The rush for lithium is on in Nevada, and startups are moving in.
Forget gold, silver, or copper. The new rush is for something far more precious: lithium.
Humans are increasingly thirsty for the metal, because it’s an irreplaceable component in the lithium-ion batteries that are used to power most mobile devices.
Novel - Battery - Designs - News - Development
Novel battery designs may appear almost weekly in the news, but in truth their development is slow and lithium-ion cells continue to dominate the battery landscape.
So as our insatiable desire for phones and computers—and, increasingly, electric cars and grid-scale energy storage—continues to grow unabated, so does our need for the elements required for battery manufacture. For now, at least, our clean-energy future relies upon it.
Past - Materials - Lithium-ion - Batteries - Graphite
We’ve reported in the past that some of the materials that wind up in lithium-ion batteries, such as graphite and cobalt, are mined at no small human cost. Reports of the life-threatening working conditions miners often endure are enough to tempt even the most ardent technophile to consider Luddism.
But lithium itself faces another problem.
Majority - Lithium - Australia - Chile - Argentina
The majority of lithium has traditionally been mined in Australia, Chile, Argentina, and China. Now, though, the world’s largest suppliers of the metal are struggling to keep up with demand, which means that prices have soared in recent years—at least doubling, while contract prices, which secure long-term deals for the material, are even quadrupling or quintupling.
So, as Bloomberg reports, prospectors have turned their gaze elsewhere—to Nevada.
Silver - State
The Silver State has drawn...
(Excerpt) Read more at: Business Insider
