The Elements of Innovation Discovered
The Elements of Innovation Discovered
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Company to build Oklahoma refinery that will provide a domestic supply of battery-grade lithium for EVS. Marking a major milestone on its quest to curb America's reliance on China for a battery material critical to transitioning to low-carbon energy and transportation, Stardust Power Inc. has finalized a deal valued at $490 million that will list the emerging domestic lithium refiner on the Nasdaq stock exchange. "Stardust Power aims to solve one of the largest challenges of t...
Copper has had a wild ride in 2023, going from expected surplus to deficit within the last few months due to labor disputes, environmental protests, and volatile demand. The supply-demand roller coaster in 2023 was reflected in the price of this energy metal, which dropped from a high above $9,400 per metric ton last January to fluctuating to lows of around $7,800 in May and again in October before rebounding above $8,700 by year's end. Part of the reason for the late 2023...
Shenghe acquires ore stockpile that symbolized a shift away from China for REEs critical to North America's green energy and high-tech sectors. High-grade ore dug up from a small open pit at Vital Metal Ltd.'s Nechalacho project in the summer of 2021 marked the start of Canada's first rare earth elements mine and the first link in an REE supply chain that was envisioned to be completely independent of China. "The combination of our efforts clearly work together towards the...
On the same day that China bans exports of REE processing tech; Ucore, RER hit milestones on cleaner and more efficient methods. In a move to hold onto its dominant position as the world's supplier of rare earths, China is now banning the exports of technologies for the processing and separation of this tightly bonded group of 15 elements needed for green energy, high-tech devices, and countless industrial and household goods. While China maintains a strong position in the...
Two companies are in close competition to be the first to officially break ground on commercially productive lithium mines in Ontario, Canada – one local and the other Australian – and that's only a taste of Ontario's promise in the North American lithium rush. Green Technology Metals is a lithium exploration company based in Perth with 100%-owned high-grade spodumene assets in Ontario. The company is prepping for its multi-stage C$1.8 billion Seymour project to start out...
The only rare earths mine in the United States – accounting for about 16% of the world's rare earths production – is the Mountain Pass mine in California's Mojave Desert, operated by MP Materials. The mine is partly owned by Chinese interests, which export most of what is produced out of the country for processing. China controls 91% of refining activity, 87% of oxide separation and 94% of magnet production, as recently reported in the Wall Street Journal, a supply concentrati...
As part of its plan to initially produce synthetic graphite anode material in the U.S., G1 ships samples to future clients for testing. As part of its strategy to quickly establish a domestic mine-to-battery graphite anode material supply chain, Graphite One Inc. has delivered samples of synthetic graphite lithium battery anode material to battery manufacturers and automakers in the United States. "With the U.S. currently not producing any natural and synthetic anode materials...
Agency founded to fight terrorism views mining and critical minerals as vital to economic, national security of the homeland. For most Americans, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conjures up images of an intelligence agency borne from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon that employs TSA airport screenings, border checkpoints, and internet monitoring to protect Americans from terrorist threats, both foreign and domestic. And these airport, border,...
Awarded a five-year Blanket Purchase Agreement from the United States Army toward the end of September, 6K Additive LLC announced the receipt of $23.4 million in funding from the Department of Defense to expand its refining capabilities for defense and commercial supply chains. Considered a leader in the sustainable production of materials for additive manufacturing, 6K Additive is a division of 6K Inc., a company focused on delivering next-generation materials at the highest...
GM-backed tech, battery materials company ships initial iron-based cathode samples to global EV and battery makers. One month after closing a $60 million Series B round of financing led by General Motors, Mitra Chem has already shipped multiple samples of commercial-grade lithium-manganese-iron-phosphate (LMFP) cathode active material to major global electric vehicle manufacturers and battery makers. Led by Vivas Kumar, an engineer who previously served as a senior manager on...
On Dec. 12, 2015, delegates from almost every country on the planet signed a landmark climate accord, the Paris Agreement, that united more than 190 parties in support of a legally binding treaty pledging to drive the overall planetary temperature down by slashing the use of fossil fuels and adopting solutions for a massive transition to renewable energy and green transportation. This requires extensive economic and social transformation, measured in five-year cycles of...
In 2023 alone, the federal geological survey invested $51M into Earth MRI scans of 35 states as part of a nationwide critical minerals search. From rare earths in Northern Maine to lithium in Southern California and titanium in Florida to 29 critical minerals in Alaska, the United States Geological Survey is investing heavily in strengthening domestic supply chains for the 50 minerals and metals critical to every sector of the American economy. This nationwide search for...
The start of ExxonMobil's new lithium production unit in southwestern Arkansas in mid-November highlights rapidly growing industry interest in producing the white mineral from the briny aquifers that proliferate in this region of the United States. Lithium is a crucial component in the manufacture of batteries needed for electric vehicles, and demand for the white mineral is projected to quadruple by 2030. ExxonMobil said its new unit is expected to begin producing the white...
The Salton Sea geothermal reservoir in Southern California could produce up to 3.4 million metric tons of lithium, which is plenty to make batteries for enough electric vehicles to replace all cars currently on U.S. highways, according to a comprehensive analysis carried out by the U.S. Department of Energy. The analysis, funded by the Geothermal Technologies Office and conducted by DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, confirms the region's significant potential to...
The world's leading lithium producer, Albemarle, is working to revive the Kings Mountain mine in North Carolina, which has been dormant since the 1980s and historically contains one of the nation's largest lithium deposits. Kings Mountain boasts one of the few known hard rock lithium deposits in the United States, and a miner there is expected to produce enough of the namesake metal in lithium-ion batteries to support the manufacturing of approximately 1.2 million electric...
Reinterpretation of FEOC widens pool of potential critical mineral sources eligible for federal tax credits, funds. The Biden administration needs help understanding the meaning of "foreign entity of concern" (FEOC) as this term relates to investing billions of taxpayer dollars into bolstering the supply chains for materials critical to electric vehicles and renewable energy. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act allotted billions of dollars for...
Ucore is awarded C$4.3 million to produce magnet REEs for EVs and other high-tech uses at its demo plant in Ontario. To support the commercialization of a technology poised to help break North America's dependence on China for rare earths critical to the clean energy and technology sectors, the Canadian government has awarded Ucore Rare Metals Inc. C$4.28 million (US$3.1 million) to demonstrate the capabilities of its RapidSX rare earths separation platform. "We would like to...
DOE finishes NEPA review needed to build demo plant that will process a high-grade rare earth sample from the Bear Lodge project north of Upton, Wyoming. Clearing another hurdle on its path to offering a reliable domestic alternative to China for the rare earths needed to propel the clean energy transition, Rare Element Resources Ltd. Nov. 16 announced that the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy has finalized its National Environmental...
From being the priciest and hardest-to-come-by, lithium-ion battery metal during the budding energy transition to a massive surplus and wavering demand, cobalt mining has had a nail-biting year as sales have stalled and prices have begun to fall (global benchmark cobalt prices have dropped by more than half since May of last year). Cobalt is a lustrous ferromagnetic metal with a high melting point used increasingly in renewable energy technologies, such as wind turbines and...
Vital Metals turns to Chinese firm to fund Nechalacho, home to first REE mine in Canada. Drifting further away from the original vision of establishing a rare earths supply chain in Canada that would help to break the West's heavy reliance on China for this suite of tech elements, Vital Metals Ltd. has turned to Shenghe Resources Holding Co., Ltd. for funding that will allow the Australia-based REE mining company to move forward with its plans for a larger mine at its...
Major milestone along the road to supplying Tesla and others with the nickel needed for EV batteries. Passing a major landmark on its path to developing a domestic battery metals supply chain that begins at its high-grade Tamarack nickel project in Minnesota, Talon Metals Corp. has reached definitive terms with the U.S. Department of Energy for a $114.8 million grant to build a battery minerals processing facility in North Dakota. "Our team is excited to reach this funding...
Seeking every advantage when it comes to the efficient and sustainable production of lithium and boron at its Rhyolite Ridge project in Nevada, Ioneer Ltd. has signed a research and development memorandum of understanding with Korea-based EcoPro Innovation Co. Ltd. to study the lithium clay resources at this prospective lithium-boron property. Situated about 200 road miles southeast of the Tesla Gigafactory Nevada, Rhyolite Ridge is a development-staged lithium-boron project t...
Setting the bar for battery materials, American Resources Corp.'s ReElement Technologies announced that it has achieved an ultra-high purity of 99.96% battery-grade lithium carbonate from its unique technology developed in partnership with Purdue University. American Resources is a next-generation and socially responsible supplier of raw materials to the new infrastructure and electrification marketplace. Utilizing its patented multi-modal chromatography technology, developed...
Liquid metal again displays an almost magical ability to become a catalyst for lowering CO2 in the atmosphere A liquid metal with semiconductor properties that make it an essential ingredient in next-generation smartphones, telecommunication networks, and solar technologies, gallium already lives at the edge of science fiction and science reality. Working at this threshold, Australian scientists are demonstrating that gallium may also be a major catalyst for the green energy f...
With the ongoing difficulties in sourcing ethical, clean materials for electric vehicles and battery storage, researchers from the University of Tokyo have presented a viable alternative to the most controversial element used in lithium-ion batteries – cobalt. High-capacity and reliable rechargeable batteries are increasingly becoming a critical piece of most devices and even modes of transportation. As the need for lithium-ion batteries rises, so too does the demand for c...
