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As we continue our look “Through the Gateway,” one thing has become abundantly clear already:  Beyond their traditional uses, both Gateway Metals and their Co-Products have become building blocks of our renewable energy future.  This held true for Copper and its Co-Products, but it is also equally true for Aluminum and its Co-Products. While Gallium’s ability to form compounds with various elements lends itself to its application in smartphones and other wireless devices, as well as solar technology, Vanadium – another material “unlocked” by Aluminum – is making an entry.

Traditionally known as an alloying component in various steels, where its strengthening properties come to bear, it has been used in the building and construction industry for a long time.  Ferrovanadium alloys have also been used in protective military vehicles while a Titanium-Aluminum-Vanadium alloy is used in jet engines and high-speed aircraft.

More recently, however, the material’s use in energy storage technology has been making headlines.  With the demand for renewable energy continuing to soar, the energy storage market itself is booming.  As Cleantechnica.com explains:

“Since wind and solar energy come and go, energy storage fills a critical gap in terms of availability and reliability. (…) So far, lithium-ion (Li-ion) technology has staked a claim to the gold standard for energy storage in terms of performance relative to cost. (… ) However, other energy storage technologies have an eye on the prize as well.”

First generation flow battery technology using Vanadium was initially mired by inefficiencies and costliness, but research efforts, in particular by the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), have since resulted in significant improvements of the technology.  A breakthrough came with PNNL’s 2011 development of a flow battery design, which added a new electrolyte mix to traditional Vanadium batteries.  This led to a 70 percent increase in storage capacity.

The vastly improved third generation technology is now being applied in national grid modernization efforts: Earlier last month, a new collaboration between industry, the utility EPB of Chattanooga and three U.S. national laboratories using Vanadium flow battery technology was launched in an effort to “develop metrics for evaluating renewable energy and storage integration and demonstrate the benefits of leading energy storage technology to our nation’s grid modernization efforts.”

The bottom line:  demand for Vanadium may well increase as technology advances, with new challenges looming large.  It’s a story with a familiar theme for ARPN followers — the co-product challenge:

According to USGS, Vanadium is at least as plentiful as Nickel and Zinc – at least in terms of its availability in the earth’s crust. However, it rarely occurs in deposits that can be economically mined for the element alone. Between 2009 and 2013, some co-product vanadium production occurred domestically (though not from Bauxite mining for Aluminum), but it has since been suspended. As a result, the United States is currently 100% import dependent for its domestic Vanadium needs – in spite of the fact that “domestic resources and secondary recovery are adequate to supply a large portion of domestic needs.”

This once more begs the question – isn’t it time for a more comprehensive approach to mineral resource policy?

 

Last week, we highlighted what has been one of the bright spots in the metals and minerals sphere in recent months – Lithium.  Potentially one of the most important critical materials of our time because of its application in battery technology, its rise to stardom has cast a shadow on another material that may be equally critical: Cobalt.  As John Petersen writes for Investor Intel:

“For the last 10 years we’ve been deluged with news stories and investment analyses that extoll the virtues of lithium-ion batteries and speculate on the technology’s potential to change the world’s energy landscape forever. While the occasional curmudgeon like my colleague Jack Lifton questions the availability of enough lithium or flake graphite to satisfy soaring demand from the battery industry, everybody has overlooked or ignored the most critical mineral constraint – Cobalt.”

While this is certainly true for the mainstream, readers of our blog may be familiar with Cobalt’s critical mineral status.

In 2011, it was one of only four minerals to appear on all three then-published lists of critical metals: the U.S. Department of Energy’s Critical Materials Strategy list, the American Physical Society’s Panel on Public Affairs & Materials Research Society’s list of Energy Critical Elements, and the European Commission’s Critical Raw Materials list.

We pointed out at the time that with its applications in industrial and various critical defense applications, and in light of the fact that more than 50% of the world’s Cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) – hardly a reliable trading partner – it came as no surprise when Cobalt also took a top tier spot in the American Resources Risk Pyramid, a risk screen for metals and minerals used in U.S. defense applications we created in 2012.

According to USGS data, the U.S. is home to significant Cobalt deposits, but our import dependency currently stands at 75 percent.

But as Robin Bromby points out, the supply situation has deteriorated with the fall in copper and nickel prices, the metals that are mined with cobalt as a by-product. He explains:

“According to Formation Metals, demand growth for cobalt is running at 5.4% a year but supply growth is running at just 2.4%. Cobalt is expected to go into deficit this year; Formation expects mine closures and other factors to mean global output will decline 11% this year. (The biggest threat may be that the nickel prices stay depressed, which will put pressure on nickel laterite mines around the world, and therefore further reduce cobalt by-product.)”

And, as John Petersen puts it bluntly, this will have consequences for the Lithium-Ion battery industry:

“In my view the battery industry is careening toward a natural resource cliff at 120 mph while fiddling with the touch-screen and tweeting about its unlimited potential. The supply side of the cobalt equation is entirely dependent on global demand for nickel and copper. The demand side of the cobalt equation includes a rich variety of manufacturers that must have cobalt for products the world considers essential. 

Whenever increasing demand crosses swords with inflexible supply, the inevitable outcomes are chronic shortages and substantially higher mineral prices.”

So if Cobalt isn’t on your critical (tech) minerals list yet, the time to put it on your radar is now.

At a time when mineral commodities have been slumping, one material is proving to be the exception to the rule, leading many to hail lithium as “a rare bright spot for miners, amid cratering prices of raw materials tied to heavy industry such as iron ore to coal.”  Via our friend Simon Moores, managing director [...]

ARPN followers are well-versed on the dangers of foreign resource dependency – a concern highlighted by Tesla Motors’ announcement earlier this year that the EV manufacturer will build a massive Giga-Factory in the American Southwest, with the goal of doubling global EV battery output by 2020. As ARPN’ers know, the next question is: Where will [...]

The graphite, lithium and cobalt industries are set for major demand surges as Tesla Motors prepares to break ground on its super-battery plant, the Gigafactory, next month. The high-end EV manufacturer is looking to double the world’s battery output as it seeks to bring the production cost of battery packs down in a bid to [...]

Due to its relevance in battery technology — with Lithium Carbonate being a key component of Lithium-ion batteries — Lithium has received increased attention (though not always positive) in recent years. While the mineral presently only makes the “Watch List” of the American Resources Policy Network’s Risk Pyramid, InvestorIntel’s Robin Bromby sees the Lithium story [...]

The following is a guest post by American Resources expert Simon Moores. Wide-reaching controls on China’s natural resources continue to be at the forefront of its shift to a high value economy. Already industries like rare earths and phosphate fertilizer are tightly controlled by government-forced regulation. The question remains whether graphite – the 9th most [...]

After a few-month-long hiatus, it is time to bring back our Metals of the Month feature on the blog. In its context, we have been highlighting the breadth of our mineral needs and potential by showcasing the utilities of metals and minerals for which the United States is largely import-dependent, as well as associated challenges. [...]

Industrial Minerals, the London-based intellectual home of one of our experts, Simon Moores, is hosting a conference on Lithium Supply & Markets in Las Vegas this week. Over the past few years, Lithium has seen increased attention due to its relevance in battery technology. Lithium Carbonate is a key component in the manufacture of Lithium-Ion [...]

ProEdgeWire’s Graphite and Graphene Weekly Review sees surging demand for graphite and its derivative graphene, not least because of their important role in battery technology, where graphite continues to be a traditional component, while graphene is considered a major factor in future generation batteries. Recent reports of aircraft batteries catching fire won’t change that – [...]