On lithium’s frontier, miners are betting on a greener second act

Against the arid, red dirt of the Australian Outback, the Mount Holland lithium mine emerges to approaching visitors as a colossal grey-tinged crater, with trucks the size of houses edging along its steep inclines. An expanding site at the heart of the world’s top lithium-producing region, the A$2.6-billion operation is emblematic of the plentiful additional supply of the battery material currently weighing on global prices, much of it from this neighborhood. Despite bullish long term forecasts, the metal has been languishing near two-year lows as demand fails to keep pace.