Webinar: Closing the lithium supply gap and securing critical minerals

Transcript

So the good thing, as we can see from this graph, is that we definitely have enough lithium, uh, in the, in the Earth's crust to be able to supply our needs, at least through 2030. So the near term, no, uh, no threat, right? But around 2034 or 2035, this is where things start to get a little tricky. Um, so the demand growth here is really driven by largely by EV growth. About 80% of the lithium, demand is coming from EVs, about 10% is coming from energy storage, and the, remaining is coming from chemicals, uh, refining space. Um, due to the nature, unfortunately, of the time that it takes to bring a mining project online, and considering that these are massive infrastructure projects that are a billion dollars or more, 2035, 10 years away, but really it's actually tomorrow, right? This period of supply, uh, shortage is really close, especially since the IEA projects that that gap is gonna increase, um, over time by 2040 or 2050 to about 10 times. So we can see in 2035, it's gonna be maybe about six to seven and a half, um, times growth in lithium, but 10 times growth in the next couple decades is a little alarming, right? Not to, not to fearmonger anyone, but while the early stages of innovation are promising in this space, the economics, unfortunately, have not proven to show a valuable return yet. Still despite this, there are commercial projects coming online, um, in the near term, for leading innovation, like direct lithium extraction and even some innovation on the hard rock side. We also saw some really great, um, activity this year, like Rio Tinto and Arcadium Lithium, um, merging together. Looks like they're gonna be able to reach some remarkable milestones, and are likely gonna be one of the first to be producing low carbon, if you will, uh, lithium.