Houston Chronicle 2/14/2019 by L.M. Sixel
TONOPAH, Nev. — About four hours north of the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas, a gravel road stretches across a dusty plain dotted with cactus and sagebrush, rising toward barren, volcanic hills. James Calaway, a Houston oil and gas man, surveys the empty, sunbaked landscape and sees the next Spindletop gusher.
Calaway, however, is not hunting crude. He is among a new breed of wildcatters hoping to cash in on the global shift to clean energy, combing this parched desert in search of lithium — a critical element in batteries that run electric vehicles, power cell phones and store electricity from wind and solar farms. Consider electric vehicles alone: Their numbers on the world's roads are expected to leap more than 40 times in just over 20 years, to 125 million in 2040 from 3 million in 2017.
"Lithium is the oil barrel of the 21st century," said Andrew Miller, senior analyst for the forecasting firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.
Just as the 1901 discovery of oil at Spindletop in Southeast Texas launched the modern energy industry, Calaway, 61, is betting that a major find here would help revive the U.S. lithium industry, reshape the global lithium trade and reduce the nation's dependence on foreign producers, particularly China, Argentina and Chile.
Calaway, whose lithium experience includes nearly a decade as chairman of the Australian mining company Orocobre, teamed up two years ago with another Australian company called Ioneer, buying about 6 percent of the stock and becoming chairman. Ioneer has since raised $60 million from 25 institutional investors to drill and develop leased federal land in Nevada, about 10 miles from the nation's only producing lithium mine.
Calaway has some big names behind him, including John Hofmeister, former president of Shell Oil, the U.S. subsidiary of European oil major Royal Dutch Shell. Hofmeister joined Ioneer's board after he invested about $100,000 in the company, whose stock is selling for about 12 cents a share.
All mining projects are risky, Hofmeister conceded, but geological testing shows that lithium reserves in Ioneer's lease are greater than anyone thought. "We'd be in a world class category," he said, one of the top 10 producing lithium mines in the world."
A lot depends, however, on a processing technology never used on a commercial scale. The process would target the abundance of rocks here containing both lithium and boron, which is used in smart phones, ceramics and laundry detergents. The idea is to separate the two materials and use revenues from the sale of boron to subsidize lithium production and make it competitive with some of the lowest-cost foreign suppliers.
"We're very bullish," said Calaway.
Lithium king
Calaway is a sixth-generation Texan whose ties to oil run deep enough that his middle name is Derrick. His father, Jim, was a successful wildcatter and his identical twin brother, John, founded the Houston exploration and production company Edge Petroleum. Calaway became president of the company in 1996.
The company was eventually sold and Calaway, a serial entrepreneur who started a space exploration company, launched an early Internet company and served as chairman of a software firm, started looking for his next opportunity. He also was seeking some meaning in his life.
Calaway said his eureka moment came in the Colorado mountains 12 years ago at the Aspen Ideas Festival, where a panel discussion on electric car propulsion got him thinking about batteries. He began attending battery conventions, talking to battery experts and reading battery publications. The world, he heard over and over again, was heading toward renewable energy and that required lithium batteries.
There was only one problem, Calaway said. "Where in the hell do you find lithium?"
More:
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Wildcatters-in-the-Nevada-desert-seek-the-21st-13614391.php
