An electrified world dominated by lithium batteries and related geopolitics are being born

The topic of electrification and national geopolitics sounds very grand at first, and you can write a long and long narrative, of course, you can also make a long story short. E-mobility (e-mobility) is a Western word, and our Chinese language is called new energy. Use less old energy and more new energy. The transformation of energy means gradually getting rid of old energy represented by oil, coal and natural gas, and transforming to renewable energy based on lithium electricity and hydrogen energy. Due to the various advantages of lithium batteries (not detailed here), the International Renewable Energy Agency, at present and for a long period of time in the future, the important energy for electrification will still come from lithium batteries. The electrification here mainly refers to the electrification of vehicles. For a long period of time in the future, lithium-ion batteries will be an important energy storage product. Compared with traditional fossil energy, due to the particularity of the upstream raw materials and manufacturing processes of lithium-ion batteries, some new trade models and geopolitics will appear in the transformation of electrification. The upstream oil mines of traditional energy represented by oil and natural gas are mainly distributed in the United States, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iran. The refining links are mainly distributed in my country, the United States, Russia and Australia, and the final consumption is in the United States, my country and Europe. As a renewable energy source, lithium batteries are mainly distributed in the Golden Triangle of South America-Chile, Bolivia and Argentina, accounting for about 54% of global reserves. Cobalt ore is mainly located in the Democratic Republic of Congo, accounting for 68% of global reserves. Nickel ore It is important in Indonesia, which accounts for about 6.10% of global reserves. Regardless of whether it is storage or output, compared with fossil energy, the geographical distribution of metal minerals required for lithium batteries is more concentrated. The International Energy Agency and the lithium battery industry in the middle reaches of the metal refining, the manufacture of precursors, and the manufacture of the four major materials of downstream batteries, my country all account for a larger proportion of the world. The processing volume of lithium ore accounts for nearly 60% of the global share, and the processing volume of cobalt ore exceeds 60%. The output of lithium battery cathode materials and anode materials accounted for 66% of the global market share. In terms of the final product cell level, my country's cell output in 2020 accounted for 63.2% of the world's share. Compared with other countries, my country has a strong sense of existence in the global lithium battery industry chain. The important incentive for this near-dominant global market share comes from the strong stimulus of the Chinese government's policy in the automotive electrification industry for more than 10 years since 2009, as well as the rise of energy storage and 5G industries in recent years. The above-mentioned pictures of the International Energy Agency mainly come from the report entitled 'The Role of Critical Mineral Sin Clean Engery Transitions' published by the IEA (International Energy Agency) recently. Coincidentally, the blogger accidentally saw an article from the Downtoearth website called 'PetrotoElectro: ItistheDragonvstheRestoncriticalminerals' recently published. Some explanations were also made on the geopolitics brought about by the lithium battery industry in electrification. Especially when I saw the following two pictures, I felt very shocked. For a long period of time in the past, the United States, Russia, Australia and Saudi Arabia have largely dominated the global fossil energy economy due to the storage volume of oil and coal resources. With the advent of the electrification era, the aforementioned geopolitical structure brought about by fossil energy is dying out, and a new electrified world dominated by lithium batteries and related geopolitics are being born. Why is there an electrification strategy at the national level? The early answer was for environmental protection, and the slogan was: Start a battle to defend the blue sky. As an important application scenario of electrification-the electrification of automobiles. From the perspective of the automotive industry, the slogan shouted was: overtaking on a curve. In the past year, the electrification strategic goal has been pushed to a higher level: the carbon peaking and carbon neutral strategy reached between important countries in the world. The ultimate intention of electrification may be none of the above, but the geopolitics related to the fate of the country. Whoever leads this electrification revolution, who leads this energy revolution, will dominate the global energy economy and even national security for a long time to come.