One of those little stories that bolsters our faith in the basic underpinning of our society - that free market capitalism. This:
French miner Imerys to help develop UK’s largest lithium deposit
Note what we’re not praising - the FT’s reporting nor understanding. Imerys owns the deposit. It is allowing someone to have a go at exploiting it. But, you know, they got the name of the metal right.
Lithium is often found in granites and the like. Granites can, sometimes, weather down into clays - kaolins, kaolinites maybe (yes, our lack of really detailed knowledge will shock geologists but this is part of the overall point here). China Clay is a form of such weathered down granite. So, it’s possible that the China clay pits of Cornwall might have lithium in them. You know, maybe?
Ah:
The granites of South-West England are a potential source of lithium which is generally found within the mica mineral, zinnwaldite. It is mainly found in the central and western end of the St. Austell granite. When kaolin extraction occurs in these areas a mica-rich waste product is produced which is currently disposed of in tailings storage facilities. In this study a tailings sample containing 0.84% Li2O…
0.84%, if someone else has already done the grinding the rock down to get it out, is pretty good for an Li source (1.3, maybe 1.4%, is something that you’re willing to grind down the rock to get, like all those spodumene mines).
Imerys took over English China Clay, therefore owns all those slag piles (maybe gangue pits, again, the technical language slightly escapes us) where that lithium enriched zinnwaldite sits unloved and awaiting attention.
So, what next? The statist (we’d possibly say Mazzo) idea is that government then plans everything and so - but that’s ludicrous. It is true that government is feeding some cash into this but that’s also ludicrous. Because there is no way, no way at all, that this potential source of lithium is not going to be explored given that the lithium price is $50,000 a tonne and the like. We can also prove that. There are two - at least - companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange (Zinnwald Lithium, European Metals) that have raised private sector money to extract lithium from zinnwaldite under the village of, umm, Zinnwald. The same sort of mica - hey, it’s even got the same name! - which is sitting there as waste in the old China clay pits.
Well, yes, that’s an exploration that’s going to happen then, isn’t it?
But here’s our real point here. So, we all decide that EVs are the very thing. This means much more lithium is required. So, what happens then? Well, there used to be two methods of gaining lithium. Extraction from salt brines and mining spodumene. Mineral reserves around the world were of those two that were already licensed, already proven to be profitable at then current prices. Mineral resources were those that we were pretty sure could be so but hadn’t bothered to fully prove.
At which point some say we can’t have EVs because mineral reserves weren’t enough. Or, the slightly more awake, that resources weren’t.
Umm, well, yes. We’ve seen one list of 200 companies looking for traditional - brines and spodumene - lithium sources. Yes, they’re finding them. But there’s more than that. As with Cornish Lithium there’s the idea of extraction from geothermal waters. Or, here, from mica in the wastes of old processes - or as in Germany/Czechia, from new mining of that same mineral. That is, we’re not just finding new deposits of those old minerals, we’re working out new minerals to get our target from.
And how has this happened? Well, the price of lithium changed. So every geologist, capitalist and general wide boy started to think about how to produce more lithium. Ain’t free market capitalism great? And this really does work. In fact it is working.
Because what’s really happening here at British Lithium. The change in price has meant people are going looking for that change that slipped down the back of the sofa. We’ve known for decades the lithium is there, it just needs that push of the price change to do something about it.
‘Ere, Jethro, there might be money at the bottom o’ that slurry pit. Best be we look.
It’s a hell of a system, isn't it?