Lithium Juniors = Snake Oil, part 922

Thanks to reader 'NK' for the headsup on this one.

This report in the Ottawa Citizen is ostensibly about the bullshit lithium exploration in its own region, but there are a couple of cut-out-and-keep quotes from the article that should be nailed to the forehead of anyone even thinking about Li junior explorers as a valid investment. The first one comes from a certain Patrick Stratton, minerals market consultant for Roskill Infromation Services, who points out that juniors drill properties to boost share prices even when they don't expect to find anything by saying,

"Saying you are digging around for lithium or rare earth elements is one thing, but actually turning the search into a mine is completely different."

For sure there are plenty of people who read IKN that will treat that as just another No-Shit-Sherlock moment, but all the same it's true. However the second quote from the report is a classic. It comes from Michel Lemay, president of a bullshit Li junior known as Stelmine (STH.v) who says,

"It is impossible to increase share prices by drilling because the stock market decides what prices will be."

WTF? That's the most ridiculous statement so far this year from a junior miner, folks (and there's a lot of competition for that prize, believe me). Allow me to translate Lemay's thoughts into plain English: "We mining people think that the general public are morons and so we'll tell them any old shit to keep our scams going." I mean, you wouldn't buy a used car from shady operators, so why do you insist on buying worthless stock of worthless companies from the same level of businessperson?

Lithium Juniors = Snake Oil, part 429

I've said it before (plenty of times, in fact) and I'll say it again: Lithium isn't the fuel of the future. Now some eggheads over at Toyota have told the world the same thing. News that Toyota has rejected lithium and is sticking with nickel-based battery systems for vehicles after three years of secret tests is now hitting the specialist websites and has made it to Bloomberg, too. The story at altenergystocks headlined "Toyota Tests and Rejects Lithium-ion Batteries For the Prius" is pretty typical and includes:

Yesterday and this morning we learned that after secretly testing a fleet of 126 Prius Hatchbacks with lithium-ion battery packs for three years, Toyota Motors (TM) has decided to stick with its tried and true nickel metal hydride, or NiMH, battery technology for the foreseeable future.

And thus another headless-chicken metal pump-job hits the wall of reality at high speed and dies its inevitable death. The good news is that there's a great market filter for junior mining investors available right now: All you need to do is make a checklist of all the exploration plays that have recently jumped on the Lithium bandwagon, then note the names of all the directors of those companies and then never invest a penny with any of them ever again.

Lithium Juniors = Snake Oil, part 63

Meet Ellie Stanborough, an 11 year old Limey with her exploded iPod. The whole story is over the The Times this morning and is ostensibly about the way Apple tried to gag her family into not speaking about the way her iPod did this:

Ken Stanborough, 47, from Liverpool, dropped his 11-year-old daughter Ellie’s iPod Touch last month. “It made a hissing noise,” he said. “I could feel it getting hotter in my hand, and I thought I could see vapour”. Mr Stanborough said he threw the device out of his back door, where “within 30 seconds there was a pop, a big puff of smoke and it went 10ft in the air”.

But for me the near-certain source of the explosion is more interesting, namely the lithium ion battery that powers the thing. Are you seriously suggesting you scale that sucker up 1,000 times and put it in a moving vehicle without large-scale upgrades in lithium technology? I mean, wouldn't it ruin your weekend to be rear-ended at a set of traffic lights and then have your legs blown off by your own car's power system a couple of seconds later?

The fuel of the future my ass. Said it before and will say it again, just looking at lithium junior miners is bad enough but actually thinking they're decent investments means your personal mental imbalance demands the stuff ingested.