Thought I would share an interesting opinion from someone who responded to the "Lithium Comparisons Part Two" via Linkedin. Their response was;
HI Steve, Thanks for your comparison, I think Argosy Minerals Limited (AGY) should be your pick of the bunch. I think they have enormous up side considering their share price is sitting at around 3 cents and their recent announcements showing they have everything in place to become a serious Lithium contender. My question to you is – Why are investors not being alerted to the fact that lithium spodumene supply chain in comparison to lithium brine supply chain is allot more costly, slower for a return on investment, bigger investment needed to get started, less return on investment overall and a lot more damaging to the environment thus our planet? The biggest point of difference between spodumene vs brine supply chains is their carbon footprint and subsequently their overall costs along their supply chains to produce 1 tonne of pure lithium. The reason why Lithium is hot at the moment is because we need to save the planet, and a company’s carbon footprint to produce lithium must be considered along its supply chain. If investors have any type of conscience they would redirect their investment to a process that is carbon neutral like a brine process company. For me and allot of people in the world, there is no point in making a battery if we just filled up the sky with emissions to produce the Battery and it doesn’t out way the batteries life cycle of emissions savings. The first stages of extracting the Lithium in the supply chain needs to be considered. My understanding with the brine process, is that these companies simply pump up the brine water and dry it out in ponds with the sun, collected it up and put it through their plant to produce a high grade lithium and sell it at around $10K per tonne. Compared this to Spodumene which is a typical mining operation that Drills, Blasts, Digs, Hauls, Dumps, Crushes, Washes – all energy hungry, mostly diesel machinery process, before selling their product to China for only $600 per tonne, where China then has too cook it at super high temperatures and do whatever else to it, to get to the final high grade lithium which they then sells for $10K per tonne. Where is the logic of all the environmentally conscience investors, Brine is cheaper, faster and cleaner to produce in the lithium brine supply chain compared to the hardrock carbon emitting/carbon negative lithium spodumene supply chain, not to forget the return on investment is slower with Spodumene, greater investment is needed to get going and the return on investment percentage is allot less. It does not make sense to me, that such critical decision making information is not transparently disclosed to the worldwide investors and market places regarding lithium supply chains, what are your thoughts on this? Where's peoples conscience or are they being told half the truth? They can not be all greedy investors because if they were, they would actually back the brine process because its seems to have a better return on investment?
