Catching up on the past ~30 hours of posting and was surprised to see nobody point out the obvious regarding the above report.
"Given that Manono is not even on the USGS map (revised Dec 2016) of known large LCT pegmatite deposits and districts how many more deposits will come out of the wood works while people are prepared to go mad speculating?"
Take a closer look at your map:
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Regarding lithium being overtaken by new battery technologies - it's hard to imagine this for EVs, with lithium being the lightest known metal. No doubt the overall composition of batteries will evolve and improve, but lithium appears a must for vehicles due to weight requirements.
It's a different story for battery storage in connection to renewable energy sources, where the most efficient technology should win out eventually. China in particular appear heavily invested in vanadium flow technology. There's a lot of talk around Tesla's 100MW/129MWh lithium-ion battery in South Australia, but Rongke are building a 200MW/800MWh vanadium flow battery in China's Dalian peninsula.
Vanadium is another metal to keep a close watch on in the coming years. Someone posted
this report on Rongke's VFB technology in the AVZ forum a few months ago. I would credit them if I could remember who, as it's a very interesting read; pages 2-3 in particular. To cherry-pick some points:
High safety: The active materials in the battery are vanadium ions in dilute sulphuric acid solution. The battery works under normal temperature and pressure, featuring simply heat management and freedom from explosion or inflammation.
Long cycle life: High cell consistency allows deep discharge. Energy is stored in the electrolyte solution rather than in the electrodes, theoretically allowing infinite charge/discharge. Capacity attenuation can be restored online or offline.
Instant and effective charge/discharge: High-current instant and deep charge/ discharge with high-current, charge/discharge switch within 0.02 second.
Full-lifecycle environment friendliness: The electrolyte solution is recyclable and renewable. Vanadium and other materials are abundant and easily processed and can be easily recycled. The technology is an important trend for vanadium utilization. Discarded cells can be easily recycled and disposed of, without pollution to the environment.
Excellent durability: The accelerated life test in 2007 showed that the flow battery recorded continuous normal operation for 1,678 days or over 40,000 hours during which it reported 12,420 effective charge/discharge. When the test was ended because of building dismantling, the detected capacity deterioration was as low as 5%. The consumed capacity can be restored technically.
