Francis Wedin, the founder of lithium hopeful Vulcan Resources, rides his bike to work in the Perth heat every morning. This, he says, is unrelated to the crash in the lithium price that has dented his fortune over the last 12 months.

“I’m not really wealth motivated to be honest,” he says. “We’re a one-car family, I ride my e-bike to work and don’t have a car. The reason I started Vulcan was to try to leverage my geology background to make a greener lithium product, and we’re making progress.”