Inside the global race for lithium batteries | FT Film
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- Опубликовано: 1 май 2024
- Lithium is the 'new oil' of the clean energy era, crucial to the production of batteries for electric vehicles. The FT investigates this booming industry - and the controversies surrounding it - on a journey from Chile to Norway and the UK
#lithium #lithiumbattery #energy #electricvehicle #zerocarbon #emission
00:00 Lithium and the energy transition
01:13 Global lithium reserves
01:33 The process
03:03 The communities
04:05 Water reserves
05:29 The investors
07:40 Lithium supply and China
08:41 The policymakers
09:35 Cornish mining revival
12:16 The markets
15:28 Chile's lithium policy
18:02 Direct lithium extraction
19:54 The indigenous perspective
22:58 Recycling batteries
25:30 The future
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I really liked the policy, societal and financial discussion of the growing lithium industry. Thank you for a well-made video.
Thank you to all the people at the FT to make this video that is not only detailed, but most importantly gives a voice to everyone involved and touched by the race towards large scale lithium mining!
"Some criticize mandatory joint ventures with a state owned company as nationalization."
WTF are such people thinking? These reserves obviously belong to the Chilean people and not some international mining corporations.
If Chile does it smart like Norway did with its oil reserves or Sweden with iron ore, these resources can generate wealth for many generations to come.
BOLIVIA (not Chile) has the largest reserves of lithium.
Thanks for watching! According to the latest estimates from the US Geological Survey (among others), Chile has the world's largest reserves, while Bolivia has the largest resources. This page gives a useful explanation of the difference: www2.bgs.ac.uk/mineralsuk/mineralsYou/resourcesReserves.html
una cosa es la reserva y la otra el deposito
As this is the third film in a 3-part series - which the narrator says **at the end** of the film (!) - it would have been helpful to include the words 'Pt 3 of 3' (and the films that come before this) in the title of the film so that we know what to watch first and what to watch next. 🤔
Thanks for watching! You can now find the links to the other two films in the FT's pinned comment here, as well as the thumbnails that appear at the end of this film. They can be watched in any order, so please check out the other films too.
@@SimonMundy those 2 are hydrogen film ? not lithium ?
imagine Mad Max with just EVs
just recyling current lithium from used devices is not enough(at this moment), the world will have a growing hunger for lithium (and other critical minerals). electric vehicles and grid storage are nowhere near the needed volume to be net zero with renewables, so yeah we need a lot more.
What a surprise that private business is not a fan of Chile enforcing controls on their otherwise unregulated behaviour.
Does nationalization of industry ever work? It doest matter how often nationalization fails they always say 'this time it'[l be different'
The report was very complete, it covered the different aspects and actors involved in the extraction and use of mineral
They left out something very important. The comparison of what it would replace: there are between 25,000 and 65,000 oil FIELDS on Earth across over 100 countries, each a human health and environmental catastrophe, vs less than 30 lithium extraction projects today. Literally 1,000 times more oil fields. The scope of the difference is a crucial element to discuss here that people all too often leave out.
Oh and there's less than 100 cobalt mines as well, and over 4,300 coal mines on Earth, many coal mines of which in many nations still use child labor. So again, the scope of the difference is crucial to understand and often left out.
Excellent point, well made.
Well put together film on the developing Lithium market. I'm very positive about the benefits of the EV transition and have been watching companies in the sector such as Savannah Resources etc whose investors have put up millions to establish a well run mine to benefit from the transition away from polluting fossils fuels.
Australia and Canada has one of the world's largest lithium ore reserves and output, both cpuntries will play a critical roles in global energy transition
Australia is the largest exporter of lithium by a significant margin. Not sure why they are focusing so much on south America.
No one knows. It will be much more technical play than arab's dominating crude. currently standard car battery need 8 kg Li and Tesla battery need more. But 20 years down the line Car battery will require may be 4 Kg of Li. Then Li from spent battery after 8 to 10 years will go for recycle and will be back in system. Certainly it will not be as open and shut case of crude.
@@danielthunder9876 reason for focusing on Chile is Lithium extracted from brine and water deplation concern. Australia is about hard rock mining of Li and any tradition way of mining.
@@danielthunder9876 south america labour is cheap / weak environmental protection / high corruption / low operational cost / low corporate tax / higher profit
Smart, vividly illustrated, timely. We look forward to learning more on this subject and the many related topics in the all-electric economy and society emerging now. A Japanese friend distinguishes hardware, software, and heartware (the user learning curve adapting to the hardware and software to most skillfully apply those hard & soft tools; savoir-faire). Much of the consumer adjustment to all-electric issues of signal strength, battery level & holding capacity, longevity, accounting for operating in high or low temperature ranges, etc involves "heartware" that comes to be "common sense" among buyers, and users or new and used products powered by batteries.
Urban mining to recover essential metails from old batteries is the most essential aspect of this global race!
Truly. 100% of lithium from batteries is recoverable from recycling. Recycling at scale costs about as much as mining/processing ($21/kg). The problem is there are few organized lithium hydroxide recovery programs in the world. This will only change by government policy intervention.
This will certainly be very important in the future.
But the amount of lithium in consumer products today is nowhere near what will be needed to complete the energy transition.
Another 25 or 30 years of full production will be required before we can taper off to a much lower level of mining.
This is content right here, getting down on the ground with some of the most sought after minerals on the planet. The latest gold rush
27:50 Simon Mundy’s polished speech makes me reluctant to believe a word of, “delivering independent, quality information, news and services to individuals and companies around the globe”. Lemons are great - until it’s the car he just sold you and drove off of his car lot.
Interesting film. But Two HUGE omissions in the report - nothing on Bolivia that (as I understand it) has the largest lithium reserves of any country and nothing on the emerging environmental impact there from the companies working in the Salar de Uyuni. Would appreciate a response on this.
Hi, thanks for watching. Please see my earlier reply on Bolivia.
If you mean your comment to rodrigofernandezortiz it is not visible Could you repeat pls
Norway showed us the way! Let’s do it Europe! 👌🏼
Chile needs to watch the Blue light special that is Lania Hawaii! Lithium Runs the World....... 🇨🇳
Let’s hope Chile does better with lithium than Nigeria does with crude oil.
They can't possibly do any worse.
In fact, lithium mining couldn't come within a country mile of the amount of damage that oil does in a hundred different countries.
It is a pity there is no consideration of Vulcan Energy with its lithium extraction in the upper Rhine valley.
Let's go Chile, nice country.
Great reporting.
Very interesting but nothing was said about possible competing battery technologies that don't use Li. This is particularly relevant for grid scale storage where there are many emerging alternatives, but also for EV batteries where sodium ion may become significant. BTW it's interesting that lithium prices have fallen given the massive increase in EV sales.
Sodium ion technology might become a significant player for grid storage, in a decade (if it proves out). It will not likely be used in mainstream EVs because the Na batteries are too heavy.
It is interesting that the price dropped. Not sure what might have caused that, but possibly connected to Ford and GM and VW all having second thoughts on the speed of their rollout.
In any event, this price drop will benefit automakers who are still going full speed ahead. And it might offer a ray of hope to the laggards like Toyota who are just now ramping up.
Enjoy it while you can. Lithium is likely to go right back up soon, and it might stay up for another decade or so.
Just a friendly backtrack to that 5% lithium concentration. Fully saturated water from salt is around 20%. If you are making sea salt, you need to go beyond that points to make the salt crystalize. It seems like they are being quite wasteful with their brine systems and basically shipping water away from the source.
changing the way they mine will cost money which means that they won't change unless they are forced to or enticed to. You would be surprised by the amount of new technology they would find as soon as you force companies to be less wasteful
I can’t find them either?
Why do they always focus on south america with lithium extraction? Australia is by far the biggest supplier by a factor of 2.
theoretically, lithium can be recycled indefinitely, and it´s way easier and cheaper to recycle it than to produce it. So at some point demand of new lithium should be marginal
Just like what happened with lead acid batteries. New lead acid batteries are 95% old battery
Hard work is the key to success and resource depletion as well alas where success is measured in terms of USD increment and resource depletion in terms of species decrement
I watched your vid and I’m reminded on that Talking Heads song “ We’re on the road to nowhere” Some will be on the road to nowhere as they won’t be able to afford to own a car if it all hinges on world lithium quantity.
Latin America needs to “put the batteries on” and also create the batteries themselves instead of just sending off to China and elsewhere to create them. As far as the small communities near this dry land, specialization creates way more value than a small farmer ever could. They should pay small farmers for the land or share revenue or equity.
China is #1 lithium refiner and importer exporter' but no mention
There are no Spanish subtitles for Spanish interviewees?
There is already lithium hybernade in guangzhou exchange in china
I wished Chile nationalised their lithium reserves just like the oil rich nations of the world.
What about sodium ion?
>> What about sodium ion?
Sodium ion has lower energy density per kg and per liter than lithium ion. Eventually sodium ion will be 30% cheaper per kWh than lithium ion, but it will focus on home batteries, grid storage and low-end autos, whereas lithium ion will focus on the high end of the market (autos, electronics, etc.). CATL is planning to sell hybrid lithium ion and sodium ion, and we may see a lot of that in the future.
New lithium refinery in Texas, USA and another will be built in Nevada. The refinery in Texas recycles water and uses less than conventional methods.
she got the best point, stop consuming, nothing is unlimited.
Century lithium corp. will be the next US located lithium producer to explode. invest now ,while is still affordable, it is ones in a life time opportunity.
Lithium prices are down 75% due to an oversupply, and cheaper sodium-ion batteries are coming onstream.
DLE technology. Lake Resources and its partner Lilac in Argentina will do quite well.
Unfortunately, they can not solve the technology application and are failing to meet the challanges.. see the share prices drop for lake resources..
@@Andeburg1 what are you talking about? Their DFS is published and the DLE is validated by independent 3rd party. Scalable and commercial ready. They had s webinar today and David Snydacker of Lilac discussed the tech at length. Stock price is artificially deflated. Has 0 bearing on wether or not Lake is viable. SP is a result of first commercial sale not projected till 2027. Stop spreading lies.
Perhaps the mining company should capture the evaporated water and reuse the water instead.
22:27 The entire global economy is based on the consumer and quarterly revenues.
FT didn't get the memo, Lithium is out, Sodium-Ion will be the new stuff, 'till solid state comes in. Goodbye Lithium! New Sodium Ion Battery will change the world! And it's in MASS PRODUCTION.
Yeah right. I would like to buy those cheap sodium batteries. Could you give me a link to a good online store?
Solid battery still using lithium. Sodium ion battery could be a safer and cheaper option in the future if we find the way to increase energy density and range to use on vehicle.
how is it china's fault that they were a step ahead of the west in terms of investing in this technology? i have large doubts that the ceo would be as wary of a single 'region' having such a large share of the market if it was the west, instead of china. implying that the support from the chinese government is a negative is also pretty asinine.
I though Sodium ion battery has comparable energy density as Lithium phosphate batteries (which is being using in newer EV cars). Sodium battery has no limitation on material supplies (you get it from ocean water), cheaper, charge faster, can recharge 3x more, doesn't burn, and less sensitive to cold or hot temperatures. I forsee lithium ion battery is just a transitional phase that will eventually be replaced by sodium ion in another 10-20 years.
Sodium-ion batteries will be in cars in June 2024.
Sodium ion batteries are always 5 years away. They were talking about sodium ion batteries taking over lithium ion batteries 10 years ago
Mr Smith bemoans the decimation of Australian manufacturing sector. That was because miners like him, richly backed by UK miners Rio Tinto etc , destroyed taxes on minerals, thereby crushing manufacturing under taxes.
ooooh the LME’s most feared word.. “Nationalization”
Worked BRILLIANTLY for NORWAY 😂😂😂
Bolivia has the largest reserves.
Hi, many thanks for watching. According to the latest estimates from the US Geological Survey (among others), Chile has the world's largest reserves, while Bolivia has the largest resources, which is a different thing. Details here: pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-lithium.pdf
Bolivia has the largest lithium "resources", but they aren't considered "reserves" until they are economically exploitable. Currently Bolivia only has experimental extraction of its lithium, because it extraction costs are too expensive. Bolivia is trying to do experimental direct extraction techniques, because it can't compete with Chile and Argentina using conventional extraction.
@@amosbatto3051 do you think they will industrialize it before 2030?
Have you seen the metal exchange lizzard? He was sad about the lithium price fix not on the free market. So that means he can not speculate with this element. They greedy as hell.
Financial traders in London caring about the environment instead of squeezing every drop of money? Great joke, didn't know FT had this kind of humor.
Auspicious - I noted the growth but I am telling you that growth is going flat. There isn't enough lithium production and due to the giant amounts of water needed it won't grow dramatically limiting EVs to a niche if choked by lithium. The growth of solar and wind are also flattening. When you have one unit it is easy to double; then you need 4 to double then you need 8 ; 16, 32, 64, 128 256, 512, 1024 etc - What appears rapid growth flattens, and even drops as replacements become required.
The S curve says growth will eventually flatten, but what evidence do you have that it’s flattening already? In particular, evidence that can’t be explained away by the current high interest rate environment that is affecting all large projects? I think we have a few doublings to go through before a flattening.
Solar and wind are hardly flattening. They are growing like gangbusters, as are EV sales.
Even in the US, EV sales for 2023 are up 35% over 2022.
Lithium prices just dropped, because more supply has come online. This means more lithium for storage and EVs. Supply is growing rapidly, and it will be needed.
Norway outsources it emissions by being a large oil exporter, and pushing use of EV cars. Anyway is driven by oil, processed and burned elsewhere.
And it's that time again: another key industry in which the Germans missed the train. I'm worried about the poor Germans. They have become underdogs on the stock market and the mood of the locals in Germany is very depressed.
What are the plans to eliminate: coal or oil or natgas as the energy source for electricity/EVs? We all know that there will never be enough wind turbines or solar panels to replace the source energy. (Not to mention that all the plastics in an electric vehicle are derived from oil.)
The internal combustion engine is at best 20% efficient or electric motors 95%. So right there we can have five times the power for the same amount of oil. I don't know why this isn't more understood I'd be curious to your reaction to this information which should be pretty obvious. Just trying to understand how people think
Yeah, basically you weren’t ready when China was, and you call unfair competition 🙄
0:51 and other electric batteries. Lower car use not 'electric cars' are the outcome
Looks environmentally friendly to me!
there is nothing environmentally friendly about mining, period.
Lithium extraction is dirty, but it will likely get must cleaner in the future with direct extraction techniques in the salt flats (Chile, Argentina, Tibet and Nevada) and the use of renewable energy in the grinding, smelting and refining of spodumene (Australia, Sichuan, Zimbabwe, Portugal, Canada) & lepidolite (Yichun). At any rate, EVs have much less GHG emissions than ICE vehicles, which is the most important factor.
Isn't this all becomming irrelevant? Sodium ion batteries are about to be mass produced. They don't have quite the energy density of lithium but they cheaper perhaps eventually 3-4 times cheaper.
EV subsidies stopped in the US and so did demand. More than 85% of Chinese EV manufacturers are also failing.
Where's your source ?
Is it fair to say that the conservative/Republican emphasis on suppression of climate change legislation and focus on increasing and extending fossil fuel use has ceded the battery industry to China?
Why blaming china for their acceleration to achieving net zero.
The dudes need to do some research. Getting basic facts wrong.
Doh! Sodium-ion killed the Lithium battery!
If thats true, where are the sodium ion batteries? They are always 5 years away
When the hurricane damage some lawn chairs at Mar-A-Lago, Donald Trump said you don't have to spend the insurance money on repairs you can pocket the 17 million as he did, his daughter's wedding went off a week later without a hitch, the 17 million bought new lawn chairs. What insurance crisis? As for the Florida insurance rates, Trump fans have found another way to support him, through their insurance policies, making him great again. Comparison contrast, why the big disparities and how do other celebrities fare in Paradise compared to the peasants undeserving?
Unbridled, entitled, incessant greed and consumption. The insatiable human parasite is short sighted and ruthless.
Even if we kept consumption the same, the move to renewable energy and EVs will require immense amount of batteries and energy storage for power. I do agree though in general, overconsumption is a massive problem, and there is a major imbalance across the world
"chilleh"
sodium-ion is coming...
Almighty God will definitely set everything right now
White gold
The idea of powering an electric vehicle with batteries is pure folly.
Funny how that "folly" is now powering 33% of new cars in China and 25% of new cars in Europe. Any auto company that isn't racing to develop EVs as fast as possible will go bankrupt within a decade, because this an S-curve tech disruption which means non-linear growth and the death of incumbents that can't adapt. By 2025 or 2026, EVs are going to reach selling price parity with ICEVs, and once that happens, it is basically game over for ICEVs. I expect that EVs will be the majority of new auto sales by 2026 in China, by 2027 in Europe, by 2030 in North America, and by 2032 in the rest of the world.
Horses work so much better than gasoline engines we don't have to worry about them r ever disappearing. They make themselves and run on grass, they also make fertilizer it's the perfect system, there's also all the jobs picking up horse poop and taking care of them.
Meanwhile, salt water batteries are in development. Much cleaner. Much better. Less slavery too.
they have been around for a long time just like lithium in the 1960 this tech is not new john goodenough invented the lithium battery in the 60's.
Na+ batteries wont catch on for another 30 years sodium destroys a lot of things to much hype in this world and that what companies do make you think its new but its not
>> salt water batteries are in development.
Sodium is much heavier than Lithium.
I will not buy a EV, period. It is worst than petroleum. We should all go to Hydrogen vehicle.
China！
Better hurry. The day will come when batteries don't use lithium anymore.
There is a huge amount of lithium in the Ukrainian Donbas. Just saying.
What the h does FT know about moral money? Where were they when Bush jr invaded Iraq for the oil?
lithium is obsolete.
First
The Toxic race⁉️🤣
Cars are unsustainable, ev or non ev.
Actually stupid; because you can't process lithium without water. It takes 500,000 gallons of water to process a single ton. GP is wrong; there is no electric economy emerging outside of a few tiny niches; just like the EV market. There are 1.4 billion light cars and trucks; EVs are 0.02%. These are powered by a grid that is 75% fossil fuel powered, with a 15% penalty to carry power to the charger; and battery. Total solar and wind production 5% of world power over 20 years of building. The only chance that electricity will power most vehicles is thermonuclear power or potentially geothermal - these are unlikely to happen in 20 years.
You're failing to see the exponential growth behind the numbers you're quoting.
"EVs are 0.02%" - Yes, but they're 10% of new car sales. 14% with PHEVs. That's from essentially 0% just 8 years ago. In Norway we've gone from 0% to around 20-30% of the cars ON THE ROAD being EVs in those 8 years.
"with a 15% penalty to carry power to the charger" - That's an odd thing to quote, considering that the efficiency from well to wheel for gasoline fuel is MUCH worse. We need much less electric energy to power our cars than we need energy from oil to power gasoline cars, when looking at the primary energy. That 15% penalty is remarkably good considering what it's replacing. Even if you continue using fossil fuels on the grid, the CO2 emmisions will be lower, and the total energy usage will be lower.
"Total solar and wind production 5% of world power over 20 years of building." - Yes, but most of it was built in just the last few years. The growth is exponential, and showing no signs of slowing down. We've heard this so many times before: "solar/wind is just 0.01%".. "solar/wind is just 0.1%" ... "solar/wind is just 1%"... don't you see where this is going? Look at the logistics curve, the curve that characterizes most technology transitions. Once you get to 5-10% you can expect to get to 80-90% in a remarkably short time. Those first few percent (and the last few) is the most difficult part.
"The only chance that electricity will power most vehicles is thermonuclear power or potentially geothermal" - Why? This makes zero sense. Both are more expensive and slower to build than wind and solar. What's more: solar and wind is now growing FASTER than nuclear power ever did in its entire history. The main downside of solar/wind is the intermittency. But it makes absolutely no sense to consider that a downside in the context of transportation. That's the one market that is actually very flexible when it comes to load balancing. I've got my EV car set up to charge based on electricity prices right now. It's super easy. I can easily delay charging by days if there's less solar/wind a certain period.
Hell, in South Australia they've even started using Vehicle-to-Grid to let cars feed power back to the grid when needed. They're a prime example that you can reach very high share of renewables with the right solutions.
@@auspiciouslywildI sincerely Thank You for educating me & helping me decide on my next investment. ❤
You cant store wind or solar energy, making it useless
In Sept. 2023, EVs (BEVs + PHEVs) accounted for 25% of new car sales in Europe and 37% of new car sales in China, according to Jose Pontes at EV Volumes. This is a classic case of S-curve tech disruption which means non-linear growth and the death of incumbents that can't adapt. We are going to see a lot of Kodaks and Nokias in the auto industry in the next decade, and the first ones will likely be Mazda and Mitsubishi.
In the global power industry, we are at the tail end of the S-curve, meaning that most of the disruption has already happened. In H1 2023, only 4% of new global electricity generation came from fossil fuels according to EMBER, with 109 TWh from wind, 104 TWh from solar, 14 TWh from other renewables (mainly biomass) and 9 TWh from fossil fuels.
Irrelevant nonsense. No one cares and we need the Lithium.
Lithium-DLE. Direct Lithium Extraction