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An Industry Deep Dive with Mr. Lithium. — Transcript

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0:00[Music]
0:04considered one of the world's leading
0:06experts in lithium i welcome joe lowery
0:09founder of global lithium to the coastal
0:11front today
0:12known as mr lithium joe has been
0:14involved in supplying raw materials of
0:16to the lithium-ion battery space
0:19since the industry began in japan over
0:21two decades ago
0:23joe has lived the lithium experience in
0:25the united states japan and china
0:28today he provides advisory services for
0:31lithium producers
0:32purchasers investors and governments
0:34across five continents and he's the host
0:38of the global lithium podcast which has
0:41downloads in over 130 countries you also
0:43have about 15 000 followers on twitter
0:47i hope all you folks are as charged up
0:49as i am
0:50for having this conversation with joe
0:52how to put that little plug in there
0:54plug thanks for being on the show today
0:56joe let's get started
0:59thanks for having me
1:00got all these dad jokes now i'm a dad
1:02with three three young kids so joe let's
1:04start talking about yourself a lot of
1:06our listeners aren't gonna necessarily
1:07know who you are although you're well
1:08respected well known within the lithium
1:10space tell us a little about yourself
1:13i grew up in western new york state
1:16about an hour south of buffalo or two
1:18and a half hours south of toronto i
1:19guess
1:21i went to college in oklahoma
1:24i went to grad school in georgia i
1:26started work for an oil company
1:28after graduate school
1:31and when the the oil company was sold
1:34off in pieces
1:36i moved into the gold industry with a
1:38company called fmc gold which is owned
1:40by fmc corporation they also had a
1:43lithium company
1:45and that's where i ended up in 1990
1:48wow and i never left
1:51wow i never left lithium i left the
1:54company 10 years ago and started global
1:56lithium but 1990s i mean this is way
1:58before the days of electric car concept
2:01of electric cars
2:02it was before the lithium-ion battery
2:04there was no there was no lithium-ion
2:06battery in 19. so what was in 1990 what
2:08was lithium used for the biggest uses in
2:101990 would have been aluminum smelting
2:13and canada was a big user there was
2:15actually a bc uh operation of alcan at
2:18kitty met and then a couple in quebec
2:21glass was a big usage and greece has
2:24always been a large consumer of lithium
2:27oh wow and is that still the case today
2:29i mean is aluminum still used lithium
2:31still used very limited because the
2:32technology for smelting improves so much
2:34that the efficacy lithium gave it uh
2:38economically it just wasn't a big thing
2:41anymore so
2:42uh
2:43the other trivia is that
2:46the seven and seven up is based on
2:49lithium it is it the seven yes really
2:52yeah what does the seven refer to is
2:54that lithium the in the periodic table
2:56yeah yeah yeah really go look at lithium
2:58it's got a seven and a three
3:00wow okay so the other big trivia is in
3:03yellow post-it notes there's lithium in
3:05two places
3:06the fiber reactive dye the yellow dye
3:09and the tacky adhesive
3:11wow okay you can't get this trivia
3:13anywhere else no you cannot well this is
3:15really cool so 1990 you get into lithium
3:18space not even the concept of lithium
3:20ion batteries are not even around
3:23fast forward 30 years later it's 2022
3:25here we are
3:26and uh you are now considered the one of
3:29the world experts in this space you get
3:31consulted by many governments and
3:32companies around the world
3:34you travel around the world on speaking
3:36around lithium that's what we're going
3:37to get into today
3:39so so joe to help our listeners
3:42before we get dive into the supply
3:44demand metrics many of us know
3:46lithium-ion batteries of course are
3:47being used in things like electric cars
3:49i mean elon musk has been uh the pioneer
3:52behind that industry our our mo our
3:54smartphones like these have lithium-ion
3:57is that the two main uses of lithium-ion
3:59or are lithium excuse me or is there
4:01other major issue uses today in 2022
4:05last year
4:07battery was about
4:0870 to 75 percent of the lithium market
4:11okay in 2016 it was 43 of the market oh
4:15wow in 1990 it was zero so
4:18you will see it
4:20eclipse 90
4:21probably in 2025. okay and so if we see
4:25um
4:27that world of lithium being used
4:28predominantly for batteries and we go
4:30into that battery world what percentage
4:33of that is being used for cars versus
4:35phones versus other types of batteries
4:36you know it's interesting because you
4:37asked john evans the same question about
4:39six months ago i listened to that
4:41episode this morning
4:43and it just changes every year okay uh
4:46last year was about
4:4850 of the battery demand was was evs and
4:52then you have energy storage systems you
4:53have consumer electronics but evs are
4:58the thing now because if you take the
5:00amount of if you take a tesla with 100
5:02kilowatt hour battery there's about 80
5:05kilograms of what we call lithium
5:07carbonate equivalent
5:08and if there's a few grams in an iphone
5:11yeah it'd almost be interesting to run
5:13the math on
5:15how many iphones
5:17yes the iphone equivalent yeah iphone
5:19equivalent like how many iphones do you
5:21need to have made to make the same
5:22amount that it will be in a battery of a
5:24model three tesla you could get that on
5:26google in probably 30 seconds if you can
5:29look that up lewis
5:30or amanda okay so we know the industry
5:34is pivoting very quickly towards you
5:36know electric vehicles that's where
5:38majority of the demand is coming from
5:41now and that's what the main usage is
5:42now can you give us a perspective of
5:44what that demand supply equation looks
5:47like today
5:50the lithium market
5:52went into shortage
5:54again
5:56about 2020. it had gone into a shortage
5:58situation at the end of 2015
6:02but at that time ev penetration was
6:04globally was almost one percent
6:07and so
6:08it was corrected by five minds coming
6:11online in western australia that weren't
6:14a response to it those were all planned
6:17before there was a shortage so
6:19the narrative came out that lithium is
6:20just another commodity and if there's a
6:22shortage there'll be an immediate supply
6:24response oh and that
6:26is
6:27probably the worst possible thinking
6:29that could have happened among the
6:31goldman sachs of the world
6:33because that's not what's happening
6:35today okay so just to make sure i'm
6:38clear
6:39there was a
6:40lithium shortage occurring in 2015 about
6:43seven years ago then it got corrected
6:46temporarily just because of pure
6:48circumstance these five
6:51australian-based minds went online and
6:53started producing but it wasn't out of
6:55uh you know uh those were all planned
6:57before there was a tight market in the
6:59the
7:00shortage pivot back to when it go back
7:02from a surplus to a shortage again
7:04probably it they said 2020. 2018 it
7:07started to
7:08you saw the price start to go down price
7:11to put it in perspective
7:13battery quality material was before the
7:16shortage was selling for around 5000 to
7:186000 metric ton
7:21and the price went
7:22just about to 30 a little less than 30
7:25on that cycle
7:26so it was significant wow
7:29but
7:30again there wasn't that much ev
7:32penetration the the
7:34the real issue with the
7:36planning for lithium is that the lithium
7:39companies
7:40were never big believers in evs i mean
7:42western lithium companies and that's one
7:44of the reasons china would always build
7:46capacity
7:47on the come
7:48and the western companies that are more
7:50quarterly earnings focused
7:52tend to just hang back and said well you
7:54know if we see it we will come now i see
7:58yeah yeah so the the chinese have had a
8:00better view a long term on this uh up to
8:03this point than
8:04some of the western based uh lithium
8:07producers yeah well
8:08really it's a small pond yeah i sure did
8:11yes we had what was called the big three
8:15uh when i and well when i entered the
8:17industry there was the big two and then
8:19another company called sqm came and
8:21there was a big three lithium companies
8:23and the chinese and the russians had
8:25legacy programs from their nuclear
8:26program because that was the genesis of
8:28the lithium industry was get the trigger
8:30for the hydrogen bomb oh so really
8:32another trivia fight that's it that's an
8:34interesting trivia one
8:36so the places in which we can find major
8:39lithium production today is china
8:41australia
8:42and argentina is that from a resource
8:44perspective
8:45it's not china china's a converter
8:48actually
8:49i would love to debunk that commonly
8:51held myth that china dominates lithium
8:54they're the most dependent okay country
8:56out there they do have the most
8:58processing okay but
9:00their lithium assets
9:02are very low quality and and quite small
9:05okay they get most of their uh feedstock
9:09for conversion from western australia
9:11right now okay so it's a there's kind of
9:13two two axis the western australia to
9:16china
9:17and then the south america
9:19also to the other battery producing
9:21countries japan korea
9:25and hopefully in the next five years
9:27north america in europe but
9:29that's
9:30to be determined okay
9:32so within south america i know argentina
9:35is a big player in the space is there
9:36any other countries within so chile is
9:38actually still the biggest
9:40player but the difference chile has one
9:42huge asset that two companies apple marl
9:45and sqm
9:46are you know processors there okay and
9:49argentina has an abundance
9:52of various solars they just don't have
9:54one that's as good as the atacama but
9:58you know fast forward
9:59six to seven years
10:01you'll probably have more production out
10:03of argentina in total than than what
10:05happens in chile okay
10:07so aside from argentina chile and then
10:09western australia are there any other
10:12places in the world that have an
10:13abundance of lithium
10:15canada's got a significant amount of
10:16lithium it just hasn't been developed if
10:18you look at heart and in high
10:20concentration
10:21it's fine yeah it's
10:23it's
10:24basically in the hard rock section
10:26because there's there's spagyming hard
10:28rock and there's brine okay later on
10:31lithium americans will develop the
10:33thacker pass which is called sedimentary
10:36it's just there's no commercial
10:38sedimentary at the time
10:40in quebec in ontario there are
10:43many
10:45assets that could be developed it's just
10:48like i said people weren't willing to
10:50put the money in and now lithium prices
10:53being what they are
10:54all those assets that were considered
10:56marginal two or three years ago
10:58look good for the foreseeable future and
11:00i think you'll see capital flow plus
11:02covid
11:03highlighted
11:05the problem of
11:07china-centric battery supply chains
11:10right
11:11and i think there's there's a huge move
11:13towards regionalizations
11:15of battery supply chains you've heard
11:17the biden administration talk about it
11:19the eu is
11:20talking about it
11:22but neither one of these two
11:24areas
11:25really are
11:27bullish on mining yeah yeah we're gonna
11:29give there's a conundrum there is a
11:31conundrum we're gonna talk about that in
11:32a minute so just to gain a highlight for
11:35our listeners
11:36major resource place places that have
11:39these resources in place and are
11:40producing today china sorry our chile
11:44and argentina and western australia it's
11:47used namely for the growers the fastest
11:50growing market or evs
11:52let's talk about the price of lithium so
11:54that we can let the listeners understand
11:56how much it's moved from 1990 to say
12:002015 to today where are we at
12:03when i started in uh 1990
12:07in in because i'm an american and
12:09because we're still we're on the pound
12:12system yeah we sold it by the pound so
12:15it was like a dollar fifty a pound okay
12:17and uh
12:19so put it to 330 kg if you want to do
12:22the math on that it's
12:25gone up and down over the years
12:26depending on supply and demand dynamics
12:29but it never it never hit 10 000 until
12:33after 2000 okay
12:36and since
12:372000 it's gone up we're talking about
12:40per pound we're putting no we're i'm i'm
12:42i moved into metrics when i when i moved
12:44to japan okay i turned metric but does
12:46the industry reference like they're like
12:47gold's referenced in ounces
12:49uh it's metric done it's pretty much the
12:52universal or kilogram uh yeah we since
12:56the united states isn't a big producer
12:58anymore you know we lost our mojo with
13:00talking in pounds okay uh so yeah the
13:02lingua franca of the lithium industry is
13:05it's metric tons it's metric tons and
13:07u.s dollars okay
13:08so 2000 what are we looking at roughly
13:11per metric tons 2 000 was actually a low
13:13point it would have been um sqm had
13:17entered the market in the late 90s and
13:19driven the price down by half wow
13:21so it was just getting back up to about
13:252 000 a metric ton so it was
13:28recovering and then it it went back into
13:31the
13:31[Music]
13:32higher single digits
13:34mostly between 2000 and 2010 it would
13:36have hit five thousand and seven
13:38thousand and then there was a a shortage
13:41uh in 2006 most people only acknowledge
13:45like two cycles because most people
13:47haven't cared about lithium for more
13:48than five years but if you if you spent
13:51your life in it in 2006 there was a
13:53shortage price went from
13:552 000 to 8 000 which is a you know a
13:58very significant percentage change yeah
14:01since 2010
14:03it had pretty well stayed
14:05in the
14:07mid single digits and then we had the
14:10the big pop in end of 2015 into 2016 and
14:1317.
14:14and now where did the price go there
14:16like from it went to about 30 000 a ton
14:19wow this cycle it's hitting so is it
14:21eight or nine thousand dollars up until
14:22that point else and boom it just jumps
14:24to 30 yeah within months within a month
14:26i literally had contracts with the same
14:28people that refused to sign up for a
14:31year and they they had a 6500 contract
14:35and a 28 650 dollar contract that was
14:38for the
14:39greece company in thailand wow and they
14:42were bitter but uh there's nothing i
14:44could do
14:45so 2015 was that that hat that big price
14:49spike happened because of this shortage
14:51so it was both a combination of
14:52increased demand and and not a lot of it
14:54was an artificially created shortage at
14:57the beginning okay there was only one
14:59big lithium mine from the heart from the
15:01hard rock side that was green bushes in
15:03in western australia okay the two owners
15:06apple marl and tangy when tan she's a
15:09chinese company decided that they were
15:10no longer going to sell
15:13to converters in china they were only
15:14going to sell to themselves okay and
15:16they would take it all
15:19and then they were the thought was that
15:21if the converters wanted to stay in the
15:23game they would just have to become
15:24taller total converters for them and
15:27they've
15:28that caused a huge uproar
15:30about the same time because of
15:32incentives the chinese government were
15:34putting into the ev side
15:36serendipitously there was a spike in
15:39demand so that's that's why the the the
15:42shortage lasted as long as it did and
15:44then
15:45it was uh
15:47at the time there was one mine on there
15:49was one mine had operated in western
15:51australia called mount catlin that it
15:52shut down because of economics they
15:55reopened
15:56mount marion reopened and a few others
15:59and the five i referenced earlier and so
16:02then you went into a
16:04oversupply of the precursor that goes to
16:07china which brought the cost curve down
16:09for all the converters okay so the price
16:11went down okay so and that happened in
16:13around 2008 right
16:15then that started in the first minute
16:18mount catlin came back on i believe in
16:202016 and then the other mines came out
16:22in 18 that's why that's why the price
16:24stayed relatively high into 2018 okay
16:27began to drop okay so the price drops in
16:302018 did it what did kova do to lithium
16:34prices did it did the price plummet or
16:36no and that was well the irony was that
16:39i expected it to you know what my
16:41forecast was
16:43lithium prices will spike in the fall of
16:462021. of course when covet started we
16:48had no idea was going to go on for two
16:50years yeah what actually happened even
16:52with two years of covid the eu's
16:55incentives
16:57for ev purchases
17:00we didn't have a drop in the in the
17:02market i i would have expected during
17:04covet lithium demand would have dropped
17:06for the first time since
17:07the 90s and it didn't it basically held
17:10firm and then continued its growth in in
17:1421.
17:15so it was that was a real shocker that
17:19the ev sails
17:21grew right through covid and we all know
17:24how it was hard to get a car yeah any
17:27kind of car whether icy or ev yeah
17:30during cobit and uh at the beginning of
17:32kobe yeah the weight for a model three
17:34in the united states was about three
17:35weeks and now it's up to a year or more
17:38yeah yeah we're going to talk about that
17:40as well so it's mid-june 2022 where's
17:42the price of lithium now
17:44price of lithium
17:46it's this is really interesting because
17:48the best barometer
17:50for price isn't looking at what
17:53the spot price in china is it's taking a
17:55company like sqm that
17:58just reports lithium revenues and
18:00lithium volumes you just have to divide
18:02and do the math in the in the fourth
18:04quarter
18:05of 2021 they were about almost 15
18:09first quarter
18:11of this year
18:12when they reported it was like 38
18:14dollars and it's per kilo per kilo yeah
18:17yeah i'll bounce between yeah so what's
18:19that yeah tons just to keep a good
18:21comparison what is that in metric tons
18:23well it's what it's they they got about
18:2538 000 a metric ton and now their new
18:28contracts is are over 50 000 wow but if
18:31you look at what the spot price in china
18:32is it's it's touched 80 000.
18:35so
18:36yes it's
18:37so this this these lithium prices are
18:40just continue to go up yeah i mean it's
18:42argentina
18:44was tired of their producers transfer
18:47pricing uh out and not getting the full
18:51value so last
18:53well i think it was earlier this month
18:55they pegged the price now at
18:5853 dollars a kilo 53 000 a ton
19:02and if you have to prove it wasn't that
19:04high if you don't want to pay based on
19:06that value so let me just run the math
19:09here so 55 000 roughly up to 80 000
19:13depending on which that's a big change
19:14in in two years in two years and yeah in
19:172020 you could the spot price in china
19:20was below it's at one point below 45
19:23increases below 4 000.
19:26this is the the real comparison is
19:294 000 to 80 000 yeah that's the if you
19:32want to frame it by the two end points
19:35yeah
19:36um i know that john when we sat with him
19:38to get to to wrap this part up because i
19:40do want to jump into the conversation
19:42about um mining versus
19:44you know zero mission vehicles that kind
19:46of thing
19:47um but to kind of tie this together so
19:49we've seen a price go from pennies on
19:52the dollar at today's level when you
19:55started dealing with lithium in 1990
19:57to hitting a a high point of 30 thousand
20:01dollars per metric ton in 2015
20:04well it was probably mid 16 but it took
20:07it took six months for it to get get
20:09that high but that's a pretty that's a
20:11pretty big increase in the six month
20:12period yeah and then then covet hits
20:152018 and from 2018 to now we've seen
20:18this price go up by 140 percent yeah the
20:20price the spot price in china started
20:22rising in the fourth quarter of 2020. so
20:24i missed i missed it by a year right but
20:27during co it it just didn't seem logical
20:30that you would have this
20:31massive rise in any prices uh
20:34that were commodity like now i'm a firm
20:37believer that uh you know the world
20:39generally operates under a simple supply
20:42demand model and you either have uh
20:44rising supply
20:46and and maybe not rising demand and
20:48prices go down or rising in this case
20:50you've got rising demand and rising
20:52supply but i think it seems to me that
20:54the
20:55the pace at which
20:57the rising demand for lithium is
21:00outpacing the pace of rising supply is
21:03that a fair statement well yeah let's
21:04deconstruct that
21:06it takes
21:07two years for tesla to build a
21:09gigafactory roughly
21:11it takes less time to build the to build
21:14a cathode plant to make the
21:15lithium-active material but it takes up
21:17to 10 years
21:18to build the lithium and if you're
21:20already short
21:22and your market's going to 10x between
21:2420 20 300 000 tons of demand
21:28if we could supply it there'd be
21:31three million tons of demand probably
21:34and apple marl says more than that some
21:36others say more than that i don't think
21:38we'll ever know because
21:40the lithium industry is not going to be
21:41able to catch up that fast wow
21:45wow that's amazing so it doesn't really
21:46matter whether
21:48musk announces a new gigafactory is
21:50being built because if there's no supply
21:53i believe in the next five to seven
21:55years
21:56supply defines demand
21:59doesn't you can you can look at
22:01whatever
22:03doesn't matter what the demand is what
22:04whatever they predict for gigawatt hours
22:06installed gigawatt hours if there's not
22:08lithium
22:09you can't make the cells so how much how
22:12much lithium was produced new lithium
22:14was produced last year last 12 months
22:17when you say new lithium sqm produced
22:19about 40 000 tons more through expansion
22:22that was late
22:23apple mars expansions
22:25have all been late that's the problem
22:28the the experts the old lithium
22:31companies have all
22:33all the supply
22:34surprises have been negative all the
22:37demand surprises have been positive
22:39that that's really the crux of the issue
22:43so there wasn't a lot of new demand
22:44argentina didn't or new supply
22:47argentina didn't have any new supply
22:49last year
22:50lithium america's kochari project will
22:53be the first significant new supply in
22:54argentina since
22:57all chems or
22:58what was or a cobra came online several
23:01years ago
23:04the
23:06western australian mines were shut in
23:07some of them
23:08so now they're restarting yeah uh but
23:12they don't have a new mine
23:15coming on until late this year and it's
23:17a small one okay and it's not in western
23:19australia it's actually up by darwin in
23:21the northern territories so what you'll
23:23see is you'll see all the old
23:25uh you had some consolidation uh
23:29pilbara bought altura they're side by
23:32side
23:33but it's
23:35there aren't five new mines coming on in
23:37australia anytime soon so now
23:39everybody's looking at africa
23:41and there's some big lithium assets in
23:43africa that wasn't
23:45zimbabwe or what was rhodesia at the
23:47time was one of the first lithium
23:49sources for ore
23:52but you've got projects in mali
23:54where you got a civil war going on yeah
23:56you got it in the congo and yeah one of
23:59the other issues we should talk about is
24:00esg because all these automakers want
24:03all their stuff to be clean and yeah
24:06sure the congo's really probably not
24:07your best bet for an esg gold star
24:12so to wrap up this segment with respect
24:15to supply demand just to simplify i got
24:18two questions to keep this real simple
24:19dumb it down for all of us
24:22what does the supply demand
24:25uh
24:26ratio or deficiency look like today and
24:29what do you model what do your models
24:31look like going out say five years from
24:33now just to give in some simple numbers
24:35my models i have lithium supply in 27 at
24:401.3 million tons okay i have demand
24:45closer to two million
24:47other people have it higher
24:50i don't spend too much time focusing on
24:52it when the gap's that big people have
24:54people a lot of banks have
24:57projected bigger gaps or higher demand
24:59the difference i have with some of the
25:01people who say price is going to crash
25:02like goldman sachs
25:04is they believe
25:06there's going to be
25:08several thous 100 000 tons
25:12of another hard rock source called the
25:14pitalite that's going to magically come
25:16on in the next two years well the lopita
25:19light's been in china since time
25:21immemorial
25:22all the chinese companies went outside
25:24of china to get the lithium
25:27in western australia or south america
25:30so if those resources were that good
25:34yeah why wouldn't why would
25:36yes and
25:37i have a presentation now where i show a
25:39picture of
25:40i went up to one of those mines 3 500
25:43meters a yak beat our truck
25:47up the road
25:49and it's yeah it's a really good point
25:51for i mean here in vancouver occurs many
25:53of us are familiar with the mining
25:54industry but
25:55i mean it's one thing to have a great
25:57resource
25:59but if you don't have proper
26:00infrastructure
26:02to extract it and move it to market
26:03doesn't really mean much well that's
26:05that's the story of the congo the sure
26:07there's a one big resource there that a
26:09comp a company called avz has been
26:11trying to develop since 2016.
26:15you know they don't have a road to the
26:16coast there's just some some minor
26:18things like that and now the chinese are
26:20going and challenging the
26:23western australia company that owns it
26:26so we have you got geopolitics coming
26:28into the floor now because the problem
26:31china has is that
26:33now in western australia
26:36alba marl mineral resources are building
26:38conversion capacity so to the extent
26:41that they build conversion capacity in
26:43western australia that material doesn't
26:44go to china anymore so right china's got
26:47a double whammy
26:49you know surging demand and then less
26:51feedstock from their old friends wow and
26:54just to make sure we're clear again to
26:55dumb this down this is like the
26:56equivalent of having oil refineries in
26:59your backyard as opposed to shipping raw
27:00oil offshore to be processed okay
27:03exactly so to summarize this
27:06uh conversation around the supply demand
27:09um you've seen massive increase in in
27:12the price because of this
27:15huge increase in demand without enough
27:18uh without the supply side keeping pace
27:20the point where i loved your quote
27:22earlier which is
27:23in the next three to four years
27:26the supply will dictate the demand
27:28basically it doesn't really the the
27:30different trill between the two is so
27:32wide did you point out that it doesn't
27:34really even matter at this point it's
27:36just like it's an academic exercise
27:38right okay
27:39so we're gonna go back to that and how
27:42that
27:43is gonna impact society and this vision
27:46of
27:46you know zero carbon and all of us
27:49driving on electric cars before we get
27:51there
27:52let's talk about this wonderful
27:54conversation
27:55this dichotomy between
27:57zero emissions in your own backyard but
28:00somewhere else you're producing this is
28:02what i asked john evans i mean
28:03i don't know how many carbon emissions
28:05there are or carbons produced to to mine
28:08lithium but you gotta mine it and that's
28:11the challenge that guys like joe biden
28:13struggle with right they don't they
28:14don't really speak to that
28:16exactly what are your thoughts
28:18well my thoughts are that uh
28:22there is no such thing as green energy
28:24there's only greener energy right
28:28and if you want to have the energy
28:29transition people talk about you have to
28:33have mining
28:34all an iphone is is a collection of mine
28:36materials
28:39absolutely
28:40and
28:41you know you can protest mining but most
28:43people protesting mining are going up
28:44there in a four-wheel drive that's not
28:46electric and they're filming their
28:48themselves doing selfies with an iphone
28:50so we have you know we have pedex scene
28:52every year yeah we have a real issue and
28:56it's uh
28:57the other point is if if you look at the
29:00standards for mining if you mine in
29:03canada or in
29:05the united states
29:06people are going to be held to account
29:08or australia
29:09well no australia is fine i mean
29:11australia's got a mining culture yeah
29:13there's no there's no big issue except
29:16for the fact that yes you do have trucks
29:20going big trucks
29:22and you have a heavy equipment and you
29:24have cal signers and you can have cal
29:26signers running on a natural gas or you
29:29can have cal centers running on coal
29:32sure and you know it's it's all a
29:34trade-off
29:36but you can't expect everything to be
29:38perfect in five years yeah i think the
29:41energy transition is a 40-year effort i
29:43started off in the oil industry
29:46you're going to be using oil
29:49for a long long time so you ought to let
29:52people drill for it especially in a
29:55country that has higher environmental
29:56standards i think it's very hypocritical
29:59of the united states
30:00government to say
30:02you know not in my backyard because
30:04that's effectively what you're saying
30:06and now
30:07now biden's going over to saudi arabia
30:09to try to talk them out of some oil and
30:11he's also talking to venezuela they're
30:13probably the dirtiest oil producers in
30:15the world absolutely now this is such a
30:17great point you know it's interesting i
30:19remember back when talisman energy if
30:21you remember that name
30:22uh they had a project in one of these uh
30:25african nations i don't remember which
30:26one but it was uh they were getting
30:28protests constantly by environmentalists
30:31now this is going back 20 years ago
30:33over the fact that they were you know
30:35extracting oil from a nation where there
30:37was like you know uh lots of human
30:41rights abuses of some type not that
30:43their company was practicing it
30:46and so what did talisman eventually do
30:47they just had enough and they sold their
30:49company to a chinese
30:51state-run oil company
30:53and do you know how many protesters have
30:55been protesting that state-run oil
30:56company since then zero yes because
30:58there's no it's a it's a va it's an
31:00information vacuum now and so i think
31:02that's one i think you brought up a
31:04really good point joe and that's one of
31:05the reasons why i love having mining
31:06mining executives on here is because
31:09mining is an essential part of our of
31:12our life if we don't have money we don't
31:14have any of the things we have in front
31:15of us
31:16and why not embrace the mining in
31:19jurisdictions like united states in
31:21canada or australia where we know at
31:23least there's some standards in place
31:25versus letting the chinese mine
31:27the products that we're going to buy
31:28from them and mining out of africa
31:31he had john amazon and if you look at
31:33the lithium americas management team and
31:35i know all these guys they're they're
31:37all committed to
31:39doing it in as
31:41as a responsible manner as possible and
31:43i would say that's true
31:45broadly across the industry
31:48and if you go to africa
31:50and you don't have standards
31:53the world
31:56pollution doesn't respect national
31:58borders no it does not so it's a very
32:01hypocritical thing to just push it off
32:03somewhere else because if you look at
32:04the whole
32:05net zero agenda
32:08it does it doesn't matter where it's
32:09coming from as long as it's it's coming
32:12exactly well i see two big issues here
32:14when you listen to the the uh
32:16the the government
32:18propaganda around this i call it because
32:21here in canada of course we have justin
32:23trudeau and he's not too far off joe
32:24biden they're probably good buddies
32:26and they they're preaching this whole
32:28idea of like you know
32:29net carbon zero 20 30 20 50 but then
32:33they don't want to admit to the
32:35challenges that are like the
32:37impossibility of getting there
32:39yeah let's talk about carbon credits for
32:41a minute okay so if you
32:43if there's a forest
32:45that that forest is already absorbing
32:47the carbon so if you pay
32:50to offset
32:51your pollution
32:53you're doing nothing except for green
32:55washing
32:57the carpet yes if you're not out there
32:58planting new trees and that's how you're
33:01the world's not any better off because
33:04you paid somebody and there have been
33:06many cases where the same tree is sold
33:08to three different guys who use it as a
33:10carbon credit
33:12and the math
33:13oh you know it's just a math exercise
33:15that doesn't really mean it doesn't make
33:17the planet any cleaner okay let's let's
33:19talk about a question i had for john i
33:22wonder if you can help answer this i go
33:24to buy a model 3 tesla okay with this
33:28massive lithium ion battery that had to
33:31get
33:32mined in western australia or chile or
33:35argentina
33:36is the carbon footprint lifelong carbon
33:39footprint of that model 3
33:42higher or lower than if i go and buy a
33:45honda civic that's in what they call ice
33:48in internal combustion engine i can't
33:50speak to the particular model three but
33:53i had or somewhat like i had a podcast
33:55guest don who's now in recycling he
33:58started off by
33:59developing a lithium project in
34:02australia he's a very smart guy
34:05he says the on average and he has
34:07numbers to back it up on average an ev
34:11is three and a half years in a deficit
34:13carbon wise when you buy it
34:15so
34:16in
34:17in the average case scenario it will
34:19take you three and a half years of
34:21ownership before you're even okay just
34:23because of the carbon involved in mining
34:26the materials to make the battery
34:29versus an internal combustion engine
34:30versus an ice okay so that's so three
34:33years yeah going back to your point of
34:36pollution doesn't respect borders so if
34:38you're a true environmentalist
34:40environmentalist at the core you gotta
34:43know that if you go and buy yourself a
34:45new
34:46uh ev
34:47you're actually doing worse for the
34:49planet in your first three years and
34:51you're maybe breaking even after three
34:53yeah no and you will you'll you'll
34:55probably break even but then where's
34:57your power coming from exactly such a
34:59good point so that's another question i
35:01have which is i've made the argument
35:03that evs make a lot of sense in certain
35:06jurisdictions in the world where you
35:08have nuclear power or hydro so for
35:10example as you know be here in british
35:12columbia
35:13manitoba and quebec are
35:16three provinces where we generate most
35:18of our power from hydroelectric
35:21power by contrast if you look at the
35:24very far atlantic coast say for example
35:26the province of nova scotia something
35:29like 60 to 70 percent of their electric
35:31power still comes from burning coal
35:34so even though you're plugging in your
35:36ev
35:36i mean are you really actually doing
35:38much for the environment any thoughts on
35:40that comment
35:41i i live
35:43less than 10 kilometers as the crowfish
35:45from a nuke and i sleep like a baby at
35:47night yeah
35:49and i see the plume from the steam in
35:51the morning
35:53uh i i think nuclear energy has been
35:56abused i think it's to to put it into
35:59the lens of three-mile island
36:02is to say
36:04you know that was 79. yeah a lot of
36:06things have happened technology-wise in
36:08the last several decades and i think
36:11we should be looking at
36:12hard at nuclear yeah
36:16that that's really my response is that
36:18people get locked in to an ideology that
36:22just nuclear is bad yeah and you could
36:24do so many things now because you have
36:26small nukes you could
36:28build a nuclear
36:30plant that ran a desalination plant and
36:32you could solve a lot of the water
36:34problems and the out of common you could
36:35produce a lot more lithium
36:37things like that things that
36:40maybe in the next 10 years
36:42when people realize how screwed they are
36:44in terms of
36:45quickly making the energy transition
36:47people will start to
36:48to modify their both their thinking and
36:51then later their behavior yeah but i
36:53think that's that's that's critical to
36:55what we're doing is to do some things
36:58differently and not just say well
37:00not in my backyard yeah sure well it
37:03seems to me i've often thought that you
37:05know combination of both
37:07nuclear generated power electric
37:09electricity sorry electricity generated
37:11through nuclear power
37:13combined with uh a you know a growing
37:17inventory of electric vehicles could be
37:19a really big solution for long-term you
37:22know air pollution and carbon emissions
37:24is that a fair statement yeah i i
37:26believe that i mean it's i think you
37:28just made the point we started talking
37:30about whether it was coal or
37:33what the energy source
37:36you know and then that three and a half
37:37year deficit takes a lot longer in in
37:40certain scenarios uh yeah to overcome
37:43yeah
37:44so
37:45now what about uh esg
37:48and and lithium and mining i mean how is
37:51it possible i mean i personally
37:53mentioned the word greenwashing which i
37:54love by the way i feel like esg is just
37:57a modern version of greenwashing it
37:59seems like every single organization out
38:01there has an esg
38:02policy now so if you're a miner mining
38:07lithium in africa
38:09if that's the new frontier for lithium
38:12mining i think it is for china for china
38:14yeah
38:16i mean but they don't care about esg
38:18well i mean
38:20everybody
38:21there's
38:23some public lithium companies in china
38:25and their sustainability reports look as
38:27good as anybody's
38:29it's the thing you have to do is peel
38:30the onion on the details
38:34and i think
38:35right now most of
38:38what passes as esg
38:40is
38:42pr
38:44and i i have no issue with the
38:47with the concept but i think esg
38:50investing
38:51is uh
38:53right now just kind of the flavor of the
38:56month yeah
38:57yeah i agree
38:59so as we mentioned we talked about
39:01earlier one of the issues with uh
39:04with
39:05this lithium shortfall or shortage
39:08is uh even if you embrace this idea of
39:12being a good you know environmental
39:14citizen and going out and buying your
39:16fresh new ev
39:18you can't get them or let me just give
39:20you some context here for you to an idea
39:22here in vancouver so
39:24we have our our local equivalent of your
39:26governor we have our premier john horgan
39:29who has come out on twitter and he said
39:31well you know we're we're the british
39:33columbia is one of the highest adopted
39:35we have one of the highest adoption
39:36rates of evs and anywhere in north
39:38america out of all the states in the u.s
39:40all the provinces in canada
39:42and we're we're leading the way
39:45and and that's a pretty low bar by the
39:47way he's gonna compare himself with
39:48norway
39:49okay fair enough which is by the way a
39:52major uh oil producer yeah uh the
39:55norwegians are are yeah well that's the
39:57it's the uh guilt over the the sovereign
40:00fund exactly
40:02so we have this thing called uh clean bc
40:05go electric program and it's an
40:07incentive program as you mentioned
40:09earlier although it's interesting is
40:10they have to keep it
40:12they have to keep it just so you can't
40:13get on any vehicle it's only on low
40:15price tvs
40:17okay not on where do you get a low price
40:19dvd exactly so they've had to adjust
40:22this a couple times now on what cars
40:24qualify because it's like like like our
40:27company you bought a model three
40:30two years ago and and got this six
40:33thousand dollar tax credit
40:35we and we bought the model 3 with like
40:37not nothing like it was like the
40:39cheapest because any add-on we had even
40:42it was just like a software add-on it
40:44brought the price up too high and we
40:45wouldn't get this incentive so so we we
40:48bought it and then we added the software
40:50for retrofitted
40:52but now not one model three not one
40:54tesla qualifies for these government
40:56grants so so we went on the bc
40:58provincial website and we looked at they
41:00have a list of all the vehicles that
41:02supposedly qualify
41:04and i looked at these so for example
41:06volkswagen has their e-golf so we we
41:08called the dealerships yeah they're not
41:10making it anymore like they've actually
41:12halted production indefinitely i do four
41:15on there yeah it's it's it's the id4 is
41:17on there we asked them delivery time 18
41:20months earliest we went to the toyota
41:23what is this the the b zed 4x
41:26two years we looked at this the 4-2
41:29electric by smart they're not making
41:32them anymore we're like the pollster 55
41:34000 car they said maybe we can get one
41:36for you in eight months we looked at
41:38nissan the nissan leaf
41:40fifty thousand dollar car
41:42and they what is this here they have no
41:45no sight lines on on when they're going
41:47to be able to get these in in stock mini
41:49has i'll just last two mini has the
41:51cooper sc
41:52fifty thousand dollars for a mini
41:55you gotta pay for that in after tax
41:57dollars here in vancouver we pay a lot
41:58of taxes
42:00that one is uh they have they had one in
42:03stock that was used with 3000 kilometers
42:06on it and then finally the mazda
42:09mx 30 supposedly has the shortest
42:11turnaround time if you want to spend 56
42:14thousand dollars you got a four month
42:15turnover
42:16and we also know some of the higher end
42:18dealers that didn't have incentives like
42:20the tycon
42:21for example at porsche
42:23they've apparently stopped production
42:24for the entire year and they'll restart
42:26production next year you cannot get
42:28yourself a porsche tycon
42:30for at least a year and a half that's a
42:32good thing you got yours early
42:34yes that's true uh and let me let me
42:37tell you about okay so one other problem
42:39yeah that people don't consider and why
42:41they'll consider the shortage will
42:44last longer than people think and that's
42:47every time they build a new battery
42:48factory
42:49usually as they're ramping up
42:5230 percent rejects for months
42:55so that
42:57process is all
42:58lithium that's delayed into a useful
43:01battery it has to go interesting it has
43:03to go to a recycler
43:05there's losses when you recycle it and
43:08that's pretty much been true across the
43:09board with new battery factories and
43:11when you look at these maps of all the
43:12build out in europe with guys who have
43:15never done it before like
43:17really
43:18yes so you're telling me that a new
43:20battery factory is manufactured created
43:23built by
43:24is it most of the car companies the
43:25building themselves are they is it
43:26outside no it's mostly if you look at
43:28the map of plan north american battery
43:31factories it's it's usually there's an
43:33asian hand in it and gm may have a
43:35partnership with lg or
43:37sk innovation with ford
43:40but at the beginning about 30 percent of
43:42the batteries produced are not it's up
43:43to 30 percent okay well they're they're
43:45being there's been a case in europe
43:47where it was 50 for a few months
43:49so this is um and it's it's the same
43:52thing when you start up a lithium mine
43:53you don't make good you don't press the
43:55button and make great product a ramp up
43:58can take
43:59a year
44:00wow and in that time you produce some
44:02good material produce a lot of bad
44:03material
44:04so all these analysts that predict these
44:08oversupply scenarios usually just take
44:10the
44:11preliminary feasibility study and stick
44:13it in a spreadsheet and declare victory
44:16right and that's why
44:18you know that's been my message for the
44:20last five years look look at the guys
44:23who have been doing it for 50 years they
44:25struggle with expansions and they're
44:27brownfield expansions right when you do
44:30a greenfield it's tougher
44:34so here's my theory okay because you're
44:36right i've got a tie con i was lucky
44:38enough to get one
44:39uh my wife has
44:41the uh model x
44:43and i'm actually one of the few people
44:45that's getting delivery of the ford
44:47f-150 lightning here in vancouver
44:49hopefully the next couple weeks been
44:50built there's only about 15 coming to
44:53the city for the entire year supposedly
44:56what's interesting is the dealership is
44:58charging me an extra ten thousand
45:00dollars
45:01to be able to buy it and i said well
45:03what's this a line item it doesn't even
45:05have a just like this
45:06and then there's an extra 10 grand he's
45:08like well that's our profit for
45:10basically giving you a chance to buy
45:11this early
45:13um so i've drank the kool-aid on on
45:16buying evs because i love them but
45:19here's my theory
45:20if the price is gone as you said up to
45:22as high as eighty thousand dollars per
45:25metric ton for lithium
45:28if i'm a car company and this is why i
45:30think volkswagen stopped making their
45:32e-golf if i'm a volkswagen owns porsche
45:35right so if i'm a car company and i got
45:38to put in a similar sized battery into
45:41an e-golf that i can try and sell for 50
45:43000.
45:45or i can take the same roughly same size
45:47a battery put it in a tie can and
45:49instead of wrapping that battery in a 50
45:52000 build car i can wrap it in a 250 000
45:56car my margins go through the roof
45:58so my theory and i'd love to have you
46:00comment on this joe my theory is in the
46:02next five years
46:04electric cars will be available to only
46:07people who can afford very expensive
46:09vehicles and the idea of having
46:11mass-produced you know cars for the
46:14average american average canadian is not
46:16even going to exist it's going to be
46:17lamborghini it's going to be bugatti
46:20it's going to be porsche it's going to
46:22be ferrari they're going to come over
46:24there one and only hot
46:26you know e-vehicle
46:28and they're gonna charge through the
46:29roof what are your thoughts
46:32i wouldn't
46:33go the bugatti route i would say that's
46:36gonna become a social issue because
46:38you're gonna have evs are only for the
46:40rich until there's enough
46:42mined battery materials and enough
46:44battery investment to uh
46:47make a 35 000 eevee because right now
46:52aren't they already
46:53a vehicle for the rich i mean like when
46:55i look around no i i think but i think
46:57it's gonna i think you're gonna see the
46:59rhetoric has been
47:01that the working guy was is a later
47:03adopter but you know mary barra gm is
47:06gonna make these great cars well
47:08news flash she had to recall 100 of her
47:11her first product which one was that the
47:14they they had the the volt i guess it
47:16was okay every every one of them got
47:19yeah called back yeah oh the volt yeah
47:21yeah okay yeah so and then she's gonna
47:25challenge tesla by mid-decade but in the
47:28fourth quarter last year they sold 26
47:30evs
47:32so i it's it's it's an interesting
47:35thing and i think you're right i'm i'm
47:37going on a little bit of a tangent of
47:39your your main point i believe that
47:43when
47:44the biden administration starts talking
47:46about the working guy
47:48and the working guy sees that
47:51oh the model 3 really isn't 35 000 i
47:54think it's maybe it's 72 000 now i can't
47:57afford that and then it's going to be
47:59well do we write stimulus checks for evs
48:03well i mean look look at
48:06the the way the politics have gone
48:08because you're gonna say it's not fair
48:11that
48:12you know a mother raising single mother
48:14raising two kids can't have an electric
48:16vehicle yeah so what are you gonna do
48:18for her yeah and usually it's true the
48:21current administration's answer is well
48:23just print some print some money and
48:26everybody ought to have an ev but the
48:28problem is
48:29it's it's going on allocation yeah and
48:31you're right the car makers are trying
48:34to make a profit and they're gonna put
48:35it in
48:36the highest end vehicle that they can
48:39unless
48:41are you gonna start having a policy that
48:42says car makers now have to make so many
48:45x dollar then you're going to have okay
48:48it's got a
48:49if joe wants a 20 kilowatt hour battery
48:52if joe biden's listening his podcast you
48:54might have just gave him a great idea
48:56i think i'd be very careful hopefully
48:57he's not listening
48:58well
48:59he wouldn't understand
49:03this is a good segue into what the
49:04future looks like joe so
49:08if the scenario that we see today based
49:10on your modeling
49:12carries on
49:15and you obviously came from the oil
49:17industry we're seeing incredibly high
49:19oil prices you know over 55 dollars a
49:22gallon for gasoline yeah in the u.s here
49:26in canada more than six in reno as of
49:28this morning having both the experience
49:31of 30 years of being lithium space but
49:33also your early days being the oil and
49:34gas sector
49:36where do what do you see happening
49:38what's the future going to look like for
49:39us here
49:41if things don't change
49:43and what has to happen to make things
49:44change is just more supply that's it or
49:46what's maybe start with the first
49:48question which is what's the future
49:49going to look like other than just
49:51everybody that has a ev i think the near
49:53term future is just longer waits for evs
49:56and a growing frustration that gee this
49:58isn't magical and you actually do have
50:00to have mining and as long as it's
50:01responsible mining the
50:03the us government the canadian
50:05government
50:06the
50:06powers that be should be doing
50:08everything they can to incent
50:11uh responsible production of all the
50:13battery metals not just lithium but yeah
50:15nickel cobalt
50:17etc so i i i feel that
50:22you have to get it you have to get into
50:24a crisis mode to really get solutions
50:27and i i'd say that's where we're headed
50:28i believe lithium will be an oversupply
50:30at some point it just won't be in this
50:32decade or the first half of the next
50:33decade right because the other thing
50:35people are saying like the eu this is
50:37what i love about the eu they say well
50:38we just want to recycle
50:41right well
50:44it takes recycling of a lot of these to
50:46make an impact on the world and
50:49these ev batteries your ti cam battery
50:51will probably go for 10 years and when
50:52it when it's done you pull it out and
50:54you put it in a container and you do an
50:57energy storage life for four or five
51:00more years you're not going to have
51:02inventory
51:03to do meaningful recycling on
51:05end-of-life batteries until the 2030s
51:09and again another podcast guest i had on
51:11who's in the recycling said we're not
51:12gonna we're not gonna be ten percent
51:16until it'd be 20 30 at the earliest wow
51:19so this whole circular economy thing is
51:22going to take almost 20 years to play
51:24out because people that's what oh we
51:25won't have to mine at all
51:27well
51:29it takes
51:30nobody was even going to go after
51:31lithium initially in recycling when the
51:34lithium value was below 10 000 a ton
51:36because it didn't make economic sense
51:38right
51:39now
51:40obviously with higher lithium prices it
51:42it would make economic sense but
51:45they'll come a day when lithium prices
51:47are they're never going to be
51:49six or eight thousand again because the
51:51cost curve is going up as you mine
51:54less economically viable lithium
51:56deposits but there is plenty of lithium
51:59around the world to
52:01to do what we need to do but the
52:03investment has to happen is there really
52:05yeah yeah
52:06yeah there's there's no shortage of
52:08lithium there's
52:09there's in reasonable concentration
52:11because i remember i remember john evans
52:13said there's lithium in the ocean but
52:14it's obviously well okay pretty low
52:16concentration so well but there that has
52:19been there was a company in the 90s
52:20called pacific lithium that
52:22had uh tried to have an operation in uh
52:25new zealand
52:27and they actually proved they could do
52:28it it just wasn't
52:30and they couldn't do it in a scale it
52:32was more like a
52:33shot or a you know a science experiment
52:36so you believe that uh that what we're
52:38going to have to end up seeing is a uh
52:42a sort of a
52:43uh an embracing of
52:46responsible mining
52:48by our our major governments the
52:50european union the us government
52:53canadian government and start to just go
52:55you know what like if we want to achieve
52:57these 20 30 20 50 zero carbon targets
53:01we gotta start by getting the mines
53:03online yeah and i think
53:06zero carbon is
53:08is a mythological beast it's like you're
53:10common earlier it's not it's not green
53:12it's just greener it's greener greener
53:14yeah so to to to to sort of wrap this up
53:17joe
53:18um you think that what we need to see
53:20happen is we've got to see
53:23administrations like joe biden's embrace
53:26mining
53:27um embrace responsible mining to bring
53:30these uh lithium
53:32projects on faster because as you
53:33pointed out
53:34ten years to get a
53:36a drilled you know a green field project
53:39green field project easily take ten
53:40years both both of lithium america's and
53:42i think john referenced this when he was
53:44on your show that uh
53:46it was
53:482008 when one of the projects started
53:50and you know
53:52in
53:53about 10 when the other one did and
53:56it'll you know it's it's more than 10
53:58years in those cases yeah and that was
54:00because you know the markets ebbed and
54:02flowed and investment ebbed and flowed
54:05and now
54:06the positive is you're starting to see
54:09i have
54:10talked to a lot of
54:12energy companies that want to be part of
54:14the transition
54:15and you're seeing them make investments
54:17but that's not gonna that doesn't cut
54:19down on the ten years no it just means
54:21okay we've started the path yeah we've
54:23got more partners to work with but
54:24that's why when you see
54:26[Music]
54:27a
54:28big bank say
54:30okay lithium price is going to tank
54:33lithium stocks tank look at how many
54:35lithium stocks they buy the next week
54:37right yeah yeah good point
54:40well it's been a really great
54:41conversation
54:42one more question i have do you think
54:45there'll be any technology that would
54:46disrupt
54:47the battery space to replace or be on
54:51par with lithium
54:52and thereby no it's not i mean unless
54:54the periodic table changes i i do not i
54:57mean and also
54:59here's a
55:00a key point is that once you put the
55:03billions and billions of dollars into
55:07battery factories
55:09you get into the sunk cost mentality
55:12people aren't gonna the next big thing
55:14is it's gonna be another overnight
55:16success after 20 years yeah yeah sure
55:18and so you're you're stuck with lithium
55:20for a good long while but if you look at
55:21the periodic table i mean
55:23you're you're stuck with lithium you
55:25know unless you're unless you're a
55:26hydrogen advocate but that has so many
55:29issues yeah for sure we've had ballard
55:31power systems trying to pull that off
55:33here in vancouver for decades
55:36do you do you foresee big companies like
55:39ford
55:40buying companies like lithium americas
55:43to ensure i think that
55:46uh you will see
55:49a major
55:51auto company take the plunge at some
55:53point but i think it's more likely that
55:54a major energy company will and you've
55:57seen rio tino get in the game now right
55:59they they stayed
56:00out now they're uh they just made an
56:03investment in nano one for for battery
56:05technology right so they have a big
56:08project here's another point though that
56:10i'm glad i'm glad i brought that up
56:13rio tenno unlike the juniors rio 10 was
56:16a major mining company i just had them
56:17on my podcast
56:19when they talked about how long it was
56:20going to take them to develop their
56:22project in argentina they're not talking
56:24about being fully on
56:26until 20 30-ish you get juniors that say
56:29oh we drill two holes and we're you know
56:32our market cap should be five billion
56:34and they they rarely
56:36uh turn out to be producers yeah
56:39it's usually kind of a pump and dump
56:41scenario so yeah that's a good it's a
56:43really good point when you see a major
56:45minor get in and say look we've got
56:48we've got work to do it's going to take
56:49time and they they already have the
56:50skill sets involved
56:52they have to learn more
56:54final point
56:55technology in the lithium industry
56:58may change things if we if there is a
57:02direct lithium extraction technology
57:04that works
57:06there are a lot of places with lithium
57:08brine where you don't have evaporation
57:10characteristics okay if you get
57:13a lithium brine operation
57:16like standard lithium's trying to do in
57:18arkansas
57:19with an existing bromine operation that
57:22if that extraction technology works on
57:24the smack over brine they can vet the
57:26economics in a special situation where
57:29those those
57:30projects have been running for 40 years
57:32in some cases or more
57:34they prove that the extraction
57:36technology works on that brine then the
57:38whole smack over reservoir could be
57:41uh a lithium source okay and you've seen
57:44coke industry that's why coke industries
57:45i think invested in standard lithium
57:48okay
57:48yeah so that could be one of the
57:50disrupting points there yeah but it's
57:51gonna i mean that that's another it's
57:53kind of like the frack what happened the
57:54oil and gas yeah exactly but it it
57:57it'll take that five to ten years to
57:59play out so there's no short fix here
58:03that leads to a crash of lithium prices
58:06to below where the cost curve is
58:09if
58:10their thesis was correct that's what i
58:12love the most is that if all that
58:14lepidolite
58:16was to come out in china the cost curve
58:17would they
58:18the cost would be higher than what
58:20they're saying the global prices go into
58:22so yeah
58:23well this has been a great conversation
58:25joe you have a podcast called the global
58:27lithium podcast you have uh downloads in
58:29over 130 countries 145 145 nice and you
58:33have a very big following for 15
58:35thousand people on twitter what's your
58:36twitter handle game at global lithium at
58:39global globalization keep it simple yeah
58:41i love it and this has been a simple
58:43conversation uh which you know it's been
58:45i think has been fascinating to unfold
58:47see as things go uh you're doing some
58:50work with uh our friends over at lithium
58:52americas so i know you're going over to
58:54uh ukulele this this uh is it tomorrow
58:56or today it's tomorrow okay well enjoy
58:58your time on our west coast thanks for
59:00being in the podcast studios are coastal
59:02front uh thanks for being on the show
59:03today thanks for having me yeah

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