Solid-State batteries don't worry me in the least. Tesla is already kind of doing this to a degree with its battery baking and have managed to significantly cut down on the amount of Cobalt that goes into the battery. But removing lithium is a f$%king tall order.
First reason is that Lithium is still used in the vast majority of configurations (including solid-state prototypes) and that's entirely down to the very atomic nature of the lithium element. Not only is it the lightest metal (which is a good thing when making a battery pack that's still heavier than a car engine) but when bonded with the right chemical compounds it generally has the highest energy density. The R and D around this is more around what weird combinations of elements WITH lithium are the best combination rather than if something else out there can entirely substitute it. This is why the majority of solid-state batteries out there use Lithium in them for this very reason and even if the amount of lithium goes down due to manufacturing efficiencies (which will happen sooner or later) it just means more can be produced from a finite supply of it.
The second reason and this was made very clear in a presentation someone put up recently was that it costs hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars to build the factories, the chemical plants, the battery plants etc required for the CURRENT technology. That significant capital outlay has to be paid back and manufacturers are extremely unlikely to simply walk away from these obligations the next time a mild improvement comes along in the Laboratory. There is simply too much money at stake to shift gears constantly on manufacturing techniques and new slightly improved products and as we have all seen with Tesla, scaling for car manufacturers, particularly in batteries, can be a logistical nightmare and completely throw production into disarray unless the transition is slow, smooth and ideally planned in parallel.
The next reason is that the sheer demand for electric batteries not just in the decade immediately ahead of us but indeed in the decades to come means that there is likely to still be issues around sufficient supply to meet the growing demands of the world. Even if major efficiencies are found in Solid State batteries, the world's automotive and energy industry is transforming and growing to heavily incorporate batteries into their products and the demand for these products will only continue to grow and grow and grow.
Even in places like Africa, there is a cheap mobile phone revolution happening there right now, completely bypassing installing the copper lines that most of us have in Western countries and cheap electronic goods are rapidly proliferating among an aspirational young generation of people who might live in 3rd and 2nd world countries but want the same tech as we want. Items like these all require lithium and items like these all get chunked away far more often than they should which likely means only more stress on the supply chain in future and why a number of companies are already going into the lithium recycling business and perfecting their methods now to take advantage of E-waste in future.
Lastly, there is the issue of rolling something out from the Laboratory to the consumer. If a prototype works in the Lab, huzzah this is great.
But it is extremely difficult to take it from Laboratory conditions to manufacturing millions upon millions of units every year to near perfect conditions which will operate almost perfectly for each consumer every time in a really wide variety of conditions. Even if some major milestone is crossed in the next few years on this front, it will likely take many more years to a decade before that technology is potentially on the market and in the hands of ordinary consumers.
So basically the takeaway is don't worry. Lithium demand will only go one way regardless. Lithium supply (from economically viable sources) is finite and any advances which happen (and they eventually will) will not necessarily hurt us and could even be ultimately beneficial if it leads to a higher proliferation of things like electric cars etc.
Oh and one last thing. Our product compared to other mines is extremely low in undesirable contaminates and things like iron and other metals. Our grade quality is really good to (not the best but pretty up there and easily the kind of raw product that Tier 1 battery manufacturers are looking for putting into high-end batteries such as those that go in cars).
This cannot be said as much for some other producers who have more undesired contaminates in their hard rock spod, which is a little difficult to process out and costs lithium processors such as our partners in China money to process out. Not all grades of lithium are made equal and ours while not the highest percentage is very very clean which is why we can get away with gravity separation versus our competitors.
Another automatic inbuilt efficiency that this project has over other competitors along with other really lucky features such as being less than an hours drive from a Capital City and Port. Once we have 10 or 20 million to throw at a massive drilling campaign, I expect Finniss is going to be a regular feature on the charts of other company's competitors.
I got a real good feeling about the week going forward. Here's hoping we get a good update shortly on the drilling and (fingers crossed) an assaying report before Christmas and maybe another Gold update.
(20min delay)