LITHIUM (WHITE GOLD)

Introduction :

On 9th of February 2023 the geological Survey of India released a sensational report that could be a game changer of India, as it turns out we have discovered 9.5 million tons of lithium (White Gold) in J&K. This is not literal gold but just like oil is referred to as the Black Gold of the 20th century, lithium is known as the White Gold of 21st century, beacuse just like oil became the bloodline of the 20th century economics. Lithium is said to be the new energy reserve that will determine the super economies of the 21st century. And most news channels only told us about the lithium discovery, very few of them actually told us about the critical business & geopolitical insights behind this discovery.

Why Lithium is so important and why it is called as the ‘white gold’ of 21st century..?

Now we know that EV and renewable energy are the future but the single most important factor is this transition to EVs and renewables is none other than the evolution of batteries & this is due to obvious reason the first one being the fact that unlike petrol that can be filled with a minute but electric vehicle have a long charging duration that could be range between 30 minutes to 5 hours. So refueling is an extremely inefficient way to go ahead so, the way ahead is not to have many charging stations but you have batteries that can last for 400-500 km, such that they need to be charged only once in a day this is the reason why more than energy transfer is the energy storage that will play critical role in defining the electric superpowers of the world and the key to these energy storage in the EV industries is none other than lithium -ion battery.

Why Lithium is so much special and why not some other metal?

The first reason is the periodic table, the relationship between storage of the battery and the range that it can give let acid battery is range start saturation at 100 miles so beyond this point even if you increase the storage from 500 to 800 liters which is a 60% increase the range of barely p increases by 10% to 110 miles similar is the case with Nickel metal hydride at 175 miles, but with Lithium ion as you keep on increasing the storage the range also increase in rapidly and and this range saturation just begins at 350 miles so if the EV can achieve arrange of 400 miles or 640 km that can easily survive the auto mobile industry. It is the first reason why Lithium is so much important. Which is the perfect balance of range and storage saturation. The second reason for lithium values lies in the periodic table, if you remember after hydrogen and helium the lightest metal we have is lithium so obviously it is very very light of storage on top of that it has Energy Efficiency over 99% which means 99% of energy stored in Lithium iron batteries in converted into utilizable output and only 1% wasted. Where is if you look at the closest alternative to Lithium ion you will see that lead acid battery heaven efficiency of 70% Lithium metal batteries have an efficiency of 90% and Nickel, cadmium batteries have efficiency of only 85%, and thirdly Lithium has the highest energy density that means it can store the highest amount of energy per kg. Lithium is so so superior in the market right now that scientist believe that there is no alternative to this battery system for the next 10 to 15 years. So in short the country that has Lithium will command a very very strong over both geopolitics and economics in the world trade for the next two decades.

Geopolitics sides of lithium :

Now the way the Lithium industry is developing looks very similar to the beginning the oil boom Lithium is shaping geopolitics just like oil. Three countries do have consider amount the lithium, like USA 6.8 million tons, Australia with 6.3 million ton and China with 4.5 million tones. Now it is estimated that there are 80 million tons of lithium resources in the world with 80% of the known lithium deposits just in four countries which are Argentina, Bolivia, Chile and Australia and this region at the intersection of Argentina Bolivia Chile contains the largest known Lithium reserve in the world because of which the region is now known as the South America lithium triangle but the most superior fact is that the market of lithium supply is not dominant by any of these countries, and the actual leader of this market turns out to be China. And the India is so much dependent on China for lithium batteries that's 70% of our supply comes from China, so the question is how the hill of this even possible? For this late us take a step back and think and tell there are so many geopolitical case study, if such a valuable energy resource is present in search large quantities and that too Indore country that are not economically strong, what does it indicate that either they could from a powerful cartel and become super rich country like UAE, or it indicates that the big daddies of Geopolitics will use these countries as puppetes to win the global trade war, China already has a very very tight control over these Lithium mines. China's Tianaki Lithium is the second largest shareholder in SQM, which is very very Chilean mining company. China's gang Fang Lithium company controls 51 and Argentinian Lithium project that has been developing with lithium America's cooperation. On the top of that Chinese companies have also invested in Bolivian Lithium reserves and China also hold a 51% stack in world largest Hard rock lithium mines at green bushes in Western Australia. So really China although does not have Lithium reserves did controls those entities that controls the reserves in South America Lithium Triangle and Australia this is one of the major session why are more dependent on China then South America.
But here's where something crazy happened where we ourselves found white gold in India. Now the question is if we have found such a huge amount Lithium reserve in India does it mean that we are no longer dependent on China and does it mean that we are going to go on to become the electrical superpower in the world? Well not really why because number one this is just the G3 survey which might have a lot of inaccuracies and secondary having Lithium and using Lithium are to very very different things and there's very very critical process that is required to turned Lithium into an actual lithium ion battery. But then the cycle doesn't stop there is also a rivers supply chain, and all this processes require a huge capital infrastructure and super high tech machine to master, and surprisingly China has already invested so heavily into Lithium infrastructure and where India stands we are far far away, India has no expertise in mining, refining or processing lithium so if we set of factories today it will take us another 5 to 9 years to get a hold over this market. Currently we have a less than 1% capability to actually recycle lithium. So we can do one thing now that is we are doing collaboration with China and other countries. So clearly we need more and more companies with either there independent capabilities or which support from a reliant ally.

Conclusion :