Lifton on Rare Earth Recycling the Right Way

Rare Earth Deposits & Mining / Rare Earth Exploration, Mining, Processing, & Uses

Date posted: 07/26/15

Jack Lifton opines that in 2007 he represented SQA, the second largest producer of lithium from brines, to the U.S. OEM automotive industry. And the last meeting he attended between GM and SQA was what he called a teachable moment for the case of recycling lithium-ion batteries for automotive propulsion systems. He never for a moment, his says, believed in 2007 that General Motors had an interest in buying lithium carbonate from SQA for its (GM) own use, but he knew that the then purchasing director of the corporation had an interest in buying commodity metals and chemicals and then consigning them to tier one suppliers so that GM could control the cost of the raw materials and pay only service fees for transforming them into OEM automotive components. GM at that time was doing that for copper wire for Delphi for wiring harness produced by Delphi even though it had spun off Delphi 8 years earlier. The control of the prices and flow of the critical raw materials program had continued even through the independence of Delphi. It was an excellent program, and although he does not believe it exists today at GM, it is well ensconced at Boeing, which uses this method to not only to stabilize the price of titanium for its Tier Ones but even to buys back their floor scraps at a predetermined price. Lifton also reports that Japanese car companies are recycling rare earth metals from batteries (or magnets) in places like Vietnam as an example of recycling ventures, but in fact these ventures just prove the Lifton point that such recycling is done profitably only by a company that distributes its operational costs over a supply chain in which some parts are not profitable as free-standing businesses. He noted that the joint ventures in Viet Nam for recycling batteries and magnets involve entities such as Japan ShinEtsu, the second largest rare earth permanent magnet maker in Japan which is uniquely vertically integrated. An interesting read .....