, Columnist
Lithium’s Promised Land Looks More Like the Old Country
A couple of Australian tycoons are holding up takeovers of junior miners. Their territorial behavior is not good for the market.
New frontier.
Photographer: Carla Gottgens/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Once upon a time, the world didn’t care much about lithium.
A decade after Sony Corp. developed lithium-ion batteries in 1991, the rise of smartphones and laptops in the early 2000s still wasn’t enough to dent the market. The light, reactive metal was mostly considered a useful additive for making aluminum, glass, or industrial lubricants. Few thought of it as an element whose supply and demand could determine humanity's ability to avert catastrophic climate change.