Meeting forecast demand growth for electric vehicles will require a number of critical minerals and alloys. Not all are readily available from reliable supply chains. Do minerals buried beneath the farm fields of southeast Nebraska in the central US represent one of the keys to meeting this challenge?<\/p>\n
In southeast Nebraska, a highly unique underground mineralogical structure known as the Elk Creek carbonatite deposit was created several hundreds of millions of years ago. This large carbonatite orebody hosts the Elk Creek Critical Minerals deposit, which is enriched in strategic metals such as niobium, scandium, titanium, and all of the rare earth elements. Together, these critical minerals represent some of the most vital ingredients to the success of a wide variety of greenhouse gas reducing technologies, including electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy systems, light-weight transportation systems, and high-efficiency motors and appliances.<\/p>\n
Why are these particular metals so important? What roles do they play in these technologies, and battery technology for electric vehicles in particular? What opportunities does their development present to manufacturers, consumers, government leaders, and investors?<\/p>\n
As public and private sector leaders work together to combat climate change through greater use of electric vehicles, much of the current effort is focused in three areas:<\/p>\n
What niobium does for steel, scandium does for aluminium. Adding small amounts of scandium to aluminium alloys make them readily weldable, more corrosion resistant, and highly resilient against bending. Scandium also increases aluminium\u2019s yield strength by up to 150%. These benefits of scandium promise extraordinary benefits to both surface transportation and aerospace applications.<\/p>\n
In addition, the corrosion properties of scandium mean the metal can permit aluminium to replace titanium in lower temperature service (>300\u00b0C), where corrosion is the key requirement. Examples include vehicle turbochargers and heat exchangers.<\/p>\n
The commercial aviation sector is especially excited at scandium\u2019s potential. For one, scandium can save airlines money because it can eliminate the need to rivet aluminium components. Scandium acts to stabilise the grain structure in the vicinity of welds, meaning aluminium parts can be welded quickly and efficiently. This in turn means that aircraft can have thinner skins in some locations and can eliminate the weight of rivets wherever aluminium alloys are used. For a B737 flying 3,250 hours per year and using American Airlines\u2019 cost of capital and the US EIA projections for future fuel price inflation, the present value of fuel savings driven by scandium alloys (assuming a 15% aircraft weight reduction) amounts to a little over $9m. The cost of added scandium, even at a price of $3500\/Kg oxide, and assuming an average 0.7% by weight scandium doping level, is around $800,000 \u2013 a savings-to-cost ratio of 11:1.3<\/p>\n
If there is one group of critical minerals that are absolutely essential to the future of electrified transportation, it is the rare earths. NioCorp\u2019s Elk Creek Project has the potential of producing significant amounts of rare earth products, particularly the magnetic rare earths.<\/p>\n
Most of the 14 naturally occurring lanthanide rare earth elements are used in modern vehicles today, as the accompanying graphic illustrates.<\/p>\n
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Some of the most important, particularly for electrified vehicles, are those rare earths that have magnetic properties, such as neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium. When combined with iron, boron, and some additional elements, these rare earths help make the world\u2019s most powerful permanent magnets, known as neodymium-iron-boron (\u2018NdFeB\u2019) magnets.<\/p>\n
Why are permanent magnets important to cars and trucks? Because they help to power the dozens of small electric motors scattered through virtually all modern cars and trucks in a way that reduces vehicle weight, increases energy efficiency, and reduces greenhouse gas and other harmful air emissions.<\/p>\n
In electrified cars and trucks, NdFeB magnets are also increasingly vital to the largest motors in the vehicle: those associated with the vehicle drive train.<\/p>\n
Demand for the magnetic rare earths is forecast to grow sharply in the coming years as EVs and wind turbines capture greater shares of their respective market, as the forecasts below demonstrate.<\/p>\n
The result of these supply\/demand imbalances?<\/p>\n
Clearly, greater production of rare earths from a variety of sources, particularly those outside of China, will be essential to the success of the EV revolution.<\/p>\n
NioCorp\u2019s Elk Creek Project has significant quantities of rare earth elements in its ore body. That means that production costs of rare earth products, if NioCorp elects to produce them, will likely be low when comparted to mining projects that produce rare earths as a primary product.<\/p>\n
The Earth\u2019s crust has an abundant supply of all of these critical minerals. However, their production can often be concentrated in a small handful of regions or nations. Such a lack of supply diversity presents a serious obstacle to the efficient operation of the complex global supply chains that feed into the manufacture of electrified vehicles. That increases risk to manufacturers whose products rely on these materials. For many EV manufacturers, geographic diversity of critical minerals supply is near the very top of their worry list.<\/p>\n
This is yet another reason why there is increasing attention paid by investors and others to the planned production in Nebraska of NioCorp\u2019s critical minerals.<\/p>\n
As the map below shows, current production of niobium and scandium are highly concentrated in only a handful of countries. Niobium is produced at a significant commercial scale in only two nations (Brazil and Canada). Scandium is produced in very small quantities in only four nations. Regarding rare earth elements, China remains the dominant producer (>80%) of these strategic materials.<\/p>\n
When NioCorp\u2019s Elk Creek Project comes into production, the mine and processing facility are expected to be the sole producers of niobium and scandium at commercial scale in the US. In all, the project is expected to produce the following quantities of its primary products:7<\/p>\n
For niobium, NioCorp\u2019s production would comprise less than 10% of current annual global production. However, that production would increase global supply diversity in very important ways.<\/p>\n
For scandium, NioCorp\u2019s expected annual production would be a game changer for manufacturers seeking to meet their needs for scandium. Current global production is around 20 tonnes\/year, which is about 6% of the estimated latent demand for scandium of 300 tonnes\/year in only one industry (commercial aviation).8 NioCorp\u2019s production will go a long way to helping meet that latent demand and will add significantly to diversity of supply.<\/p>\n
NioCorp is a public company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol \u2018NB\u2019 on the OTCQX under the ticker symbol \u2018NIOBF,\u2019 and on the Frankfurt Exchange under the ticker symbol \u2018BR3\u2019. To learn more about the company, its flagship Elk Creek Critical Minerals Project, and the remarkable products it plans to produce, please go to the company website here: https:\/\/www.niocorp.com<\/a><\/p>\n
Please note, this article will also appear in the sixth edition of our\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>quarterly publication<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"