will be the same level of hype around lithium in 10 years and 20 years from now.  There might well be even more hype, however I think the future of batteries is far from certain, particularly when you look at what the prevailing views were 10 and 20 years ago.

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Nnyck777
3 years ago

Hi Bear77,

Great post. I agree. I have vacillated between being all in and completely out of the lithium ion battery trend. I have been in an out of both ORE and NVX. I am concerned about disruptor technology. I agree copper is pretty clearly here to stay but new tech is constantly being developed. I feel TESLA is the player to watch here for innovation in this space. I loved Canadian Aussies discussion the other week and thought I would take another look at this theme. I have also spent a few hours looking at MNS. MNS seems like a bit of a house of cards with loans being shuffled around and I don't fully understand the business or structure yet. If it isn't obvious it makes me nervous. However, I have read a few good bull case article of late which makes me not want to miss out on this trend altogether. I am usually a long-term investor and this chopping and changing has not served me well. I would love to find some more conviction. Maybe I should buy the next TESLA dip :)

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