I have to wonder if the people saying Lithium is a bubble, have actually really had a good look at what is occurring on the Lithium front.
Lithium 101 Deutsche Bank:
http://www.belmontresources.com/LithiumReport.pdf
Just ten Pure EV manufacturers:
1 - Renault-Nissan
2 - Tesla
3 - Mitsubishi
4 - Geely Group
5 - Chery
6 - BMW
7 - Daimler
8 - Volkswagen Group
9 - BAIC
10- BYD
And that does not include the generic Chinese brands, the truck's, the mining equipment, buses, bikes, boats or the hybrids.
And then there is the coming tsunami of electricity storage, some one above said that Lithium is being conflated with EV's, Ummm, you can't have an EV without Lithium ,ergo more demand for Lithium, ANY sort of competition for the Li battery, even if it was proven tomorrow would be a decade away at the bare minimum. Lithium can not be beaten for weight V storage capacity at this stage, and there is NOTHING out there that can beat this aspect yet.
Certainly the battery plants to use that much lithium will likely have built. Lithium [Li2CO3] prices have gone from less than US$6000/t in 2014 to $US7500/t in the March quarter this year to over US$10,000 /tonne in the June quarter.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/2016/brief-look-global-demand-lithium-62981
Energy storage is hitting its stride.
Data from the latest GTM Energy Storage Monitor reveals that the U.S. storage market grew 245 percent in 2015 over 2014 (albeit from a small base). By 2019, America's storage market could amount to 1.7 gigawatts and be valued at $2.5 billion.
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/The-Plug-and-Play-Grid-Is-Not-That-Far-Off
With the ever-falling price of lithium-ion technology, investors are starting to realise that energy storage in the UK is now a viable and attractive investment opportunity, and developers are looking to install systems in line with EFR regulation. The result of this, at grid scale, will lead to energy storage accelerating in growth, much like solar has done historically. Although energy storage could be seen as more complicated to develop, as the market matures and the understanding of battery-grid integration solidifies, developers will start to see the growing potential for returns. It's not only on the commercial side that understanding will need to develop the utilities are continuing to learn through their own innovative schemes and will need to remain receptive in order to support the rollout, most of which is connected to distribution networks.
Source: http://cleantechnica.com/2016/05/12/market-opportunity-energy-storage-uk/
At the very least watch this video for just a taste of what is coming in the very near future.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM[/youtube]
Unlike Gold, Silver, Oil etc there is no paper market for Lithium as yet, just plain old supply and demand between producer and supplier and for now the people who are buying acknowledge that they need and will need more and more of it. Gangfen a Chinese group are grabbing as much as they can to secure supplies
In September 2015, an agreement was executed between Neometals, Mineral Resources and Jiangxi Ganfeng Lithium which resulted in Ganfeng taking a 25% in the Mt Marion mine and also agreeing to a life-of-mine offtake agreement.
2016-06-03 11:48:31
http://www.neometals.com.au/lithium.php
Now people might say "yeah but look, there is huge amounts of Lithium in the brine lakes of South America" and they are right, but to produce the refined product suitable for energy storage you need to purify it first and no two brine chemistry's are the same , and on top of that to increase output at one of these brine lakes you need to first construct more evaporation ponds, and then wait at least 18 months to get your first product. You are looking at least 3-4 years before any new product can come on line, and that is if it does not rain in the meantime, you don't have problems with the Gov't or your competition, and you can satisfy environmental regulations such as water and wildlife impacts in what are quite fragile environments.
Or you can go to a hard rock spodumene source, Which the Chinese prefer, which is easy to purify, easy to mine, can be scaled up quickly, and covers a lot smaller footprint than massive evaporation ponds.
The technology is already here and is only going to improve exponentially in the next few years, the uptake of it is already happening, the demand for Lithium will increase fivefold at least over the next decade and similar to Gold mining, the easy to get to stuff will be the first off the line which at this stage is hard rock spodumene.
Do yourself a favour and look into it a little more because at the moment you read like a bunch of people who in the early 1900's were looking at the first motorcars
and saying "they will never take off". Lithium is the New Gasoline, and there will be new Exon's, Shell's and BP's arising in the near future as all this comes together.
EV's are here and will be expanding their presence into the future. As I have stated previously... nothing can beat lithium on the cost-curve basis which is commercially available yet. That said, lithium explorer's/miners will continue to do well with ups/downs along the way like all markets. I've spread my risk across several and free carried on others so my risk profile is now nothing. It's all profit from herein... a bright few years ahead indeed.
