From Watts Up With That?

Essay by Eric Worrall

The Australian Government is under pressure to subsidise local miners as well as battery industries, after a US miner backed by IRA cash launched an Aussie Lithium Mine takeover bid.

Mining tech boss says beware lithium refinery focus

Brad Thompson Reporter
Apr 3, 2023 – 11.05am

Mining technology company Imdex warned it will be a mistake if the Albanese government focuses too heavily on downstream processing of critical minerals in the face of intense lobbying by big lithium players.

The Imdex warning came as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese conceded Australia needed to get moving on its response to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to avoid a “flight of investment”.

…

Liontown Resources chairman Tim Goyder has backed the MinRes calls as Liontown resists a $5.5 billion takeover offer from Albemarle, which is set to be one of the big winners from President Joe Biden’s IRA bill and the Green Deal Industrial Plan in Europe.

In its submission in response to the government’s critical minerals strategy discussion paper, Imdex argues the focus should be spread across the entire value chain of critical minerals development.

…Read more: https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/mining-tech-boss-says-beware-lithium-refinery-focus-20230402-p5cxcz

I wonder if Aussie Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will cave in to pressure, and start a subsidy war against the Biden Administration. How far will Biden and Albanese go with expenditures of taxpayer’s cash, or maxing the national credit card, to defend their competing visions of global domination of lithium battery production?

As for the USA, it is bad enough that Biden is running up more public debt financing an economic transition so economically toxic that private money won’t touch it without government support. Having billions of dollars of that borrowed money leak away, to be spent in other countries, surely just adds insult to injury.