As some of the excitement around rare earth elements seems to have abated since the heady highs of fall 2009, we decided to re-visit this very small but intriguing sector of the market with an expert in Clean Technology/Alternative Energy, Dr. Jon Hykawy of Byron Capital Markets. It appears as if the Obama Administration’s grant of US$2.4BB for battery makers, automakers and their suppliers seems to have jump-started a move towards vehicle electrification that may have been neglected by the North American automakers.
Today, lithium demand is approximately 22,000 tonnes of which about 4,200 tonnes is used in battery production. The white hot IPO of Tesla (TSLA:NASDAQ) recently ties in very nicely with this theme of theme vehicle electrification and speaks to the enormous investor interest behind new technologies that reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. Read More…
Investing into clean energy renewables is always a good thing but return on investment should not be expected for at least 10-15 years. I’ve invested a little into it and focused a lot on the biosector right now. The books of Tesla Motors is a little sketchy and i’d like to hold off for a year to see how they work out their problems.
I’d love to own one of those roadsters – http://matthewaengel.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/tesla2.jpg
Serious chick magnet. Just sayin’! 😀
The problem with tesla is that they have all the cash but no real proper direction and the battery life sucks.
I’m a bit confused. Which parts of Canada have thermo springs. I really gotta get out more.
Haven’t begun at all? Uhh, unless you live in the North West Territories where tundra is what you call your front lawn we in the civilized part of Canada make use of Wind Power and Thermo springs in West.
Its not only an American problem but is a problem for us too. We may have one of the worlds largest reserves and can actually be self reliant but we choose not to be. So although americans are trying to peel away from oil as slow as possible we havent even begun at all.
It may be ugly but green energy is the way to go. Its disappointing that america continues to play pattycake with big corporations instead of being serious but it is a nice start that Obama is trying to do something about this growing problem.
Tesla has been bleeding cash since its inception. last quarter they lost $100 million. Sounds to me they are in over their heads and might not be too long before one of the big car companies just swallow them up whole.
Did anyone get a piece of that Tesla IPO when it came out last or so? Man, i would love to own that. Its going to be huge!
And so the world continues to turn. We’ve been down this road many times before and once again we are back to square one talking about getting off our dependency of oil. Thanks for coming out, see you at the next reunion.