I guess anyone with basic knowledge in geology realizes what price and demand mean in dealing with minerals.
The geologists I know and have worked with over the years tend to avoid economic anything. They understand some basics maybe, but even the USGS folks tend to avoid even attempting economic estimates in their resource estimates, sticking to technically recoverable, with really big conditionals on the economics. Current practice and prices being one of them, which practically invalidates their TRR estimates the next day, when price and by extension industry practice changes.
Old Rocks said:Lithium is expensive, but at present, not expensive enough to mine the spodomene in the Black Hills for it.
Expensive is a relative concept. Which is why resource cost curves are nice, puts the volumes into the appropriate context of "how expensive".