Albemarle and Caterpillar team up for clean mining tech.
Critics of the transition from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles point out that many obstacles remain to full adoption. These include high costs, unknown electrical grid capacity and, importantly, access to the critical minerals necessary to create the all-important battery packs. With car battery technology, lithium is the key metal, and like other strategic inputs, most of the world supply is a long way away from America’s auto manufacturers. That, however, may be changing, as Albemarle Corporation and Caterpillar have announced a deal to collaborate on zero emissions battery-powered mining equipment for deployment at Albemarle’s Kings Mountain North Carolina lithium mine.
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Episode Transcript:
Critics of the transition from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles point out that many obstacles remain to full adoption, including high costs, unknown electrical grid capacity and, importantly, access to the critical minerals necessary to create the all-important battery packs. With car battery technology, lithium is the key metal, and like other strategic inputs, most of the world supply is a long way away from America auto manufacturers.
That, however, may be changing, as Albemarle Corporation and Caterpillar have announced a deal to collaborate on zero emissions battery-powered mining equipment for deployment at Albemarle’s Kings Mountain North Carolina lithium mine. The deal will establish Kings Mountain as the first ever zero-emissions lithium mine site in North America.
Part of the deal is a lithium offtake agreement, guaranteeing lithium supplies to Caterpillar, who are actively developing battery-powered construction and mining equipment. Although not agreed on contractually, both companies will explore opportunities to collaborate on battery cell research and development and recycling technologies.
The collaboration can’t come too soon for American battery makers, as global lithium demand is skyrocketing. According to Statista, global demand this year for lithium will be just under 1 million metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, rising to 1.2 million tons in 2025, and doubling from that level by 2030. Demand is expected to reach 3.8 million tons annually by 2035, driven by battery production for electric vehicles.
The world’s largest known reserves of lithium are in Chile, currently estimated at 9.3 million metric tons, with current known reserves in the U.S. approximately 1 million metric tons. Economically, there is plenty of incentive for domestic American lithium production, with average prices for battery grade lithium carbonate in 2022 averaging approximately $37,000 per metric ton, one of the reasons why electric vehicles are so expensive to manufacture.
The most significant part of the Albemarle/Caterpillar collaboration, however, may not be in clean mining technology, but in lithium recycling.
A very high proportion of primary steel production is recycled repeatedly, and scrap steel has been the driving force behind a renaissance in electric arc mini mill technology, making high-value steels for manufactured goods like automobiles. In the early part of the Industrial Revolution, lacking large quantities and scrap, there was a global boom in the construction of blast furnaces and cooking operations to turn iron ore into carbon steel.
If the energetics and costs of lithium recycling from spent electric vehicle batteries proved to be similar to the steelmaking experience, the amount of lithium carbonate and equivalent ores in the ground may not be the rate determining factor to sustained electric vehicle production in America.
