Energy

The Bull Case for Energy Metals Going into 2019

Published

6 years ago

January 10, 2019

Jeff Desjardins

The Bull Case for Every Energy Metal Going into 2019

The rapid emergence of the world’s renewable energy sector is helping set the stage for a commodity boom.

While oil has traditionally been the most interesting commodity to investors in the past, the green energy sector is reliant on the unique electrical and physical properties of many different metals to work optimally.

To build more renewable capacity and to store that energy efficiently, we will need to increase the available supply for these specific raw materials, or face higher costs for each material.

Metal Bull Cases

Ahead of Cambridge House’s annual Vancouver Resource Investment Conference on January 20-21, 2019, we thought it would be prudent to highlight the “bull case” for relevant metals as we start the year.

It’s important to recognize that the commodity market is often cyclical and dependent on a multitude of factors, and that the above cases are not meant to be predictive in any sense.

In other words, the facts and arguments above sum up what we think investors may see as the most compelling stories for these metals – but what actually happens in the market, especially in the short-term, may be different.

Overarching Trends

While we highlight 12 minerals ranging from copper to lithium, most of the raw materials in the infographic fit into four overarching, big-picture stories that will drive the future of green energy:

Story	Supporting Projection
Solar and Wind	The world hit 1 TW of wind and solar generation capacity in 2018. The second TW will be up and running by 2023, and will cost 46% less than the first.
Electric Vehicles	Ownership of electric vehicles will increase by 40x in the next 13 years, reaching 125 million vehicles in 2030.
Energy Storage	The global market for energy storage is rapidly growing, and will leap from $194 billion to $296 billion between 2017-2024.
Nuclear	150 nuclear reactors with a total gross capacity of about 160,000 MW are on order or planned, and about 300 more are proposed – mostly in Asia.