It’s nice for us AKE shareholders to imagine lithium prices will...

It’s nice for us AKE shareholders to imagine lithium prices will stay high for the rest of the decade based on forecast EV and stationary storage demand and the difficulty of isolating lithium but I think it pays to keep an eye on the alternatives. The most promising / threatening seems to be sodium ion batteries. Sodium is chemically similar to lithium but less prone to thermal runaway, around 400 times more Earth abundant, and far easier to isolate. This is reflected in current pricing: lithium hydroxide around $80,000 per ton, sodium hydroxide around $800 per ton. It seems sodium isn’t quite as energy dense as lithium but for stationary storage that may not be a big problem. And the recent success of LFP batteries suggests that even for EVs, energy density isn’t everything. CATL claim to have a production line under development for next year and Faradion was recently bought out for £100m. So maybe AKE’s forecast of declining lithium prices is not so unrealistic.