Take Advantage Of Battery Systems - Read These 9 Tips
Lithium-ion batteries have enabled products that would not otherwise exist. A mobile electronic device - a cellphone, tablet, or a PC, say -Â Battery Systems would look very odd if it were powered by an internal combustion engine, and would not be mobile if the device had to be plugged into the wall to function.
Batteries are vital in their role as technology enablers. Since the dawn of high-powered lithium-ion batteries in mobile electronic devices, we have seen the widespread introduction of similar batteries in power tools, gardening equipment, drones, behind-the-grid and utility scale energy storage units, robots, medical devices, and a long list of other applications.
However, the single biggest end-use application is electric vehicles, and that will remain the case in the coming years. It is undeniable that the future of mobility is electric. Within a decade, an internal combustion engine vehicle owner may be regarded much as a cigarette smoker is today – with some degree of disdain. According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, road vehicles emit 28% of the nation’s greenhouse gases, and in urban areas particulate matter pollution is each year responsible for thousands of premature deaths.
The technology required to eliminate particulate emissions and, to a large extent, greenhouse gas emissions from road transport is already here. The subsidies essential to get people to change their purchase habits – a choice between an internal combustion engine vehicle and an electric vehicle – have been introduced in many parts of the world, but more telling of the electric mobility future are the many regulations which will outright ban or make prohibitively expensive the future ownership of internal combustion engine vehicles.
Resource scarcity
The dawn of the electric vehicle era in which we currently live is one where the world will rapidly shift from a reliance on crude oil to a dependence on battery raw materials. Demand for core battery materials, including lithium, cobalt, nickel, and graphite, will undergo a long period of phenomenal demand growth over the next few decades.
Integrated battery raw material miners will take the place of integrated oil, although there will be ample space for newcomers.
As with oil extraction, mining requires large amounts of capital and new projects carry long lead times. Commodity prices are characterised by cyclicality, which is in turn reflective of the ebbs and flows of capital which finds its way to new projects depending on historical price levels.
Moreover, battery materials mining is likely to become more expensive over time. Although economies of scale and technological advancements have historically resulted in lower mining costs, particularly in bulk commodities, the ‘easy pickings’ of battery raw materials projects have for the most part already been commissioned. New deposits will be more expensive to develop.
The good news is that there is ample battery raw materials in the ground. The bad news is that commodity prices have to be sustained at higher price levels for longer in order for these deposits to be financed.
Battery producers can help the mining industry by being forthright with regards to the future demand for battery raw materials. The promise of eliminating certain raw materials from battery chemistries may alleviate upward price pressure derived from speculative stock build in the short-term, but the pain of absolute shortages in the long-term, should the elimination of these raw materials not come to fruition, will be a much bigger problem for the battery industry.
