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.

Nickel Price Surging As Hype Escalates During LME Week

It’s LME Week and there’s cause for celebration in metal markets. European mining stocks rose to a 4-year high as the nickel price surged more than 5% intraday to a two-year high and rose by the daily limit in Shanghai trading today. Metals used in electronic vehicles, like lithium, cobalt, copper and nickel, are hot right now and a focal point of discussion at the LME gatherings. As Metal Bulletin noted, the 2017 event has seen record attendance.

The annual LME Dinner week kicked off in a positive note, with record numbers gathering for the exchange’s keynote metals seminar on Monday October 30. “We have over 900 people over the day here…which is a record attendance,” London Metal Exchange chief executive officer (CEO) Matthew Chamberlain said.

Despite relatively high inventories, big miners and metal traders are becoming increasingly bullish on nickel’s prospects. According to Bloomberg...

Glencore Plc and Trafigura Group Pte are often at loggerheads, but one thing they agree on: the nickel market will be transformed by the rise of electric cars. Nickel sulphate, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries, will see demand increase 50 percent to 3 million metric tons by 2030, Saad Rahim, chief economist at Trafigura, said in an interview. While other battery metals like cobalt and lithium have more than doubled since the start of last year, nickel prices have been subdued because of large inventories.

"When you look structurally, we should start to get bullish now,” Rahim said.

 

“Are you going to be able to meet that demand when the time comes, given underinvestment in the supply side?”

Glencore, which was devastated by the downturn in nickel, is also optimistic, as are some of the analysts, as Bloomberg notes...

(Glencore) told analysts recently that nickel production would need to increase 1.2 million tons by 2030, equal to more than half of current global output, to keep up with demand from the battery industry. Prices are currently more than double what it costs Glencore to mine the metal. It’s a surprising mood change for a market with a disastrous reputation. Nickel was long a thorn for Glencore, which was saddled with unprofitable operations following its takeover of Xstrata. It sold an Australian nickel mine, which Xstrata bought in 2007 for $2.4 billion, for just $19 million in 2015.

 

“The nickel industry’s been a bit of a dog since about 2007,” Oliver Ramsbottom, a partner at McKinsey & Co. in Tokyo, said by phone.

 

The battery industry could revive the fortunes of miners more than a decade after nickel collapsed from a peak of $51,600 a ton in 2007

Despite the hype, Bloomberg cautions that there are still naysayers highlighting elevated inventories and the potential for supply to ramp-up faster than currently expected.

Still, some analysts are skeptical that the bullish scenarios will play out. Electric cars are still a niche industry and nickel oversupply remains a threat, with current stockpiles four times bigger than since the start of 2012.

 

Indonesia has authorized its largest producer to export more nickel ore. The Philippines has also discussed ending a ban on open-pit mining, raising concerns that supply will spike.

 

“For years, the market has completely dismissed the idea that something positive could happen in nickel,” Ingrid Sternby, senior research analyst at Blenheim Capital Management LLP, said in an interview in London. “With the recent announcements about Indonesia and the Philippines, it’s easy to see why the market is still scary enough for people not to want to be involved…

 

“You can see the tightness ahead in the nickel market, but my concern is that we’re going to see a lot of value destroyed along the way,” said Colin Hamilton, managing director for commodities research at BMO Capital Markets Ltd.

 

“If the miners really believe in the EV growth story, the thing to do would be to keep the nickel in the ground until the deficit arrives.”

When assessing the prospects for nickel, it is really two separate markets, nickel alloyed with iron and nickel sulphate used in batteries. Bloomberg expects the latter to progressively trade at a premium to the former.

About half of global nickel production is in the form of ferronickel or nickel pig iron, which is nickel alloyed with iron, making it suitable for stainless steel. Battery makers, instead, use nickel sulphate, produced by dissolving pure nickel metal in sulphuric acid. One hope is that the pricing of nickel pig iron and the high-grade nickel sulphate will diverge in the coming years, improving the fortunes of miners that can produce battery-quality material.

 

The global nickel market is heading for a deficit once above-ground stockpiles of battery-grade metal are consumed, according to Wood Mackenzie. The question for miners is how quickly the premium for top-quality nickel will emerge.

The nickel alloy versus nickel sulphate certainly adds complexity to analysing nickel. However, while the fundamentals for the latter seem very positive, it makes us slightly nervous when record numbers of participants gather at industry jamborees.

Still, politicians and automakers are increasingly counting on a future of electric cars, attracting traders such as Trafigura.

“Will we see a real breakout in next 12 months? That’s hard to see, but beyond that, structurally this looks to be going up,” Rahim said.

 

As Lithium Booms, Some Analysts Sound Note Of Caution

In “Mad Scramble for Lithium Mines From Congo to Cornwall”, Bloomberg puts some colour on current conditions in the red hot sub-sector.

For evidence of just how hot battery ingredient lithium is right now, look no further than Australia’s AVZ Minerals Ltd. A penny stock until a few months ago, the mining hopeful has surged about 1,300 percent this year. The proposition: recasting a remote, century-old tin mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo as a supplier of lithium needed to power electric cars. While its rise has been dramatic, AVZ isn’t alone in the rush to position for a rechargeable-battery boom.

In the U.K., a company (Cornish Lithium) founded by former investment banker Jeremy Wrathall Cornish Lithium is planning to tap thermal springs in Cornwall, a region more famous for its beach coves.

Cornish beach cove…but have you tried driving to one from London (takes hours).

Other companies are hunting for lithium deposits from Germany to Mali, and even Afghanistan plans to tender exploration permits.

As we explained last month, there is so much interest in lithium – mainly due to its application in electric vehicles and energy storage - that the Lithium and Battery tech ETF has seen record volumes and the LME is reportedly considering the introduction of a lithium (carbonate) contract.

While everybody has been fretting about the supply side, some analysts are starting to question whether the supply side will expand too fast in the coming years, as Bloomberg explains.

"You’ve got a scramble for deposits, a demand side that looks very impressive, the question is always around the supply," said Paul Gait, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein Ltd. in London. In the rush to meet demand there is a risk too many mines will be developed and too much metal supplied, Gait said.

 

"When the tide goes out, those that do not have good geology will always be found wanting."

Bloomberg notes that uncertainty about global production growth has encouraged some users to lock-in future supplies of the metal.

However, while production might struggle at first to catch up with demand growth, lithium isn’t really rare compared with other battery metals like cobalt and graphite, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Eily Ong. And mining history is full of cautionary examples of booms that ended in bust when the rush to boost supply overshot demand growth. Iron ore is a recent example, after a boom in Chinese steel production led to a push to build new mines. That turned out poorly for many of the iron ore upstarts that either struggled to build projects or brought mines into production just in time for prices to drop. Global lithium production increased by about 12 percent last year, with batteries accounting for about 39 percent of consumption, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. While Australia was the largest producer in 2016, its identified resources are dwarfed by Argentina and Bolivia, each with about 9 million tons and Chile, with more than 7.5 million tons.

 “This is not a metal that’s going to be exempt from the normal laws of commodity economics,” said Bernstein’s Gait. “Sooner or later we will over supply.”

Bloomberg cites a report from Liberum Capital, the London-based brokerage…

There are about a dozen projects being built or expanded around the world, according to Liberum Capital Ltd. Those, plus a handful of others seen as likely to proceed, could help nearly triple global lithium supply by 2025, but still fall short of expected demand. Beyond that, there’s a further eight projects that haven’t secured financing yet, but could possibly push the market into a surplus by 2025, Liberum said in a report. Lithium carbonate prices have more than doubled in the past two years, according to data from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.

 

“With prices where they are right now, there’s not a potential lithium mine in the world that doesn’t make an extraordinary amount of money,” said Liberum analyst Richard Knights. “There’s every incentive to bring supply on.”

…and a report from BMO Capital Markets published earlier this week.

Current shortfalls may abate by 2019-20 based on the strong supply response, BMO Capital Markets analyst Joel Jackson said in a note dated Oct. 24. However, uncertainty about assumptions including electric-vehicle penetration, battery technology and lithium supply growth makes the market balance difficult to predict, he said.

The Bloomberg article circles back to AVZ Minerals.

In Congo, AVZ must still prove that extracting the lithium is economically viable. It will also need to rehabilitate an old power station to reach production and build over 600 kilometers (372 miles) of roads to connect the mine with the regional capital of Lubumbashi for exports. Still the project is attracting investors, including China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Co., one of the world’s biggest refiners of cobalt. "The biggest companies in China are just queuing up," AVZ Chairman Klaus Eckhof said from Dubai.

"They all want to be part of it because they don’t have a pipeline of supply, my phone keeps ringing."

The 1800s Homemade Battery You May Need During A Collapse

Ever wonder how our 19^th-century ancestors maintained a strangely effective telegraph and telephone grid long before the days of highly efficient batteries? The short answer is that they did it through brute force and ingenuity. The long answer is something far more glorious, and even something the modern homesteader could draw inspiration from to create power for recharging small electronics or – in the event of a crisis — running low-power objects.

Now, don’t get me wrong: There is absolutely zero rational reason to recreate these old 19^th-century batteries unless you have absolutely no other choice. You are best to stockpile modern-day batteries, solar chargers and survival gadgets, but there may come a time when any sort of cobbled-together battery is the best choice you can make.

Image source: W1TP.com

Called a “crow’s foot” battery (or gravity battery) for the shape of its zinc electrodes, these batteries had a star-shaped copper base connected to a wire which created the positive voltage. The whole thing was installed in a large glass jar, full of copper sulfate as an electrolyte. Now so far, a clever prepper or survivalist should be able to scrounge the copper and zinc to make the electrodes, and the glass jar to put them in. But the copper sulfate solution may be harder to come by, although under the name “blue vitriol” it is sometimes sold to provide copper nutrients in animal feed and as an algae killer for pools. You may be able to scavenge that, or if you have access to about 6 volts DC, and sulfuric acid, there are means to make it through electrolysis. Clearly if you expect to survive through a societal collapse, it may be a rather good idea to either have a chemical stockpile before the government puts common chemicals on a watchlist, or make good friends with a chemist who knows how to make things from scratch.

Get Free Backup Electricity — That Works Even During Blackouts!

The battery, with the parts separated. Image source: W1TP.com

But let us assume then that you’ve managed to come up with the ingredients for our ancestral battery. Just what can you do with it?

The early telegraph grid used batteries arranged in parallel, using a great many of these roughly 1.5- to 2-volt batteries to maintain the circuit. This array of batteries could be built on to provide sufficient amperage to transmit the telegraph, and later telephone signal over such distances as may be required. They were bulky, leaked electrolyte as they were discharged, and in general were somewhat messy. They were usually placed on a wooden table, with glass battery rest insulators underneath to provide insulation for the battery and also to catch some of the spilled electrolyte. All told, these batteries were crude, yet highly effective.

Coming back to the modern era, or an unpleasant future where you want to charge your small electronics or have some sort of power system for communication, creating these crude 19th century marvels will require dedication. But just what can you do with them?

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Image source: MorseTelegraphClub.org

It really depends on how many you can make. Each battery is fairly low voltage and low amperage, and their output depends on the freshness and quality of the electrolyte as well as the quality of the electrodes. You will need a good mulitmeter to check voltage and amperage for each battery you manage to assemble. Personally, I think the primary value of these batteries is less in being able to charge up your pre-collapse iPhone (solar chargers do it much, much better) and more to run some sort of communication array.

Crazy Survival Gadget Makes Every Window A Powerful Solar Charger

If you get enough batteries going, you can connect them in series to run a low-power radio, or you can run them in parallel for your own telegraph or landline telephone system. They also have value in keeping low-draw LED lights on or as a supplemental source of power for other systems. Because of their large size, these batteries have a long life span, and if you are skilled enough to make them, you can salvage many valuable materials from them at the end of their life cycle to aid in making another battery.

These things are great if you have access to copper, zinc and sulfuric acid, and from there, the output of these batteries is limited only by your resources. I think they work best for providing low-voltage application in parallel, which could be used to maintain small electronics and rechargeable battery packs in a pinch, but I would focus most on using them to make your own communication grid as they were once intended.

The stark reality is that batteries are messy, and nothing can replace a stockpile of solar-powered products — or even a solar-powered generator. Still, it is good to be prepared for all circumstances. We have become culturally dependent on a myriad of electrical devices, and some of those devices can be crucial for communication during a collapse. If you have the ability to add obsolete skills to your skillset, then learning the batteries of the past may become a literal lifesaver.

What advice would you add? Share it in the section below: 

Are You Prepared For A Downed Grid? Read More Here.

Justice! Cop Goes to Prison for Kicking Handcuffed Man Who Called Him ‘Stormtrooper’

Mechanicsburg, PA — We’re just now learning the verdict in the case of ex-Pennsylvania state trooper Ryan Luckenbaugh (38) who kicked a man in the face who had already been beaten, teased, arrested, and handcuffed. Luckenbaugh kicked Christopher Siennick, who was handcuffed and seated on the sidewalk for flipping the bird to the pair of troopers.

As The Free Thought Project reported, Luckenbaugh was convicted in February of the brutal attack. This week, he learned his fate as the judge sentenced the former state trooper for his crimes. Luckenbaugh will serve between 9 and 22 months in county prison for kicking the helpless man. Fellow troopers turned in their colleague after they realized he’d crossed the line. Siennick had called the troopers a bunch of “Storm Troopers” and it was apparently enough to set off the law enforcement officer who snapped and kicked him.

At the sentencing, Luckenbaugh pleaded for leniency saying the whole ordeal and a related lawsuit had nearly bankrupted him. Pleading for leniency, he said not only did he lose his job as a state trooper but he said he’s now forced to wash dishes for a living and going to prison would be an unnecessary hardship on his family. Judge Scott A. Evans responded to Luckenbaugh’s pleas for leniency by saying, “I didn’t put them here today,” he said indicating the trooper’s actions that day resulted in the loss of his job and his prison sentence.

According to Penn Live, “Luckenbaugh issued a ‘very sincere, heartfelt’ apology to Siennick “for failing to serve him in a respectful, dignified manner."” Siennick passed when he was given an opportunity to speak his peace and address the former state trooper directly.

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However, Senior Deputy District Attorney Stephen Zawisky had a lot to say about Luckenbaugh’s actions. He said it wasn’t the kick to the face which was the most damaging. He said it was the fact, proven in court, that Luckenbaugh lied about the incident on his police report, an action which has undermined the overall trust in the justice system. The lie led to Siennick being unjustly jailed for 14 days.

“This case is not about a kick. It’s about a lie…(which)…results in distrust of law enforcement in general,” he said. “That destroys the criminal justice system. Courts rely on honesty to work,” he added. Defense attorneys will no doubt be looking at Luckenbaugh’s prior cases to determine if proving he lied in those cases will help to free their clients.

Zawisky addressed the media and made the following statement. “It’s bittersweet, the verdict,” he said. “It certainly is going to make my job…and the police officer out on the street, a lot harder…but it was a just verdict,” he concluded. Luckenbaugh seemed contrite when he made the following statement to the court. “I stand here as a much more humble, simple man,” he said. “I acknowledge my faults and failures,” he added accepting responsibility for his actions.

Judge Evans, not wanting to neglect an excellent opportunity to praise law enforcement apparently, addressed Luckenbaugh’s fellow officers and extended his gratitude for coming forward to turn in one of their own. “Please take back to the Harrisburg Police Department not only my thanks, but my acknowledgment that the position they took in this case is commendable,” the judge said. “That took a great deal of fortitude.” Luckenbaugh begins serving his sentence on May 16.

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Cop Finally Charged After He’s Caught on Video TWICE Kicking People on Their Knees

A violent cop is off the streets (for now) after being caught on video kicking a surrendering man, who was not resisting at all, in the face. To illustrate just how terrible police accountability actually is in this country — this was the officer’s second time being caught on video kicking a non-violent person.

According to the NY Daily News, “An ex-Minneapolis cop was charged in a brutal kicking assault that left a 35-year-old man with a traumatic brain injury, and a video of the assault contradicts his narrative of what happened.” Christopher Reiter, while responding to a domestic assault call, kicked Mohammed Osman in the head, breaking his nose and reportedly causing traumatic brain injury.

Karate kicks and offensive strikes using any part of the foot or lower leg to attack an opponent are sometimes justified in the line of duty to subdue an unruly suspect. But in Osman’s case, Officer Reiter cannot say the suspect was fighting with him or even attempting to flee. Osman, upon seeing a gaggle of cops headed his way, with guns drawn, simply dropped to the ground on all fours, on his hands and knees, and waited for the officers to arrest him. It was in that very vulnerable, indefensible position, that officer Reiter chose to deliver a knockout Karate kick to the domestic violence suspect’s head.

The Star Tribune reports Reiter has been charged with a 3rd-degree felony for kicking the downed man. While the attack happened May 30th, 2016, it wasn’t until March 15th of 2017 that the officer was charged with the heinous crime.

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Fellow officer Josh Domek was also on the scene. “In reports they filed after the incident, Domek wrote that as he approached Osman, he ordered him to get on the ground. Domek then wrote that he moved toward Osman ‘In an effort to push him to the ground to get him in handcuff position. While doing so, I felt resistance from the male, causing me to believe that he was going to attempt to fight as he had just been involved in a violent assault,"” writes the Tribune.

While Domek made no mention of his partner’s assault on the suspect, Reiter did admit to kicking the man. According to the Tribune, “In his report, Reiter said when the other officers ordered Osman out of the vehicle, ‘I could see [Osman] pushing off the ground…I made a split second decision and kicked [Osman] in the face one time with the top flat part of my boot.’ The video does not show Osman either resisting or pushing off the ground. He was lying.

Oddly enough, it wasn’t this kick that cost him his job. Reiter was fired in January of 2017, on an unspecified matter.

County Attorney Mike Freeman charged Reiter, not Domek, and said, “in this case, a kick to the face is a use of deadly force, and simply not justified.” For the county attorney to call the attack a use of “deadly force” is for him to realize how brutal such a cowardly and utterly indefensible act it was to kick his downed suspect.

Hopefully, the punishment fits the crime and a jury will convict the police officer of the felonious attack on his fellow citizen. Potentially, a conviction in the case could serve as a much-needed social justice reform of modern-day policing in the U.S. Until then, young police officers should familiarize themselves with Rodney King’s case, know that it’s not okay to kick someone, even someone suspected of beating up his significant other, just because you feel like it. That’s the reason why we have a justice system in the first place, to punish evil doers like Reiter.

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