The Global Lithium Podcast

I spent the past week in Japan and China meeting leading cathode and battery producers. I give you my "take aways" on the transition to high nickel cathode, price and quality. I also make comments on the SQM earnings call and Galaxy's recent Sal de Vida announcement.

Joe and Emily are joined in Los Angeles by the newly minted “geek squad,” the label intended as the ultimate compliment to four technical experts. All are veterans of the podcast. We are guided through the lithium value chain from the ground to lithium chemicals to cathode and ultimately the battery. Dr. Tom Benson of Lithium Americas shares how lithium is formed inside the earth, and how the fact that lithium “Can’t Be Tamed” is what makes it so practical for batteries. Dr. Yuan Gao of Pulead and now a Lithium Americas Board Member takes us through extracting lithium from raw materials and making cathodes. Dr. Gao, or the “Lithium OG”, explains the concept of excess lithium and why it matters even more in a high nickel world. Dr. Dr. Rene LeBlanc of Lithium Americas explains how the process to separate lithium can be the reverse of how it's formed, and shares how the physical separation process for the sedimentary material at Thacker Pass is like the process for extracting gold.. Dan Blondal of Nano One explains the different purposes served by cobalt, as a stabilizer of layered nickel structure or active material in LCO batteries. We give a shout out to the Real Clear Politics discussion of Minerals: The Overlooked Foundations of our Future, where Emily was a panelist and felt like she knew the cool kids when Alexi Zawadski and Thacker Pass were name dropped by Carl Cannon, Executive Editor & Washington Bureau Chief of RealClearPolitics, as a carbon-neutral project. Our guests close with what they experience as most misunderstood lithium myths, and as always we end with rapid fire questions.

This episode reviews some highlights from Cathodes 2019 and my feedback to listeners on their criticism of the podcast. One gaffe is when I say spodumene carbonate instead of spodumene concentrate but most of you would understand what I meant anyway.

Questions about Ponds, ALB earnings, Price and the Future

Five questions: from Livent earnings to why I am critical of ALB but not of Ganfeng. Does Bolivia matter? Do I ignore Altura? plus rapid fire.

More on the social unrest situation in Chile. In this episode we hear from Alonso Barros, an attorney and Cambridge PhD.  Alonso is involved in many things, among them serving as an advisor to various  Indigenous Groups in Chile.  Dr. Barros knows the details of the situation between various stakeholders in the world's largest lithium brine producing region well. 

This is a special episode of Global Lithium Q&A with guests former SQM Commercial VP Daniel Jimenez and Alejandro Hess. Both gentlemen are from Chile and provide local insights to the current situation of social unrest along with the potential short and long term impacts on the lithium industry. 

It has been a busy week for announcements in the lithium world. I cover the topics in the title and answer a couple rapid fire questions.  If you have been blocked by me on Twitter there is probably a good reason but feel free to voice message me via Anchor and tell me why I shouldn't have blocked you in the first place.

A large number of questions came in after episode 1:  I answer four of them including: the hydroxide shelf life issue, "are we at a market bottom?" ,  the value of Fastmarkets' pricing product, and my take on Russia pursuing a lithium project in Chile.  Of course there is a rapid fire question.