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Why are lithium prices collapsing?

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Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#441

Post by jojobas »

pixl97 wrote: post #300
13of40 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not saying you're wrong, but I'd like to share my own take, which is that one of the clearest, bluest skies I've ever seen was over North Korea. Because they sucked at doing "industry" compared to the South Koreans. In the 90s in South Korea, the rivers ran black and every corner you turned had its own putrid chemical smell from whatever fly-by-night entrepraneur had found a way to make a buck there. But that's an an…

Right, but in NK you starved to death at the governments whim as they had little to no ability to feed themselves. These conversations are barely worth having unless you're willing to go into long chains of explaining the complexity behind the situations.

Yeah, but ain't it worth it that the last thing you see before dying of hunger is the clear blue sky?

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#442

Post by nl »

retinaros wrote: post #293
marcosdumay wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. And I guess some people insist on the confusion on purpose. It doesn't matter how many times people point it out, the confusion keeps happening.

just like people against nuclear. we can see that live in germany

This is nothing like nuclear. I know the facts about nuclear and are vehemently opposed to it for environmental risk reasons.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#443

Post by bbarn »

sofixa wrote: post #401
bbarn wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had three in different places I've lived, and while they are fantastic temperature-wise, the software and interface is always what infuriates me. They are almost all touch interfaces to keep the flat glass aesthetic, which is absurd because spills happen on stoves and touch interfaces don't work wet. Additionally, most of them automatically detect pans being removed and turn off. An annoying feature for an exper…

> Additionally, most of them automatically detect pans being removed and turn off Induction only works when the pan is on it by definition.

Obviously. But it shuts it down when you remove it instead of just working again when reapplied. It turns off the cooking surface and you have to turn it back on again, instead of momentarily breaking the heat while you pick it up.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#444

Post by Gibbon1 »

AmpsterMan wrote: post #258
AzzieElbab wrote: post #202

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.

The important part is the "complete ownership of those rights". In the Soviet Union, a community had no rights and little power by ways of representative government to defend themselves. It's little different in the case of Chile. Do the nuances of state/corporate ownership of resources mean anything when they are both large, far off organizations exploiting my land with little of my own say?

The problem is when you can externalize problems with impunity. Doesn't really matter what the basic system is. Generally you find that systems that strip individuals or disfavored groups from having any power at all do that a lot. Especially those where pushing back is dangerous.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#445

Post by repiret »

nickpinkston wrote: post #376

The quote from the article below [1] demonstrates why the doomers, degrowers, Neo-Malthusians, etc. keep getting resource scarcity wrong. They keep quoting the "proven reserves" numbers [2] that only count what is extractable with current tech at current prices, factoring out new technologies / techniques, as well as reserves not discovered yet or discovered but not yet "proven". [1] "But while demand for lithium has…

Once upon a time, my conception of oil drilling was roughly that there were these giant tanks of oil underground, and to extract it we more or less stuck a straw down and sucked it out. And that one day, the well would make the same sound as the straw as you're finishing a milkshake, and we would suddenly have no more oil available.

Then circa 2002 I got a job at an oil well services company, and learned a lot of complexities about oil drilling. A key insight is that not all oil is equally economic to extract, and therefore the amount of oil available to extract is only fixed for a given price and set of technologies. As prices go up, the amount of available oil goes up too; as technology invariably marches forward, the amount of available oil goes up.

This behaves nicely with the control system we call the free market. As oil gets used up, prices will go up, which will unlock more available oil acting as negative feedback. At the higher price, some oil users will find a different solution to their problem, while other oil users will grumble and pay up, acting as a second source of negative feedback. This process repeats as the available oil at the new price point is exhausted.

This same pattern exists for essentially all mined resources. We're not going to one day run out of cobalt or lithium or whatever. As mines that are economic at current prices shut down, its price will go up, and some users will find an alternative, while others will grumble and pay. The higher prices will enable mines that weren't viable at the lower prices.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#446

Post by elihu »

> "Mid-February also saw reports emerge that the world’s biggest lithium-ion battery manufacturer, China’s CATL (Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited), had begun offering discounts on batteries sold to certain Chinese EV companies, such as Nio Inc. (NIO) and Zeekr, thus reflecting the ongoing downturn in the lithium price. Such discounts are reportedly being offered to enable CATL’s customers to lock in battery purchases—the most expensive component of EVs—at below-market prices if they agree to purchase at least 80 percent of the batteries they require for their EVs from CATL, on the assumption that lithium-carbonate prices will continue falling significantly."

In the U.S. I think this would be quite illegal. I realize China is different, but it's still interesting to see this kind of thing out in the open as if it's normal. (The closest situation I can think of is when Intel was sued by AMD by offering discounts on CPUs to manufacturers that didn't use AMD products[1]. Intel settled with AMD for 1.25 billion dollars.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#447

Post by cashsterling »

elif wrote: post #109

Because I see so much "conflict metals" discussion when lithium is discussed, I would like to contribute that less than 3% of global lithium production takes place on small artisanal mines, in which place human rights abuse may occur. Over 85% of lithium is produced by just 2 international corporations with large scale mines complying with multiple international regulation requirements.

International regulations are often very lax and not well enforced in a lot of mining operations in the developing world.

We only know what people tell us or show us (unless you are fortunate to be able to boots on the ground investigation yourself). Companies and profitting parties in the lithium supply chain want us to believe that mining is ecologically sound and not abusing people. The first hand accounts and investigations of numerous investigators tell a different story in many areas of world.

If you read up on what lithium mining actually entails (in many areas it is not really mining per se)... you'll realize it is an ecological disaster. Big mining operations are big ecological disasters and small operations are small disasters. The same can be said for oil sands and other resource gathering endeavors, so I'm not trying to paint lithium mining as particularly bad. But it is not good.

The EV and battery industries are very interested in white-washing the lithium supply chain... but it is very, very dirty. I'm not an ecologist but from what I've read it appears to me that is much worse than fracking in many operations around the world.

If the Salton Sea, California, lithium mining operation really gets underway... we'll get a chance to see what "best practice" lithium recovery looks like, which will probably have much lower ecological damage per unit lithium. The Salton Sea area is already pretty messed up, anyhow.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#448

Post by taneq »

Tagbert wrote: post #325
latency-guy2 wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it's deliberate, and I extend that to any sort of mining - after all it comes from the stance of misinformed "environmentalists" not being able to tell the difference because any of that type of action is bad

There are certainly people reposting comments that mix up lithium and cobalt and keep asserting that all EV batteries use cobalt and how terrible that is. They are not all environmentalists. A lot of them are just using those talking points as a way to oppose the move to EVs. They also like to post a photo of an open pit gold mine in Australia and claim that it is a lithium mine while complaining about the massive en…

We do have big open pit lithium mines here too though. Or is it a photo of the Super Pit or something equally silly? :)

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#449

Post by smitty1e »

yunohn wrote: post #371
smitty1e wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this is the point I'm after. Glad we could get there.

My repeated point has been that morality != religious sin, rather the latter is a subset. I don’t necessarily agree with laws/taxes in this regard, but it’s important to understand where they come from.

OK, I disagree with the "subset" point, though I yield to your majority opinion on the matter.

My argument is that we can declutter discussion by treating all "moral compass" arguments as orthogonal to an "ethical plane".

If our subjective judgements are treated as internal (booze==sin), and de-conflicted from the external, legal arguments, we'd be in better shape.

But too many are invested in the status quo to tidy up the model like that.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#450

Post by gramie »

specialist wrote: post #319
AzzieElbab wrote: post #202

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.

Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is the reverse.
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