Thread by @CatalystPod

Hey! Producer @DanielWoldorff here. So I knew that prices of #lithium, copper, nickel, etc. have been going up.

Major headlines have covered this. But I had no idea how wild some of these swings were. 🧵 #EnergyTwitter wsj.com/articles/the-s…

Looking at you, #lithium. The price of one form of lithium skyrocketed by over 400% in 2021.

On @CatalystPod we talked to @kurtzhouse about what's behind a market that's going bonkers and what it means for the energy transition. spglobal.com/commodityinsig…

Kurt works at @KoBold_Metals, one the companies that stands to benefit from this growing demand.

KoBold uses AI to characterize and discover sources of metals. koboldmetals.com

For a sense of scale, Kurt says that the production of metals like #lithium and copper need to grow by orders of magnitude by midcentury.

For example, we need $5 trillion in new discoveries of these materials to fully electrify the light duty fleet. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

Recycling will also be essential. To a sort of lay consumer like me, recycling sounded fanciful. I hear so much about plastic recycling being broken.

But materials like #lithium & copper are different. Each KG of this stuff is worth $$$. spglobal.com/commodityinsig…

Will constrained supplies of metals such as #lithium, cobalt and nickel become the bottleneck hindering EV adoption?

Learn more in our latest episode. 👇canarymedia.com/podcasts/catal…