Another Cobalt article and Market trends

It was mentioned a few months ago here on the Zbattery blog that the Cobalt mines that allow us to build li-ion batteries are manned by independent workers. These workers take great risks to their very lives and surely to their health, but all that they ask of you is that you don't take this mining opportunity away from them. Because even with the risk borne in this endeavor, it's the least risky job they have available.

Truly, for these men, taking them out of the frying pan would be to put them into a blast furnace.

But we are finding the problems for these men are getting better, not worse, by doing nothing. As demand for cobalt goes up, so does the price they get for it. Now one might say that only the middle-men will reap the benefits of higher prices - but this will only happen if the independent miners have to hide their work and cannot sell the products of their labor openly to multiple bidders.

So the next time the Washington Post casts their evil eye toward independent miners as they keep repeatedly doing, it will not only hurt the independent miner. It will hurt you to in the form of higher prices.

And this brings up the great opportunity for investing in lithium and cobalt. These are sure to both raise in price as demand skyrockets.

And with a mind-boggling 12 battery gigafactories on the books globally, we’re looking at a supply and demand equation that is overwhelming in favor of the new lithium miner. It’s not only Tesla: LG Chem (OTC:LGCEY), Foxconn, BYD (OCTPK:BYDDY) and Boston Power are all building new battery factories, too—among others. Imagine the manufacturing capacity here that requires monumental amounts of lithium and cobalt that we simply won’t have.

Can the price stay low enough for BEVs to be a market success? If the price of materials goes too high, the batteries will continue to hinder sales. And it will raise the price for li-ion and LiFePO4 and every other lithium chemistry, not to mention the market for grid batteries using lithium chemistries.

Although in the grid market might have other interesting changes because it has the most non-lithium based chemistries available. So look for Vanadium and Lead to continue to raise in the future despite the rush to lithium.