Vanadium, Uranium and the Power Revolution
Date: Sep 14, 2018
There is a Power Revolution taking place in the global economy today. There are several dimensions to this Revolution and thus a number of different investment opportunities that flow from this technological evolution.
- Phasing out power generation from fossil fuel sources due to both severe environmental concerns (associated with climate change) as well as finite supplies of these fuels
- Exponential growth in the use of renewable power sources as they become cost-competitive with fossil fuel-generated power (the International Renewable Energy Agency projects this by 2020)
- Massive growth in the use of lithium-ion battery technology, with the electric vehicle market being the single, largest catalyst
- Massive growth in need/demand for advanced energy storage cells
- A Renaissance in the nuclear power industry
As with any paradigm shift in the global economy, this Revolution requires vast amounts of raw materials to fuel these changes. In particular, this is generating new sources of demand and massive increases in demand for many metals and minerals.
Some of these raw materials have already received considerable media and analyst coverage and thus are already fully on the radar of metals investors. Lithium and cobalt were the first two “battery metals” to attract media and investor interest – and a plethora of junior mining companies have jumped into these two markets.
Other battery metals/minerals are now also acquiring additional prominence, at different speeds. These metals and minerals include nickel, graphite and manganese. But opportunities in the massively growing energy storage market and an effective rebirth for the nuclear power industry haven’t drawn nearly as much attention — yet. For these two investment niches, the most important raw materials for investors are vanadium and uranium.
