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Why are lithium prices collapsing?

internationalbanker.com

341–350 of 524 posts

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#341
post #229
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gas stoves need to go away because getting rid of gas infrastructure in the long term will be a huge win, but the gas industry spends heavily on propaganda to convince people otherwise: https://youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54

Much more money is spent on climate change propaganda than there is on gas propaganda. I see climate change propaganda almost every day, but pro fossil propaganda extremely rarely. I think that this is because fossil fuels are extremely useful in practice, and so the users don’t need to be convinced of their benefits.

> I see climate change propaganda almost every day, but pro fossil propaganda extremely rarely.

Ever heard of "the status quo"?

If my stuff is dominant, I either say nothing or make it so that any other proposal looks like it's new and risky or crazy. You know, FUD.

Propaganda has a lifecycle. Not every kind of propaganda is the same or as obvious.

And you're falling for the fossil fuel one, good job!

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#342
post #76

Has there been a commodity that has spiked in price due to true lack of supply and non new supplies were found? From peak oil, to copper , lithium and rare earth minerals predictions of we will run out during a price shock always seem to turn into a price collapse.

> [..] and non new supplies were found

What do you mean by “non new supplies” being found (or is that a typo)?

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a former citizen of the USSR, I have to object to linking environmental issues to private property. The Soviets did all kinds of tremendously bad things ranking, from geo-transformation to placing the heavy industry in the middle of cities. From what I read about North Korea, the entire country is ruined by various extraction and industrial projects.

Yes and: One view is private vs public capitalism. USSR vs USA, respectively. Extreme wealth concentration at the expense of everyone else. Both are anti-democratic.

I think the USSR would object to being called capitalist, since they were one of the major Communist revolutions until their economic collapse.

And in this vein, we shouldn't forget Mao's "four pests campaign" in China under Mao which caused mass starvation by killing sparrows which had been eating insects, leaving them with a literal plague of locusts.

Mao would probably have murdered anyone who called him a capitalist: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_roader

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all, but I am saying that a large fraction of the most visible people who are very publicly evangelizing for it do. If the movement can't convince its evangelists to make the significant lifestyle changes they are demanding of everyone, why would you expect others to adopt them first? I am half convinced that Greta Thunberg was given a lot of media attention because they finally found someone evangelizing for…

IMHO there is a fault in this way of reasoning, please let me explain. People who are very visible, tend to: - Have more impact about what they say, because they reach a big population group and some people identify with their reasoning. (lets call it the elon effect) - Have a lot more money than average. Following your reasoning, what these wealthy people say would be almost always be the wrong thing to do, since th…

I'm not saying that they lose their right to an opinion because they are not paragons of virtue. I'm saying that these wealthy people make no attempt at all to mitigate their environmental impact while telling you to essentially pay off their carbon bill. Elon Musk is not alone in taking his private jet on 10-30 minute flights for trips that could easily have been done in a car. Bill Gates has a gigantic unmitigated environmental footprint, for example.

Generally, you would expect people with more wealth and status to be focused on preserving that status. Part of that project is (ostensibly) preserving the world. If Bill Gates does not think that mitigating his own carbon footprint is important for the preservation of his fortune (including several seaside mansions, apparently), I doubt it's important for any of us in the preservation of our futures, despite what Bill Gates is saying about it. This is an example of the phenomenon of revealed preference (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revealed_preference) - you can learn a lot about what Bill Gates actually thinks by looking at what he does rather than what he says.

For the record though, I do think that what these wealthy people say is almost always the wrong thing to do in general. Wealthy people are known for giving bad advice on how to get wealthy, for example. Because some of them run their mouths a lot, they are also generally known for not being smarter than the average person outside of their area of expertise. Because I'm picking on Bill Gates, go ask anyone at the WHO or the CDC about their opinion of Gates' level of expertise on vaccines and disease prevention - it's not high.

Also, wealth and publicity are kind of correlated, but not that significantly. Bernard Arnault famously rarely says a word in public. Larry Ellison is very private. You probably haven't heard a word from Steve Ballmer, the Bettencourt family, or Larry/Sergei. The people who speak a lot about social causes are the ones who are trying to build a brand around those causes. You get a lot of famous actors worth single-digit millions (thanks to reckless spending habits) speaking about climate change, for example, while also not opting to adopt any green habits themselves. I'm picking on them too.

EDIT: I'm picking on rich people too much. You see the same behavior in politicians, too. They are completely unwilling to risk their political careers to make meaningful carbon impacts, and instead do inane things like banning plastic straws. That suggests to me that their level of concern is about at the level where someone would ban plastic straws: they want to do visible and silly things to placate the activists, but don't really think the issue is serious.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This could be interpreted as saying unless you fix everything at once, any incremental change should be seen as disingenuous and merely a distraction. Would you like to rephrase?

No, I would not like to rephrase. This specific incremental change is at best a distraction and at worst very harmful. We can do many things at once, question is why aren’t we tackling any of the actual problems?

Changes are incremental in general, because change takes time, at least if you want change with not too many unwanted side effects.

Suppose you would say, from tomorrow on, it is totally forbidden to burn any fuel. Most activities would stall and as a result people would starve.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hitchen's Razor?

There's no specific claim being made here. It's just that assuming a lithium mining company (which, as an industry, has a terrible human rights record) would not commit human rights violation because it is a multinational company is a strange assumption to make.

Not only strange but also illogical. Corporations make more profit when they act illegally. From lobbied protectionism to monopoly, exploitation of natural resources to pollution, hiring of ex government officials to bribery and gift giving and favors, and of course from hiring underpaid and abused workers in countries without labor protection, to knowingly using slave labor, and more, they have billions of reasons to break laws and violate human rights. And every time they do it, they pay a small fine that is dwarfed by their profits and nobody goes to jail.

You don't even have to look overseas. PG&E has caused hundreds of billions of dollars in damage due to wildfires caused by cost cutting; they don't want to do the maintenance they're legally required to do. Entire communities are left homeless and people are killed. And the company gets a tiny fine and the executives get bonuses.

It's actually amazing to me that corporations don't do it more often. It pays to be a piece of shit company.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP per capita is a very narrow indicator that does not come close to telling enough about the economic condition of a country. Argentina seems to be going bankrupt and drown in enormous inflation every couple of years. That isn't the case with Chile. Based on this factor alone, Chile and Argentina aren't peers. I don't know enough about Uruguay to judge.

Those were simply easy examples, there are plenty of non oecd countries that have higher levels of wealth than Chile. > GDP per capita is a very narrow indicator that does not come close to telling enough about the economic condition of a country. In what was us GDP per capita deficient, and what criteria would you propose exactly?

I won't propose any exact criteria, given that this is HN and I am in no mood for nitpicking games, which usually follow after a demand for something exact.

However, if I were considering investment from my own pocket, political and economic stability would play a much higher role for my decision making than GDP per capita. And Argentina would therefore be a big no-no, while Chile might make the cut.

Would you make a different choice?

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But there's a material difference between "attempting, in good faith, to determine what the demand for a commodity will be in the future, and buying based on that" and "attempting to determine what the price of a commodity on the futures market will be and buying based on that". These are indistinguishable. Unless you want to restrict markets to being only between suppliers and consumers, there will always be middle…

> Unless you want to restrict markets to being only between suppliers and consumers That is what I would like to do, yes.

Read up on the onion futures markets; due to a (rather fascinating) historical decision, they are one of the few commodities without speculative futures. As a result, price volatility in the market is massive, with far worse swings compared to the efficient markets where speculators operate.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#349
post #235
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and it's a very potent greenhouse gas. It is still good to fix if it contributes to a significant amount of warming, but it isn't cumulative like CO2: it eventually degrades in the atmosphere.

It degrades to CO₂.

A much less potent greenhouse gas, same thing as if it had been burned and not leaked.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#350
post #111

The space is saturated with anti-EV FUD.

Same thing happens with the gas stove threads. I can’t believe that actual people are that invested in burning hydrocarbons.

I'm not hugely invested but I do prefer cooking on gas. I've had element stoves, they suck. I then had gas, it's great. I stayed in an Airbnb for a month and a friend's condo for a week with induction, it was better than radiant but worse than gas to me.

Also the power goes out at my house about 2x a year when we have windstorms. The stove still works, induction doesn't. So I can still cook and make coffee. My other option would be to use my grill in that situation. I like having backups.

It's not some conspiracy with me, I just didn't like it as much. There are dozens of us.

I also ran an experiment a few years back with some particulate sensors. I noticed when measuring during wild fire smoke the particulates went way up when I cooked bacon. So I did it again on a hot plate not gas. Same thing. The bacon grease and cooking itself was giving off a ton of particulates. To me the lesson was maybe cook outdoors. Or figure out how to plumb a vent through an upstairs living space attic and roof to vent outside.

I've also been hesitant on electric cars. My friend has an original roadster that I've driven several times. It's great even tho I can't even get out of it because of my size. However I go out to ski and road trip a lot. I constantly am evaluating if an ev is ready for that use, it's getting closer but not yet. The ski hills I go to are near range for a EV and the charging spots are all taken as are all the spots so that's a risk. Camping and backpacking is more iffy. There was charging at Yellowstone in a few spots but I doubt they ran it to mowich lake yet.

But the kicker is I just have several old cars (08) that are in great shape and I hate all the shit on new cars when I rent them. There's a few features that are great like the anti-tbone feature, and some backup cameras. But he'll they used to beep whenever someone was near you, or they freak out when your 5 feet from a hedge when parking moving .2 mph and slam on the brakes, or the infotainment system is slow, crashes, and has no buttons. So I'll just hold while those bugs are worked out. I think these cars may all get to 20 years easily.

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