A Blog for Browsing Mining, Mineral Processing, and Metals Info

‘WATER WAR’

A global boom in demand for #Lithium has set off a scramble in #Chile, which is home to nearly 50 percent of the world’s reserves of the metal.

Local indigenous groups, #SQM and #Albemarle, regional #Copper miners and newcomers to the region are all competing for water.

“What we have is a water war in the salt pan. There’s a huge crush on water and nowhere to get it from,” said Alonso Barros, an attorney with the Atacama Desert Foundation, an NGO that works with indigenous groups in the region.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-lithium-water/in-chilean-desert-global-thirst-for-lithium-is-fueling-a-water-war-idUSKCN1LE16T

There were two schemes for scrubbing #CO2 out of the atmosphere and turning it into fuel. In July 2008 it was NaOH scrubbers and exotic catalysts; in March 2012, it was ionic amine fluids and a formic-acid fuel cell. Both were tricky to describe, energy intense, and costly; years later, neither is yet ready for prime time. Then this June, tales of a refreshingly simple new direct air capture (DAC) CO2-to-fuel scheme that’s already running in a pilot plant.

#Canadian energy company #Carbon Engineering—founded by #Harvard professor David Keith with venture capital funding from #BillGates—has been scrubbing CO2 for three years now in Squamish, #British #Columbia, for conversion to liquid fuels. An obvious secret to CE’s success is its reliance on existing industrial technology. The scrubbing operation is essentially a power-station cooling tower grafted onto a pulp/paper mill, augmented with tweaks from the water-treatment and gold-extraction industries. The fuel conversion involves universally understood Fischer-Tropsch gas-to-liquid tech.

Read more at: https://www.motortrend.com/news/direct-air-capture-co2-to-gasoline-technologue/

 

Aim-listed #African Battery Metals (ABM) has decided to relinquish its interests in #Gold and #Iron-ore projects in Sierra Leone to focus on its newly acquired #Nickel and #Cobalt projects in Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire. The company believes there are attractive long-term market fundamentals for battery metals.

Read more at: http://www.miningweekly.com/article/african-battery-metals-shifts-focus-to-nickelcobalt-relinquishes-sierra-leone-projects-2018-08-30

#China’s largest #Lithium battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (CATL) plans to begin producing in 2019 next-generation #Nickel-rich batteries, which are cheaper to make and have longer life-spans, according to an internal company presentation and a company source.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-catl-battery/chinas-catl-to-start-producing-next-gen-low-cobalt-batteries-in-2019-source-idUSKBN1L213C

The rising cost of #Cobalt is pushing companies to find ways to reduce reliance on the mineral. However, getting to a point where batteries do not need a lot of cobalt is between five and 10 years away, so the window for upside is there. Mining companies certainly seem to think so, anyway: miners in #Europe, North #America, and #Asia are starting to chip away at the hegemony of #Chinese and Congolese cobalt. While #China leads the world as a refined cobalt producer, the DMC supplies 60% of global cobalt.

Read more at: https://www.fool.ca/2018/07/29/cobalt-stocks-are-going-to-soar-are-you-ready-for-the-blue-gold-rush/

Locking in supplies of key battery raw materials #Lithium and #Cobalt has been a headache for electric car manufacturers, but these days it’s the supply of #Nickel and #Graphite that’s keeping them up at night.

Investors and miners are already alert to the risk that nickel supply will fall short of demand. Research commissioned by commodities trading giant Glencore Plc indicates that global demand for nickel in electric vehicles will hit nearly 1 million metric tons by 2030. That amounts to 55 percent of the metal produced globally in 2017. Prices look set to double by 2022, but producers still aren’t likely to keep up with demand from the automotive industry, according to Wood Mackenzie.

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-24/nickel-is-new-headache-for-automakers-as-cobalt-fears-abate

#China’s grip on rare-earths supply is so strong that the #US joined with other nations earlier this decade in a World Trade Organization case to force the nation to export more of the materials, not less, after prices spiked amid a global shortage. The WTO ruled in favor of the U.S., while prices eventually slumped as manufacturers turned to alternatives.

Imposing duties will “bring home to the American public the reality of how much of what they use in everyday life contains these technology metals,” Jack Lifton, the Michigan-based founder of rare earth consulting service Technology Metals Research LLC, said by phone. “The Chinese mine the rare-earths, they separate them, they refine them. This is the long-term trend and a 10 percent tariff will not do anything to stir any domestic production in the U.S.”

Read more at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-11/trump-s-tariff-list-targets-high-tech-minerals-that-u-s-needs

#Nickel, #Manganese and #Cobalt (NMC) batteries are favoured by most of the world’s automakers and the industry is hard at work to reduce pricey cobalt loadings  in favour of greater use of nickel.

Light passenger EVs using batteries with a 8:1:1 NMC ratio, which should become widely deployed over the next decade, require roughly 52 kilograms of nickel. Last year 3 million battery electric vehicles were sold. By 2025 battery electric vehicles could reach nearly 15 million unit sales with plug-in hybrids accounting for an additional 10 million vehicles.

#Chinese battery maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Ltd (#CATL) will build its first production site in #Europe in #Germany, agreeing a major contract with #BMW to supply #Lithium-ion batteries.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bmw-catl-batteries/chinas-catl-to-build-its-first-european-ev-battery-factory-in-germany-idUSKBN1JZ11Y

Chemical giant BASF has acquired Advanc3D and Setup Performance, two companies focused on making SLS powders.

Source: BASF Expands 3D Printing Division with Two Acquisitions