The shift from hydrocarbons to renewable energy entails a profound shift from combustion science to materials science. Lithium is an example. Non-energy demand for lithium (pharma, alloying, batteries), sizeable and growing moderately, is supplemented by small but growing energy-driven lithium demand (grid storage, LDV, HDV). Can supply and processing keep pace to support increased investment in CO2-remediating technologies? What quantity of lithium can actually be delivered? Where will it come from? Where will it be processed? Will various regions suffer shortages or enjoy surfeit (or somewhere between)? What regional prices will we see? Can China exercise market power or scarcity rent as a way to restrict supply, drive up price, earn excess profits, disincentivize entry by rivals, and pressure rivals? What could thwart that? Is there any motivation for strategic storage or recycle? What are DOE “earthshots” truly worth? Just as with energy, the answer integrates upstream processing, transportation, and consumption “supply chains” organized into a multiregional world lithium “network,” ranging from source rock through processing and transportation to finished product. We have built a multiregional world lithium economic model and filled it with accurate engineering data to answer the key investment, economic, and policy questions for industry and policymakers. (Same for rare earths, which we will mention.) How did we do it, and what does it say? How do we separate unfounded opinions or conjectures from reliable information? How do we distinguish ineffectual or imprudent policies from effective ones? How do we relieve people from having to extrapolate recent price/quantity trends into a much different future? Where are the profitable investments all along the supply chain? We begin to offer answers.
Dr. Carl Nesbitt, Mackay School of Mines Professor and ArrowHead Senior Manager, has spent over 40 years in the mining and metals industry. Initially, he worked as a process metallurgist in a large minesite concentrator and on metals, precious metals, and coal. Following that, he joined the faculty at Michigan Technological University (MTU), teaching and consulting widely in process metallurgy. After some 20 years at MTU, he joined the faculty of the Mackay School of Mines (recently renamed Earth Sciences) at the University of Nevada, Reno to revitalize their BS and MS programs in metallurgical engineering. Dr. Carl Nesbitt teaches Mineral Processing, Hydrometallurgy, Pyrometallurgy, Environmental Chemistry of Metals, Material Science, Materials Processing, Surface Chemistry, Advanced Mineral Processing (Flotation), and Corrosion. He has a B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Nevada, an M.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in metallurgical engineering from the University of Nevada/Mackay School.
Dr. Dale Nesbitt, ArrowHead founder and CEO, has consulted widely in the energy industry (renewables, oil, gas, petrochemicals/NGL, electricity, storage) and the non-energy materials industry from high tech electronic materials to gold, copper, phosphate, potash, lithium, rare earths, and other important commodities. Dr. Nesbitt teaches Decision Analysis, Ethics, Bayesian Statistics, and Coercion-Free Social Systems at Stanford and lectures in economics. He has a B.S. from the University of Nevada in Engineering Science and has an M.S. in Nuclear Engineering and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford.