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Western Australia, the Saudi Arabia of lithium, currently producing half the world's lithium and more coming on line. Albermarle are building a LiOH plant in W
by airbreather 8y ago
Western Australia, the Saudi Arabia of lithium, currently producing half the world's lithium and more coming on line.
Albermarle are building a LiOH plant in WA that will add 33% capacity to current world production on it's own, plus the Tianqi plant adding maybe 15% is half finished construction right now.
We are the also the Saudi Arabia of gas/LNG, plus as a state produce a metric fuckton of the worlds gold and iron ore, but a pity our state and federal governments practically give all our minerals away for trivial royalties and tax the sheeple to the hilt on personal tax...
(plus we have a homeless and public mental health problems due to "lack of funding"" in one of the richest mineral states in the world with only 2.6 million people in an area almost size of Western Europe).
- RobertoG 8y agoMaybe Australia should follow Norway sovereign fund idea: "I don't think anyone expected the fund to ever reach $1 trillion when the first transfer of oil revenue was made in May 1996." From: https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/19/investing/norway-pension-fund-trillion-dollars/index.html https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/19/investing/norway-pension-fu...
- pytester 8y agoIn theory every country rich in natural resources should follow Norway's example but in practice the presence of natural resources tends to exert a strong corrupting influence on both the economy and the political system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- RobertoG 8y agoIn theory you are right but, in practice, that only happens because they don't follow Norway's example :-)
- marvin 8y agoNorway only dodged this because we had a supremely visionary Iraqi visit the authorities, and managed to convince them of this danger while the industrial influence was still small enough for government to manage. It's a remarkably lucky coincidence.
- fireflies_ 8y agoDo you have any resources about this? It sounds like a fascinating story.
- maaaats 8y agoFarouk al-Kasim. It's a fascinating story, glad I found this in webarchive as it's now behind a paywall. http://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/99680a04-92a0-11de-b63b-00144feabdc0.html http://web.archive.org/web/20100123225932/http://www.ft.com/...
- bscphil 8y agoThank you, this is fascinating!
- netsharc 8y agoHoly moly, what a story. I remember reading it a few years ago, and what a crazy example of butterfly effect. The one Norwegian girl who decided she wanted to be an au-pair in London, and met an Iraqi boy there, changed the whole country.
- aerophilic 8y agoI really enjoyed the story... but find myself wondering what was the specific “magic” that made it work. Nowadays everything is “setup” for the cooperation of public and private, but what are the key “ingredients” to make it happen? The fact that this worked out, is it something unique to that situation, or cannot be duplicated? The part I find most enticing is this idea of the government shouldering 50% of the risk, and industry only having to do 15%. If anyone could expand on this, I would appreciate it.
- the-dude 8y agoDutch disease : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_disease
- ethbro 8y agoAlso the "resource curse". Although a more accurate formulation seems to be the "sudden resource curse". E.g. how the discovery that citrus prevents scurvy and the subsequent spike in prices likely led to the emergence of the Sicilian mafia
- Ecolog 8y agoNorway - the country that avoided the oil curse
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- pxi 8y agoInterestingly there's a connection between WA and Norway that not everyone is entirely pleased about: https://www.fightforthebight.org.au/ https://www.fightforthebight.org.au/
- healsjnr1 8y agoWe would love to. Trust me, we really really would. But the is such huge amount of great mongering about corporate add mineral taxes that no major party will attack it. The Minerals Council of Australia is incredibly well funded and hugely politically influential.
- askvictor 8y agoNah, we're far too short sighted for that sort of thing.
- mwill 8y agoIt's a sad story on the ground: * We absolutely squandered the previous boom, once the tap was turned off it almost felt like it hadn't happened at all, outside of new developments in the CBD. * Created an absolutely venomous environment for the workforce. I know dozens of FIFO workers or industrial workers servicing the industry, and I can only think of a few that don't suffer from either substance abuse problems, crippling debt despite massive salaries, depression or other mental health issues, or chronic physical injuries they can't get comp for, not to mention the great strain it puts on their family, and toxic workplaces (Not everywhere, but its not uncommon) * We've let country towns supporting the industry wither on the vine. If you take Kalgoorlie for an example; Quite a lot of money is being spent in town, and if you take a drive over to the industrial estate most people will tell you that business is booming. The same people have been saying the town is just about ready to pick back up for a couple of years now, but it hasn't, and I don't believe it will. The industrial activity just isn't bleeding over into the town like it used to. The money washes straight back to Perth, back east, and overseas. Half the storefronts in the main drag are closed, and prime showrooms sit empty. The industry has raised the cost of travel to Kal so high that tourism is basically non-existent, and people who used to maintain two households in Perth and Kal are now having to chose one or the other, invariably leaving Kal for Perth I honestly don't have the expertise to offer a solution to any of these, my gut says collecting fair royalties and using the money to fund services would be a start, but I don't have the background to really make that argument. But what I do know is, for the average punter on the street, it hasn't amounted to much, and one day it'll be gone. I look around sometimes and imagine where we'd be if the prices dropped and the sector closed up shop, and it's a pretty grim picture.
- j45 8y agoSome of these issues sound similar to energy workers in Canada.
- eigenvector 8y agoYes, eerily similar to the situation in Fort McMurray and other oil towns in Western Canada.
- benmarten 8y agoIs this going to be the next plastic that's going to destroy & pollute nature? Maybe authorities should invest into developing a good refund solution sooner than later. I already see some destroyed batteries on streets sometimes, and I wonder what they will do to our environment.
- hopler 8y agoEnjoy life while we have it. In the long run we're all dead.
- Baeocystin 8y agoNo. Lithium isn't cadmium.
- robocat 8y agoHowever cobalt isn't something you want in your garden!
- toomuchtodo 8y agoThere is quite a bit of R&D going into negating the need for Cobalt in Li batteries. I would not expect Cobalt to be needed in ~3-5 years (for Li batteries).
- Baeocystin 8y agoLithium Iron Phosphate is an already-viable chemistry that has a lot of upsides and only a few downsides compared to Lithium Cobalt. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery The tl;dr is slightly lower energy density (~14%) in exchange for non-toxicity, extremely low self-discharge rates, not prone to runaway thermalling, and great cycle life. It also has the advantage of being able to be essentially a drop-in replacement for many lead-acid uses.
- istjohn 8y agoIn fact, there was a Science Versus podcast about the benefits of lithium in public drinking water. Lithium naturally occurs in some water sources more than others, and areas with more lithium in the water have better mental health.
- iamgopal 8y agoHostility to migration might be one of the reason. I have heard story but nothing concrete. Mining is quite difficult industry and without secondary or ternary industries, you can not keep most of the profits to yourself. So perpetual investment needed and people needed to execute that investment. Where is people to do the work coming from ?
- dbuder 8y agoWe have record high immigration.
- andy_ppp 8y agoI find it astonishing how much iron ore is shipped from Western Aus to China, it would be far more ecologically sounds to smelt it there, same is true with most of the things dug out of the ground. I suppose in the scheme of things this is the thin end of the wedge but shipping unrefined iron ore at a 30% weight premium is desirable so that China has a steel industry without depleting their own reserves of Iron ore.
- winter_blue 8y agoIt's probably down to the labor cost of smelting. Unskilled labor is prohibitively expensive in Australia compared to China. If they manage to fully automate smelting, end to end, I don't see why the smelting wouldn't be done locally in Australia.
- vbezhenar 8y agoYou have an assumption that automatics is always cheaper than human labor. This is not obvious to me. You can have humans working 8 hour/day for as cheap as $100/month in some poor regions. And automatics still require R&D, service, electricity.
- jcampbell1 8y agoI don't think Australia has much metallurgical coal. Steel making is dirty, though Australia has plenty of places to make steel where it wouldn't cause a serious local air quality problem.
- dredmorbius 8y agoAustralia does have a lot of coal, also exported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_in_Australia Metallurgical coal tends to be biuminous, which AU has much of. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgical_coal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgical_coal Also: http://minerals.org.au/sites/default/files/181012%20Commodity%20Insights%20Met%20Coal%20Report.pdf http://minerals.org.au/sites/default/files/181012%20Commodit...
- 8y ago
- sprash 8y agoLithium is vastly abundant and is not really the problem. If all else fails you can extract it by distilling sea water. The problem is Cobalt which is essential for working LiIon batteries and is required in equally vast quantities.
- init 8y agoAnd 50% of the world cobalt production comes from DR Congo, a country that hasn't been stable since the 1990s. A lot of that cobalt money ends up in the hands of international mining companies doing dodgy deals with corrupt top government officials.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoNit pick, but "in the hands of international mining companies", mining companies don't have hands, it's never corrupt companies, it's corrupt [groups of] people.
- ethbro 8y agoCorporations definitely have a culture, for better or worse. And it's not always just the sum of their employees'.
- pbhjpbhj 8y agoErgo "groups of people". It's easy to dismiss the responsibility that lies on people by saying "this or that organisation failed/was malevolent/whatever". Sometimes results are emergent and unexpected, but it seems starkly - from my observations - that individuals usually do realise, and often are consciously in control of their directing influence. Group effects are known, cf bystander effect. Actually companies show a bystander-like effect, "what we're doing here is evil, someone [else] should change that". Just because such behaviours are common in groups doesn't mean individuals aren't responsible. It's easier to ignore your moral responsibilities by invoking the company as the responsible party.
- techslave 8y agothe hospitable area of AU is very small compared to that of EU. AU is mostly outback is it not?
- nicksantamaria 8y ago90% of our population lives within 100km of the coast between Melbourne and Cairns. However agricultural usage extends far inland in the temperate regions and there has been a lot of opposition to mining activities in our “wheat belts”.
- stephen_g 8y agoYeah, something like 60% of the country is basically uninhabitable... As for the rest, there isn’t really sufficient water resources to support much of a larger population without adding huge amounts of desalination.
- aurizon 8y agoI think Australia benefits from royalties AND taxes. The best way is taxes and a tough audit. In addition, the wages paid to the employees are also taxed, so add it all up and Australians do very well on their minerals. Royalties are bad because they flow constantly and when prices fall and the mine makes zero taxable profits, they then close the mine until the price goes up. With non royalty, just the taxes, production can carry on and wages get paid. Wages BTW, are far more than any royalty or taxes.
- jacques_chester 8y agoRoyalties are collected because that's what the States are legally able to collect without interference by the Commonwealth.
- mr_toad 8y ago“our minerals” Australia isn’t communist. If you want to own the land that the minerals come from, buy some shares. Just be aware that the mining industry isn’t unusually profitable, in fact it is expensive and risky, and owning (part-of) a gold mine isn’t a ticket to unlimited wealth.
- robdachshund 8y agoNo offense, but what does this have to do with anything here? This article is about battery technologies, not supply chains and trade policy/Australian politics. I know you didn't choose to make this the top comment, but it doesn't discuss anything that pertains to the article other than the fact it is tangentially related to batteries. I'd much rather see conversation about battery technology rather than a long chain of comments about something pretty much unrelated to the topic at hand.
- ropable 8y agoTIL that WA is the Saudi Arabia of lithium. And I even live here! And yes: I feel like we absolutely missed a once-in-a-century opportunity by not establishing a sizable sovereign wealth fund off mining royalties. Entrance to the rabbit hole: http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-resources-and-advice/australian-resource-reviews/lithium http://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/minerals/mineral-reso...