Kurt House, CEO of KoBold Metals, explains global mineral supply and geopolitical concentration risks on Catalyst with Shayle Kann.
Opinion
House: Direct air capture to synthetic fuel is a staggering waste of capital
“Absurd, absurd, totally absurd technology that will cost, that is the, that is a staggering waste of human brain cells and capital and resources. And it's, and we should be spending at, we should always be working on the most effective, the best marginal use o…”
Prediction Held up
House: Nickel prices will drop below $30 per kilogram by April 2024
“These prices will not, I would bet against nickels being at 30 dollars a kilogram two years from now, because two years ago it was less than 20, and there were plenty of good opportunities, good projects out there, new projects that would work at 20.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
House: Elevated long-term lithium prices will constrain the energy transition
“We are confident the lithium price will stay, you know, elevated in the long run, not related to the current spike, but just in the long run, elevated, because there will be constant demand pressure, and in fact, I'm, you know, sort of concerned about it. I th…”
Insight
House: Fundamental physics makes lithium irreplaceable for high-density batteries
“There's not another element out there that happens to be the lightest metal and the electropositive, most electropositive metal, which also happens to complex very effectively with transition metals. Instable layered oxide crystal structures. Like, there isn't…”
Prediction Open · timeframe Apr 2072
House: Reaching a fully circular battery economy will take 50 years
“We can achieve 90, 98, 99% recycling rates on these, on, on these batteries, and over time, we'll get to the point where we do not have to mine them which is really, really exciting. But that will take more than a generation, unfortunately. We need a lot more …”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
House: Light-duty EV transition requires $5 trillion in new copper discoveries
“By our estimates, We need roughly five trillion dollars of new discoveries of copper, and this is, I mean, we'll come back to the, what I mean by discovery, well, let's keep going but new discoveries of copper just to fully electrify the light duty vehicle fle…”