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Remember the Light Rider?  A few months ago, we highlighted this high-tech motorcycle, which, because it is held together by an intricate web of “Scalmalloy,” is perhaps the lightest motorcycle in the world. Scalmalloy is an “aluminum alloy powder ‘with almost the specific strength of titanium’ [used] to build incredible structures by fusing thin layers of the material together.” One of its key components is Scandium – which explains the first syllable of its somewhat curious name, Aluminum being the middle-portion, with the “M” standing for Magnesium.

It is new applications like these that are making Scandium an increasingly indispensable tech metal, particularly in the context of the lightweighting revolution – a development marked by the “growing imperative to lightweight transportation, buildings, and infrastructure systems.” 

Scandium gives “superplasticity” to Aluminum alloys, making them more resistant to strain and bending forces, increasing the alloy’s welding capability, and allowing for the usage of replacing heavier metals with lighter-weight materials like Aluminum.  Aircraft manufacturers have long been interested in Scandium and Scandium-alloyed Aluminum materials because use of Aluminium-Scandium alloys has helped reduce aircraft weights by 15% to 20%, without compromising the strength of the building material.

It’s a lesson learned long ago by the Soviet Union – whose MIG fighter series was — and in the Russian era, still is – dependent on Scandium, which the Soviets had and the West lacked.  So the geopolitics of Scandium supply is an old story, setting up for a new chapter in our tech-driven 21^st Century.  (Add in the need for a reliable refined Aluminum supply, including smelting, which these days depends heavily on Canadian facilities, and it’s clear our supply chain dependencies are interlaced – but that’s a post for another day.)

However, there are challenges. A recent post on Investor Intel explains:

“The problem the aircraft manufacturers face in adoption of Scandium alloys en masse is not one of price or desirability[-] it is of supply. With no primary mines and no sizeable supply[,] there could at some point be an absolute absence of Scandium supply for either competition reasons or geopolitical considerations.”

The potential for Scandium to “take off” is clearly there. However, for this to happen, Investor Intel’s Christopher Ecclestone cautions that supply has to be secured first:

“It is clear that the industry wants to apply the benefits that Scandium brings but it is not going to go out on the limb and hope that the adage ‘Build it and they will supply us’ proves to be true. As we all know that train is heading down the track fullspeed towards Tesla that has foolishly failed to secure its supply of Cobalt and Lithium for the future. The likes of Boeing and Airbus are not so naïve.

Thus when a significant supply of Scandium is guaranteed then the synergies between aeronautics and Scandium mining will come into play and the uptake of product will be potentially enormous.”

It’s Cobalt’s use in battery technology, however, that increasingly affords the metal “critical mineral” status.

A co-product of Nickel, the relevance to batteries of which we recently discussed, Cobalt is not only indispensible to the technology that powers electric vehicles and, increasingly, every aspect of our lives, from gadgets to household items to industrial applications – its supply is also fraught with challenges.

Says ARPN expert and Benchmark Mineral’s Managing Director Simon Moores:

“I think cobalt is the most critical of the battery raw materials, (…) I don’t think it’s necessarily the most important. I think that’s actually lithium. But cobalt, really, because 66 per cent comes from the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo), then you’ve basically got a very lopsided industry from the supply perspective.”

Indeed, while China is the leading consumer of Cobalt, and supplies 62 percent of global refined Cobalt, most of the world’s Cobalt is mined in the DRC.  Roughly 93 percent of the Cobalt refined in China originates in the DRC, which, at 3,400,000 metric tons, is also home to the world’s largest Cobalt reserves.   In the United States, a Nickel-Copper mine in Michigan recently ramped up production of Cobalt-bearing nickel concentrate, but our domestic manufacturers remain import dependent for 75% of the Cobalt they consume.

Meanwhile, scrutiny of mining operations in the DRC is growing. A recent Washington Post feature outlines the conditions, which in some cases include child labor, and poor environmental standards.  Not surprisingly, battery makers and makers of consumer electronics and electric vehicles using these batteries, find themselves increasingly pressured to track where their Cobalt comes from, but the supply chain often remains murky.   While currently not a conflict mineral under the “Dodd-Frank Act,” a 2010 U.S. law requiring American companies to “attempt to verify that any tin, tungsten, tantalum and gold they use is obtained from mines free of militia control in the Congo region,” calls to add Cobalt to the metals covered by Dodd-Frank are getting louder.  

Moores argues that this growing “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) problem may likely lead to battery makers turning to Cobalt sourced outside the Congo.  Should that happen, it would be the equivalent of a two-thirds reduction in supply, at a time when clean-tech cobalt demand alone is set to spike.