Zinc stocks plummeted from 900,000 tonnes at the beginning of 2014 to around 120,000 five years later - due to a rash of zinc mine closures over the past few years and tighter environmental restrictions in China.
The reason for central banks’ recent gold accumulations has little to do with safe havens and a lot to do with chipping away at the US dollar’s role as the reserve currency.
Our options are actually quite limited when it comes to the globe’s energy dilemma, the answer is nuclear energy and lithium-ion battery storage technology. Now all we need to do is convince the politicians.
One of the world’s least known metals is also of great importance, and likely to become more so as renewable energies catch up with and possibly eclipse fossil fuels.
A global energy transition is underway, with lithium-ion as one of the leading energy storage technologies for both handheld technology and electric cars.
Every year millions of small-scale miners toil in the baking sun, collecting and breaking rocks with the goal of extracting small amounts of gold - enough to make a living in some of the most impoverished corners of the world.