NISSAN has revealed details of the new 24 kilowatt-hour battery to be installed in its Leaf electric car.
Hold your hats. Each battery will contain 4kg of lithium, according to New York-based scientific consultants Gerson Lehrman Group. The planned production numbers of the Leaf means that just under 10 per cent of the world’s production of lithium will be snapped up by Nissan.
Now, while The Dirt sometimes fears that it is getting paranoid on the subject of China locking up control of key minerals, you can’t say the same thing about Time, right? The US newsmagazine has an article in its issue dated August 31 headlined “Electric Cars: China’s Power Play”.
It points out that China already makes more lithium-ion batteries than any other country, and these batteries are the fundamental key to electric car technology. What the article shows is that the Chinese thrust into electric cars is coming, not so much from the auto companies (although they are keen enough), but from Chinese battery makers. It cites the example of Shenzhen-based BYD company which was a maker of batteries, mainly for mobile phones. But in 2003 the company moved into the auto business and last December started selling the F3DM, a hybrid car selling for $US22,000 which is propelled by a battery recharged by an internal petrol-fuelled generator.
That explains the significance this week of the announcement that Galaxy Resources is getting into bed with Great Group, described as a private sector investment company based in Beijing - although, in China, there is no such thing as a purely private sector company, especially when strategic metals are involved. Galaxy is, of course, the most advanced lithium player in Australia and about to develop a project near Ravensthorpe, Western Australia.
There are still some independent lithium plays, although they are well back in the queue in terms of advancement. Reed Resources recently joined the pack and received a massive boost to its share price as a result, and then there’s Orocobre with its project in Argentina and poised for development in 2012.
The latest entrant is Reward Minerals which, rebounding from being thwarted at its main potash project by Native Title problems, has applied for an exploration near the West Australian town of Dumbleyung. The company was surveying lake systems for potash and was surprised to find in Lake Dumbleyung relatively high lithium values.
So watch lithium. With electric cars coming, the world will all of this mineral it can gets its hands on!
