RE:Speech given at the opening of the Battery Gigafactories USA Interesting read of that link ....while it has not and does not look good today, if he is right a bit of what we hope may still be relevant
Simon says ...
.."Having been focused on this my whole career – since 2006 and with Benchmark since 2014 – I have never seen this level of interest and such a window of opportunity that we have now for building critical mineral mines and refining plants in the US."....
..."It is incredible to see how important geopolitically this industry has become. We kind of scratch ourselves and try and work out how this has gone right to the top of the geopolitical agenda.
The geopolitical, industrial and technological tailwinds all now move in the same direction from east to west.
Lithium ion batteries and electric vehicles are an industrial pillar of the 21st century and they are the centre point of this energy transition.
You can talk about other technologies but in terms of building from scratch lithium ion batteries, sit right in the middle, right in the crux of this whole movement.
The critical mineral supply chains that fuel these industries are as geopolitically important as the oil pipelines of today and in the agendas of governments they are above that industry – that’s how important it’s got.
Lithium, nickel, graphite, cobalt, manganese, copper, rare earths, phosphate, and fluorspar – mastering these supply chains to various degrees will make or break a nation’s industrial direction for this century.
We’re nearly 25 years into this century – this is a movement that’s going to last a long long time.
A gigafactory without critical minerals and chemicals is about as useful as grain silo to EV makers. Without a secure raw material pipelines into these gigafactories they’re useless. "....