Few thoughts on a quiet ASX day:* Some takeaways for me from...

Few thoughts on a quiet ASX day:
* Some takeaways for me from last weeks Resources & Energy Quarterly include:
- Nickel highlighted in the exec summary, noting:
'There are a number of factors that could quickly outdate some of the forecasts, including:
• a further widening of Western sanctions on Russia to include base metals, which may improve the prospects for Australian metal producers, particularly of nickel and aluminium.'
• higher-than-normal odds of a new La Niña episode starting in H22024, which raises the risk of wet weather and flooding that heavily impacted mines, transport routes and ports in Australia in 2021-23. (noting La Nina also affects our neighbour to the north!)
and
'However, nickel’s use in a widening array of materials and technologies means a tightening global balance and improved prices in the latter half of the outlook period.'

* On the last point above, @larrygerry's Post #: 73138842 linked to the EU's work on critical minerals, of which nickel was added to their expanded v5 list in 2023, based on this study. In it, I was jolted out of my battery-centric view of the future earth, and found they've studied 15 megatrends coming in the clean energy transition:

And drumroll, nickel features in all but one, traction motors, whatever they are :

So, Ni demand forecasts based solely on EV numbers could be vastly out of whack.

* The Battery Materials Review 24 Yearbook also notes:
'NPI and nickel HPAL production is power-intensive. If global energy prices rise, then the cost curve will rise for this production method which forms a large chunk of global nickel supply. If coal and gas prices rise too much, then we may see the dynamics of the global nickel cost curve shift quite rapidly. Large scale closures of NPI and HPAL capacity could easily see nickel prices recover again.'

* While taking yesterday's lab news of a potential 1300mile range solid state battery with a pinch of sodium ion, the world's leading actual battery manufacturer announced a 1.5million km, 15 year warranty battery, with no degradation in the first 1,000 cycles. A reminder of CATL's prowess and what they use (nickel-rich cells): https://www.catl.com/en/solution/passengerEV/ & https://www.catl.com/en/research/technology/

* Our Tier 1 automaker partner announced the specs on their new Silverado ute/pickup, with a class leading 440 miles of range (704KM).
This pretty much is on par with the Cybertruck with Range Extender pack.
Looks like our GM/LGES/POSCO dream team's Ultium nickel rich cells are advancing and GM are going to need some green nickel...