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

PARIS, March 16 (Reuters) – French mining group Eramet (ERMT.PA) said on Wednesday it could develop jointly with Suez a recycling facility in France for electric vehicle batteries by 2024.

Eramet, a major producer of nickel and manganese for the steel sector, has focused increasingly on materials for electric vehicles.

In addition to large mine deposits in Indonesia and Argentina, it sees recycling as contributing to its potential to cover 20% of the European Union’s nickel requirements, 25% of the bloc’s lithium needs and 12% of its cobalt demand for EV batteries by 2030.

The joint project would produce black mass, a metal concentrate containing nickel, cobalt, manganese, lithium and graphite that is suitable for hydrometallurgical refining.

Read more at: https://www.reuters.com/technology/eramet-suez-eye-ev-battery-recycling-france-by-2024-2022-03-16/

LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) – An EU-funded certification scheme using blockchain is being developed for rare earths as automakers demand proof that materials used to make magnets for electric vehicles (EVs) are not linked to toxic pollution.

The system will set global standards and give confidence to consumers demanding sustainable products, two of the organisers told Reuters ahead of an official announcement on Tuesday.

The Circular System for Assessing Rare Earth Sustainability or CSyARES is due to be ready in about three years, the Rare Earth Industry Association (REIA) and Dutch supply chain traceability firm Circularise said.

Read more at: Blockchain rare earth scheme to certify sustainable output for EVs | Reuters

Tesla deployed 27% of the world’s battery nickel, despite the fact that overall LFP accounts for more than a quarter of the kWh hours in all of its vehicles sold last year. Tesla still does not sell LFP-powered models in North America.  

Despite selling half the number of BEVs than Tesla, thanks to the absence of LFP in its line-up, Volkswagen deployed more cobalt and on a relative basis more metals across its brands. That’s in part due to high-performance vehicles like the Porsche Taycan and Audi e-tron, some of which come equipped with higher nickel NCM batteries where cobalt can represent up to 20% of the metal mix. 

Read more at: CHARTS: Tesla v Volkswagen v BYD – battery power, lithium, nickel, cobalt use – MINING.COM

Efforts to strengthen Canada’s supply chains for critical minerals were undermined last week when our own government decided not to conduct a national security review into the purchase of a Canadian lithium producer by a Chinese state-owned enterprise.

The decision is bizarre. Lithium, which is on a list of 31 minerals that Ottawa says are critical to Canada’s economy, is imperative to modern manufacturing, including large-scale battery storage needed for clean energy transition and, significantly, batteries for the flourishing electric vehicle (EV) industry.

Now the Zijin Mining Group Ltd is cleared to buy Toronto-based Neo Lithium Corp.

China is establishing global dominance of high-tech manufacturing, including EVs, by having state-owned enterprises acquire foreign intellectual property, technologies and assets. Securing access to critical minerals is essential to that mission.

Read more at: Ottawa looks on as China buys Canadian lithium operations | The Star

In the early days of the oil industry, the U.S. quickly established dominance as the world’s most important producer and consumer of petroleum. But over time, depletion in the U.S. and discoveries abroad caused U.S. dominance of the petroleum industry to fade.

The U.S. received a rare second chance to regain energy independence as a result of the shale oil boom. But the lessons we have learned over the evolution of the oil industry have direct implications as the world transitions to new sources of energy.

Petroleum was the raw material that enabled the growth of the global transportation industry over the past century. But increasingly in the next century, it is lithium that will be the critical commodity. U.S. automakers aspire to have 40% to 50% of new vehicle sales by 2030 be electric vehicles (EVs). This will result in a tremendous increase in lithium consumption

It is estimated that the U.S. alone will need 500,000 metric tons per year of unrefined lithium by 2034 just to power EVs. The U.S. produces just a fraction of that today. The current global production of lithium in 2020 was about 440,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE, contains about 18% of pure lithium), and not all of that is in pure enough form for batteries.

But just as the U.S. eventually ceded its petroleum security to foreign countries, it is in the process of doing the same with lithium. According to the 2021 BP Statistical Review, China has 7.9% of the world’s lithium reserves. The U.S. has 4.0%. (The majority of global lithium reserves are in South America and Australia). Nevertheless, China has become the 3rd largest lithium producer in the world, outproducing the U.S. in 2020 by more than a factor of 15.

This dominance didn’t happen by accident. Over the past decade, China has spent over $60 billion to build its lithium industry. U.S. investments have lagged significantly behind, which has enabled China to build a robust lithium supply chain.

Read more at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2022/01/11/the-us-is-losing-the-lithium-industry-to-china/?sh=48a63da16a15

Talon Metals plans to use technology it hopes will allow it to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and chemically bind it – and thus permanently store it – to rocks found inside its Tamarack project in northern Minnesota. The process, which is still being tested, would effectively let Talon market nickel as carbon neutral, a huge appeal for Musk and Tesla.

Read more at: https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/tesla-signs-deal-for-first-u.s.-nickel-supply-with-talon-metals