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from the getting-a-charge-out-of-minerals-speculation dept.
Will there be enough to build all the electric vehicles?
Global demand for cobalt and nickel, two of the essential elements in electric car batteries, has never been higher. But where do all those metals come from? And do we even have enough for our electrified future? The answers to those questions are getting increasingly complex.
Reuters and Bloomberg both have stories out today on the metals and, as Reuters reports, while demand for nickel keeps increasing, half the world's nickel supply is too low in quality to use for car batteries.
All of which is going to have seismic effect on the world's suppliers. In short: There will be winners and losers, and the winners will be the ones with the highest-grade stuff—not unlike, I suppose, the illicit drugs market.
Do you feel fearful, uncertain, and doubtful about the future of electric cars?
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Thursday November 02 2017, @05:44AM (2 children)
Asteroid mining.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 02 2017, @07:06AM
Indeed.
And, oh look, one of the electric car makers also has an active space program :D
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday November 02 2017, @02:10PM
Yes. Just what I was going to suggest. Asteroid mining.
If we have a huge need for these metals, and they are out there, then we will be motivated to find a way to get there.
Just like we found ways of getting to oil that was formerly 'impossible' to get to.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.