Are Electric Cars As Clean As They Seem?

Authored by Zainab Calcuttawala via OilPrice.com,

Tesla’s unveiling of its mass market Model 3 sparked a global interest in making electric vehicles the next big thing in automobile manufacturing. But can the category’s green agenda keep up with its metal and recycling needs?

The concept of bunking the traditional engine for a non-gas guzzling counterpart has been here for decades, but creating an ecosystem for battery charging and bringing vehicle costs down was a challenge for decades.

The sheer force of Elon Musk’s vision is building the infrastructure needed to sustain millions of electric cars in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere. Most major manufacturers have joined the enthusiasm to ditch old-school engines to construct the international fleet of tomorrow.

But this new step doesn’t solve all of the world’s environmental pollution issues related to transportation. The extraction of rare earth minerals, the disposal of lithium-ion batteries, and the sourcing of the energy that powers charging stations are all issues that plague the future of the green argument for electric vehicles.

As Wired notes in an article from last year, electric vehicles are most efficient when they’re light. That way, they need minimal energy to transport their valuable cargo. In search for a light material to carry and conduct batteries, scientists discovered the power of lithium - a highly conductive metal that adds little burden to the vehicle’s frame.

Discovered in 1817, this key ingredient is mostly extracted from deposits in the United States, Chile, and Australia. The most cost-effective method for lithium processing involves pumping salt-rich waters into special evaporation ponds that eventually produce lithium chloride. Then, a special plant adds sodium carbonate to turn the former lithium chloride into lithium carbonate, a white powder.

The whole process requires power, which more often than not is sourced from fossil fuels, not renewables or nuclear energy. This is similar to the issue electric-car charging stations face when evaluating the efficiency of their establishments in eliminating pollution from the environment. In most parts of the U.S., if the stations source their electricity from the grid, they’re just increasing demand for fossil fuels since coal, oil, and natural gas power the majority of the country anyway. Some states, like California, are obvious exceptions because of their heavy investments in green energy, but for the most part, the pattern holds.

Moreover, lithium batteries need proper facilities in order to be recycled once they reach the end of their lifespan. Tesla’s Gigafactory, which promises to produce the electric car manufacturer’s batteries in an environmentally conscious way, says it will lead a program to recycle the hardware responsibly.

“The challenge that we have with recycling these rare metals is enormous,” author David Abraham, from The Elements of Power, says, “because the products that we have now use metals in such a small quantity that it’s not economic to recycle.”

But larger batteries should make a more convincing argument to start responsive recycling programs. Reusing the metal resources in these devices will lower the emissions and mining of rare minerals from the planet, paving the way for a healthier environmental report for future electric vehicles.

“The more batteries that are out there, in various devices, the more interest there is in figuring out how to recycle them or to recapture rare earth metals [from them],” electric car advocate Chelsea Sexton told Wired.

It truly has become a demand issue. As electric cars become increasingly popular, more services will be needed to deal with their production and disposal, accelerating the development of the vehicle category’s branding as the technology of tomorrow’s green Earth.

Meanwhile, In Lithium Markets...

The last week - since China unveiled its hypocritical plan to ban petrol cars - has seen record inflows into Lithium-related funds.

Trading volumes have exploded higher and prices for LIT (the Lithium and Battery Tech ETF) are back to near 6 year highs.

h/t @EricBalchunas

Never one to miss out on an opportunity, LME is reportedly looking to introduce a contract for lithium (via Mining-Journal.com)...

While details were scarce on the ground, SP Angel expects that the contract would be tied to lithium carbonate concentrate, a major traded raw material for lithium processors and battery producers, and also possibly a contract for lithium hydroxide, a value added product preferred by some downstream consumers.

Both would likely have strict quality controls which might add to costs, SP Angel said.

When contacted by Mining Journal for comment on the possible contracts, a spokesperson for the LME said it had been approached by industry users regarding the introduction of an LME lithium contract and it was looking into this.

“We believe in developing products in conjunction with participants to meet the real needs of the market, and are committed to assessing and enhancing our offering as effectively as possible,” the spokesperson said.

Lithium prices have been on an uptrend recently thanks to increased demand for lithium-ion batteries.

European lithium carbonate/lithium hydroxide supplier Novo Lítio (AU:NLI), formerly Dakota Minerals, says demand forecasts for lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) range from 550,000-600,000 tonnes per annum by 2025, up from 200,000tpa in 2016, mostly driven by an increase in lithium-ion battery uptake for storage solutions and electric vehicles.

To meet this demand, according to a May report by Roskill, an additional 370,000tpa of LCE production capacity is scheduled to come online by 2020, although it said not all is likely to be realised.

SP Angel said it welcomes the introduction of such contracts, which would help provide the industry a standardised benchmark to use, as opposed to the various short-term, long-term and region-specific prices currently quoted on the market.

It gave the example of lithium carbonate prices fluctuating between US$11-16 per kilogramme for large biannual contracts delivered into the US, while spot delivered into China was quoted at $17.4-22.8/kg in July/August, which it said highlights “the discrepancy in prices for differing contracts and locations.

“We hope the LME can get on and establish this contract ASAP to help better manage and stabilise the market,” it said.

As Climateer Investing notes, to date the only way to participate for non-industry punters has been through mining company equities, almost none of which offer pure-play exposure. Should exposure be what one desires. Our preference was cobalt for which the LME does have a futures contract and whose underlying supply vs. lithium is a bit tighter. As usual though, once you think you"ve found the key they go and change the lock, in this case after the 150% move higher the battery producers are getting very creative with ways to reduce per-battery use of cobalt.

Innovation and substitution: the commodity speculators enemy.

NASA heliophysicist admits they have already sprayed us with a mood-stabilizing drug

(INTELLIHUB) — If you believe that governments of this world wouldn’t use the general populace you as a lab rats, think again.

NASA heliophysicist Douglas E. Rowland admitted over a phone call in 2016 that the U.S. government has, in fact, injected “lithium” into the upper atmosphere using “chemtrails.”

And if that’s not enough, Rowland admitted that lithium” was also sprayed onto the population in experiments conducted in the 1970’s and the 1990’s by NASA.”

Lithium is a “chemical element” with the “atomic number of 3.” It’s a rather “soft, silver-white metal belonging to the alkali group” and is a “mood stabilizing drug,” by definition.

We are doing it to understand “how the wind in the upper atmosphere moves,” he said, before going on to talk about lithium trails.

You can learn all about chemtrails and more in my documentary film SHADE.

Shepard Ambellas is an opinion journalist and the founder and editor-in-chief of Intellihub News & Politics (Intellihub.com). Shepard is also known for producing Shade: The Motion Picture (2013) and appearing on Travel Channel’s America Declassified (2013). Shepard is a regular contributor to Infowars. Read more from Shep’s World. Get the Podcast. Follow Shep on Facebook and Twitter.

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How investors can profit from the growing Lithium boom

As Tesla fires up its $5-billion (USD) battery gigafactory to mass produce lithium-ion batteries in a historical turning point, lithium prices are set to explode, there has never been a better year to be a lithium company. 

Tesla began mass production of lithium-ion batteries in the first week of January 2017, and by the end of the year, it will have led to a doubling of global battery production capacity. By 2018, Tesla predicts it will churn out 35 gigawatts of batteries per year. It’s a massive amount that surpasses more than what the rest of the world combined produces.

To put it more succinctly, Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory alone will lead to a doubling of global battery production capacity next year already—and with such limited supply availability, it means a bull run for lithium. If lithium grows at its expected rate of 16 percent annually, it will be the fastest-growing commodity of the century–and junior lithium companies may turn out to be the fastest-growing companies of the century.

Lithium X Energy Corp. (TSX.V: LIX) (OTCQB: LIXXF) is a small-cap lithium company with a large resource (> 1 million tonness LCE) and a dream team that has stormed the new supply scene in a way that would have been unthinkable just a couple of years ago.

Not only does the company have a world-class lithium resource in one of the sweetest lithium spots in the world, but it also has a world-class technical and financial team with a strategic vision that has the potential to turn this into a billion-dollar company.

Here’s why:

#1 Flawless Sector Fundamentals

Lithium stocks continue to rise, and analysts view 2017 as the strongest lithium rise yet because of Tesla’s Model 3 demand. The demand is not even in question: Tesla’s already got some 370,000 reservations and is looking to deliver 100,000 before the end of the year. It’s more a question of supply meeting demand at this point.

Lux Research, a leading independent research, and advisory firm, believes the electric vehicle market will grow to $10 billion within the next four years, while Navigant Research forecasts sales of electric vehicles to increase from 2.6 million in 2015 to over 6 million in 2024.

Last month saw the highest number of EV sales in the U.S.—ever, with sales up 37 percent in 2016 from the previous year. The consensus is that the startup of Tesla’s battery gigafactory will boost that sales growth further and faster.

In the meantime, Tesla isn’t alone—it’s got competitors, and the battery gigafactory scene is heating up quickly. Those competitors need lithium, too.

Demand is set to soar. According to Deutsche Bank, demand for lithium will rise from 209,000 tonnes in 2016 to 534,000 tonnes in 2025.

#2 Prime Lithium Land

When we talk about lithium, we aren’t talking about very many prime locations. More than 70 percent of the world’s known lithium reserves are in the ‘lithium triangle’ of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile. In the U.S., not only is Nevada ground zero for the American lithium boom, but it’s also host to the only lithium mine in the United States—and Lithium X has prime projects in both places.

LIX has a market capitalization of $110 million (USD), but its lithium properties tell a story with a potentially much higher price tag. Other lithium companies operating in the ‘lithium triangle’ have markets caps ranging from $15 million (USD) to $1 billion (USD).

The company is developing its 8,156 hectare Sal de Los Angeles project, situated in the prolific ‘lithium Triangle’ in Salta Province, Argentina. LIX owns the right to mine lithium on 32 claims here, nearby major miner FMC Corp’s Fenix deposit at Salar de Hombre Muerto—one of the biggest lithium operations in the world. Here, Lithium X and its predecessors have already invested some $20 million (USD). And so far, resource estimates confirm the significance of the deposit.

More importantly, Lithium X is also the largest land holder in Nevada’s Clayton Valley, the only producing lithium area in the entire United States. The company has over 15,000 acres in Clayton Valley, adjacent to Albermarle’s Silver Peak mine, the only American lithium producer right now, and about three hours from Tesla’s gigafactory, where flipping the on switch has just created the start of a market frenzy.

#3 Best Operational Team in the World

Though lithium is the hottest commodity of our time, lithium companies—in their purest form—are actually rare. There are only a small number of lithium mining companies on the TSX.V compared to the enormous number of gold companies listed.

What this means from an investor’s viewpoint is that talent is everything with this commodity, and real talent is hard to come by because few have the raw lithium industry executive experience necessary to develop this commodity in a sudden demand surge atmosphere.

It also means that there is a heated battle on to steal the best lithium executives because everyone knows this is where the winners and losers will be determined on this playing field.

It’s also what makes Lithium X stand out. A brief look at the executive set-up here and it all becomes clear: We’ve got people, projects and capital, the three pillars of the mining business and the key to identifying the most promising early-stage mining opportunities.

• Eduardo Morales leads the operating team and has 36 years of experience, former CEO of Rockwood Litio Ltd. And former President of Rockwood Lithium Latin America, who developed Salar de Atacama from grass roots all the way up to a world leader in the production of battery grade lithium carbonate. Thanks to Morales leadership, Rockwood was sold to Albermarle Corporation in 2014 for $6.2 billion (USD).

• Paul Matysek, Lithium X’s executive chairman, is a geochemist and geologist and also a corporate entrepreneur. He’s built up and sold four companies in the past 10 years for over $2.3 billion (USD)—and that includes lithium. 

Brian Paes-Braga, founder and CEO of Lithium X, is a visionary whose touch has so far turned pretty much everything to gold.

• It also helps immensely that equity financing and corporate structuring are the purview of Fiore Advisory, led by Frank Giustra, a Canadian business mogul who really needs no introduction and whose mining prowess is legendary. Giustra’s reputation for financing high-level, successful natural resource deals means capital follows him around automatically. In fact, the industry calls it the “Giustra Premium”. This is where we see the ‘smart money’ getting into lithium at the right time.

And there’s no question about commitment, with roughly 20% insider ownership. They won’t settle for anything short of another big success.

Indeed, from their perspective, success is imminent. The company is advancing full speed ahead and looking to convert resources into reserves at a fast pace. In Argentina, construction on a 2,500-tonne pilot ponding facility should be permitted within the next 6 months, or sooner, in a JV agreement, and the contractor for this project is ready to mobilize. This will be a major step towards full-scale lithium production.

The LIX dream team has extensive experience and demonstrated success in Argentina, and just as importantly, the capacity to raise money. And in the emerging lithium boom, those who advance fastest in the race to production will be rewarded handsomely. LIX is working on its feasibility study, which is the last technical step to production–where investment turns into profit.

With Tesla already fired up and the hunger for lithium-ion batteries more voracious than ever before, the race to new lithium production is on, and it will be the best and brightest executive team that win when the dust on this energy revolution settles.

Elon Musk has already said Tesla “needs to absorb the entire world’s lithium production” adding that he, “will seek American lithium sources first. ” With Tesla already inking early stage supply agreements in the Clayton Valley region already… the time to move on this opportunity is now.

We fully expect Lithium X (TSX.V: LIX) (OTCQB: LIXXF)—whose ambition is to become a billion-dollar company—to emerge on the top when that happens. 

By James Burgess of

By James Burgess of Oilprice.com



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10 Energy Surprises In 2017

Submitted by Peter Tertzakian via OilPrice.com,

There’s less than two weeks left before the 2016 calendar gets tossed. So for the pundit community it’s time to publish the obligatory list of, “What to Watch For in in the New Year”.

It’s pointless to list the obvious. For oil and gas, pundits know that things like OPEC compliance, U.S. rig counts, pipeline angst, and Chinese consumption are on a long list of standard items that are obligatory to parse from our cluttered news feeds.

But what are the nascent items that could lead to unforgiving surprises? “When everyone looks to the right, it’s time to look left,” is an adage I always go by. So for 2017 here is a 10-item listicle that won’t be in the mainstream, but may be worthy of the left shoulder.

1. Sales of the Chevy Bolt – GM’s mass market, pure battery electric vehicle made its debut late this year. Reviews have been positive. Early sales figures in ‘17 will be a litmus test for the potential displacement of pistons, valves and gears – and also whether the long-term outlook for crude oil is acid or base.

2. Growth in African Energy Demand – If you build it they will come: Top line energy consumption on the continent is growing by about 2% per annum as infrastructure spending multiplies. A growing middle class is buying wheels and appliances. We’ve seen this movie before. The billion people living in the sub-Sahara are embracing joules generated by oil and gas in greater quantities than any other primary source (Figure 1). Is Africa the new China-and-India?

(Click to enlarge)

3. Fracking Goes Viral – Multi-stage hydraulic fracturing as applied to horizontal wells has been the hottest oil and gas innovation in 100 years. Technology genies never stay in a bottle, so proliferation beyond the U.S. and Canada is inevitable. Start counting rigs in places like Argentina, Russia and Saudi Arabia; they are trying to put the genie to work too.

4. Will Standing Rock Start Walking? – Pipeline protesters in North Dakota demonstrated their ability to block construction of the Dakota Access oil pipeline. With environmental groups losing influence at the high altitude of the White House, the ground-level Standing Rock playbook could spread to other US oil and gas fields. And it’s not so cold in the Southern States.

5. Escalating Oilfield Service Costs – Oil producers have been smug about how they have cut their costs by 20 to 30% over the past two years. But much of that has been accomplished by crippling the margins of the oilfield service sector. Rising rig counts are already germinating the first hints of oilfield inflation. If costs escalate again, $60/B may not be the new $90 (see past blog “$60 is in Style…For Now”).

6. The Next Boomtown – Alberta has a history of creating resource boomtowns. Drumheller was the province’s coal capital 100 years ago. Black Diamond and Turner Valley kicked off the oil boom. Medicine Hat made history with shallow gas. And of course Fort Mac is synonymous with oil sands. Next up? Watch Grande Prairie, ground zero for the next wave of oil and gas extraction.

7. Lithium, Cobalt and Graphite Prices – Lithium-ion batteries continue to fall in price and increase in utility. That’s why we’re scaling up from watch batteries, to iPhones, to electric vehicles, to home storage units and beyond. But key battery ingredients are lithium, cobalt and graphite. Commodity prices are likely to rise. All energy systems trace their baggage back to natural resource extraction; just ask anyone in the fossil fuel business.

8. Follow the Money – Oil prices should firm up into 2017, leading to a modest rise in global upstream investment. But where will the money go? Hang the theoretical cost curves. Capital allocations by leading oil companies will be a real-time test of which jurisdictions, and which methods of oil extraction are economic at oil prices above $55/B.

9. Natural Gas Market Access – In Canada, oil pipelines (or the lack thereof) have dominated talk of “market access.” But natural gas reserves are more prolific than oil in Western Canada, and of higher potential value if transportation access and costs improve. West Coast LNG terminals won’t be harbouring tankers anytime soon. Following tolling deals on pipes like the TransCanada Mainline are going to be more meaningful in the near term.

10. Nuclear Fusion – The running joke for 60 years is that nuclear fusion for unlimited power generation is always 20 years away from reality. Time lines are still long, but technological advancements and a recent shift to focus on smaller scale, faster development could cut REM-sleep dreaming to five-year increments. Companies like Lockheed Martin think they’re not far from creating a compact sun on our planet.

Next year, 2017, will be no less remarkable than the calendar we are about to close. Whatever energy system your business fancies, fossil fuels or renewables, nobody should be in denial about how disruptive change can surprise the wisest of us all, whichever way we look.