Battery Metals

Indonesia, the world’s largest nickel exporter, has a sobering message for struggling producers of the battery metal elsewhere: don’t expect any meaningful revival in prices. Septian Hario Seto, the government official who has overseen Indonesia’s nickel processing boom, says prices are unlikely to rise much above $18,000 a ton on the London Metal Exchange. The […]

Norway looks to be at the forefront in the development of new maritime technologies both to advance decarbonization and to increase the operating safety and efficiency of vessels. Designs have been completed and an order was placed for four fully battery-powered RoRo ferries that will also be capable of fully autonomous operations as part of […]

Indian conglomerate Tata has confirmed Bridgwater in Somerset as the site of its new £4 billion battery factory which will bring about 4,000 jobs to the region. Tata’s battery business Agratas said that it had bought land at the Gravity Smart Campus off the M5 just outside the town. Tata confirmed in July last year […]

A new partnership is promising 133 jobs for Liberty, North Carolina. Fujihatsu Tech America, Inc., and Toyota Tsusho America, Inc., will join to form Fujihatsu & Toyotsu Battery Components, North Carolina LLC (FTBC) and invest $60 million to expand an electric vehicle battery plant, the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina announced on Monday. The […]

A group led by researchers at Nagoya University in Japan has created a material based on fullerene indanones (FIDO), which promises to improve the durability of next-generation solar cells. Durability has been one of the biggest hurdles in their practical application and commercialization. The researchers published their findings in the Journal of the American Chemical […]

Aluminum slid and nickel pared earlier gains after a package of US sanctions omitted any major curbs on Russian industrial metals. The action announced on Friday included measures against more than 500 people and entities linked to Russia’s war machine, but left the country’s base metals industries unscathed. The two metals had been buoyed this […]

With relatively low costs and a more robust supply chain than conventional lithium-ion batteries, magnesium batteries could power EVs and unlock more utility-scale energy storage, helping to shepherd more wind and solar energy into the grid. That depends on whether or not researchers can pick apart some of the technology obstacles in the way. The […]

Investment banks Goldman Sachs and Macquarie as well as some hedge funds are positioning themselves to reap the benefits of a newly buoyant uranium sector as prices of the nuclear fuel ingredient spike. While many other investment banks are still avoiding uranium, Goldman and Macquarie are boosting trading in physical uranium and in Goldman’s case […]

Researchers at Skoltech, the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and other scientific organizations have found a way to improve diamond adhesion —the bond between diamond and transition metal—using niobium. In a paper published in the Journal of Alloys and Compounds, the scientists explain that although diamonds are beautiful gemstones, rough diamonds are much more interesting from […]

Insiders liken it to a “panic button.” And for more than 80 years, the primary job of the National Defense Stockpile has been to keep the US military supplied with essential raw materials and protect against supply shocks. So when China surprised the markets by restricting exports of two niche industrial metals last year, top-level […]