The rechargeable batteries that power common items like e-bikes, scooters and electric cars can pose a dangerous new threat to firefighters. They burn hotter and longer — and many fire departments may be unprepared to tackle them.
In June, four people were killed and two others seriously injured after a lithium-ion battery malfunctioned and sparked a fire in a first-floor e-bike shop in New York. Fire officials say the blaze quickly spread to apartments above the shop.
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/
Australia might find itself on a political and economic tightrope as China looks to diversify its options for the new oil of our times.
Iran’s recent unearthing of a vast lithium deposit – potentially the world’s second largest – has sent shockwaves through the global lithium competition landscape. Amid the shifting currents of these developments, two key players stand out: China and Australia.
China is the world’s largest importer and processor of lithium, as well as a major lithium battery manufacturer. Australia serves as the primary source of lithium for China’s production. The strategic battle for control of lithium supply chains now holds centre stage in global geopolitical competition, mirroring the oil disputes of past decades.
Piedmont Lithium on Tuesday drew skepticism and anger at a key meeting with local North Carolina officials about its plans for a lithium mine that would supply the electric vehicle battery metal to Tesla.
The open-pit mine, if approved, would be one of the few lithium-producing sites in the United States, but there has been little progress in gaining approvals for the project, which the company has been trying to get up and running for more than two years.
The lithium industry needs US$116 billion of investment to achieve the 5.7x ramp-up in production needed for 2030 decarbonisation goals, and prices may remain ‘tight’ in the coming years.
That investment figure is in a ‘high case scenario’ in analysis by Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, which is based on EV production and penetration rates hitting the 2030 targets set by policymakers around the globe.
Pilbara Minerals has catapulted itself into the position of holding one of the world’s largest lithium deposits after upgrading estimates for its West Australian mines. The upgrade comes as global demand for lithium – a key component of the batteries in electric cars – continued to rise.
The ASX-listed lithium player’s chief executive Dale Henderson said the miner’s estimate for Pilgangoora, near Port Hedland, had jumped 36 per cent to 413.8 million tonnes of measured, indicated and inferred resource, adding about 109 million tonnes from its previous outlook.
In the first part of a series, countries that produce the metals central to the energy transition want to rewrite the rules of mineral extraction
The red-brown landscape of Tenke-Fungurume, one of the world’s largest copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, is covered by tens of thousands of dusty sacks. The bags stacked up by the roadside and piled next to buildings contain a stash of cobalt hydroxide powder equivalent to almost a tenth of the world’s annual consumption — and worth about half a billion dollars.
The haphazard stockpiles of this bright green powder, a key ingredient in electric car batteries, point to how the DRC, the world’s largest producer of cobalt, is starting to flex its muscles when it comes to the metals needed for the energy transition.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/thunder-bay/
Chief warns of legal action if community’s concerns aren’t addressed by province, Ottawa
A First Nation in northwestern Ontario has issued a public notice to warn mining prospectors away from its traditional territory, and says the province’s free mine staking system is putting a potential treaty settlement at risk.
The notice by Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek (KZA), also known as Gull Bay First Nation, says it opposes recent mining claims made in its vicinity, and will “take all measures necessary to ensure that our interests in these lands are respected and protected,” which could include legal action. Kiashke Zaaging Anishinaabek is an Anishinaabe community situated on the western shores of Lake Nipigon, about 175 kilometres north of Thunder Bay, and has about 1,500 members.
As lithium producers warn of shortages amid a global push for electrification, oil and gas companies are making forays into extracting the in-demand metal—and banking on nascent technologies to “become big in lithium.”
Delays in mine permitting, staffing shortages, and inflation are making lithium producers anxious about their ability to meet skyrocketing demand for the battery metal, reports Reuters. “At stake is the pace with which electric vehicles could displace internal combustion engines, a key goal of the green energy transition.”
Looking at a number of possible acquisitions
Rio Tinto Group, the world’s biggest iron ore miner, is looking at a number of possible lithium acquisitions and would like to buy an asset to produce the key battery material in Canada, according to chief executive Jakob Stausholm. The London-based company was “looking at a number of opportunities” in lithium, Stausholm told media in Melbourne on Tuesday.
“I wouldn’t mind having lithium production in Canada,” he said, but added lithium was “a pretty hot market” and he was “reluctant to come out with too big of a check.” Rio already produces aluminum, iron ore and diamonds in the nation.
Lithium exploration company Patriot Battery Metals on Monday announced a maiden mineral resource estimate (MRE) for the CV5 deposit at Corvette, in Quebec, establishing it as the biggest lithium pegmatite mineral resource in the Americas.
With a resource of 109.2-million tonnes at 1.42% lithium oxide and 160 parts per million tantalum pentoxide for a total of 3.84-million tonnes of contained lithium carbonate equivalent, CV5 is also the eighth-largest lithium pegmatite resource globally.
With its vast salt flats, Latin America is rich in a metal that has become more sought after than gold: lithium. Known as white gold or the oil of the 21st century, this metal is now essential for energy transition and the booming market for electric cars.
The so-called Lithium Triangle, located in the Andean highlands and comprising Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile, covers 52 percent of the world’s lithium reserves, which has aroused the interest of the world’s main economic players and has spurred a race to acquire this metal in South America. Having access to lithium is now synonymous with power.
RENO, Nev. (AP) — The latest bid by conservationists and tribal leaders to block construction of a huge lithium mine already in the works along the Nevada-Oregon line was denied by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday.
A three-panel judge of the San Francisco-based appellate court rejected a half-dozen legal arguments the opponents had put forth in their appeal seeking to overturn federal land managers’ approval of one of the projects at the forefront of President Joe Biden’s plans to combat climate change.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/
The Pentagon dubbed Afghanistan ‘the Saudi Arabia of lithium.’ Now, it is American rivals that are angling to exploit those coveted reserves.
CHAPA DARA, Afghanistan — Sayed Wali Sajid spent years fighting American soldiers in the barren hills and fertile fields of the Pech River Valley, one of the deadliest theaters of the 20-year insurgency. But nothing confounded the Taliban commander, he said, like the new wave of foreigners who began showing up, one after another, in late 2021.
Once, Sajid spotted a foreigner hiking alone along a path where Islamic State extremists were known to kidnap outsiders. Another time, five men and women evaded Sajid’s soldiers in the dark to scour the mountain. The newcomers, Sajid recalled, were giddy, persistent, almost single-minded in their quest for something few locals believed held any value at all.
Companies such as Exxon Mobil plan to extract lithium from brine water to help power electric vehicles
MAGNOLIA, Ark.—Slipping a handgun into his belt, the mayor of this small town hopped out of his 1995 Ford pickup and went in search of further evidence of a new energy boom.
On the other side of a freshly painted gate, Mayor Parnell Vann pointed out a squat blue spire of valves, bolts and pressure gauges attached to a long-dormant well—a telltale sign someone means to bring it back to life. On the thick-wooded back roads, crisscrossing fields where oil drillers gave up long ago, Vann found two more similar wells that day.
https://www.reviewjournal.com/
The Bureau of Land Management has formally paused a plan to drill for lithium near a desert oasis full of federally protected species, saying the project likely would disrupt the underground waters that feed the refuge.
In a letter rescinding the agency’s previous approval, the BLM said a plan from Canadian mining company Rover Metals to conduct exploratory drilling for lithium just outside of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge was likely to disturb the region’s groundwaters and cause “significant impacts” to the endangered and threatened species that live inside the refuge.
