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Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article completely misses the fact that lithium is not the most important metal in a lithium-ion battery. More pounds of cobalt are required than are of lithium (remember, lithium weighs almost nothing). Lithium traditionally comes from briny lakes and salt deserts like those in Chile, along with other valuable commodities like Iodine and Nitrate. Lithium occurs throughout the US in ores like Lepidolite, but it's never been considered cost-effective to extract it. I've found a way.

djb_hackernews 10y ago
> I've found a way. Need help?
- mchannon 10y ago
  Messaged you.
ipince 10y ago
I want to help too!
simplemath 10y ago
>I've found a way wow. If you're not bullshitting, and your method is scalable,reliable,and cost-effective congratulations on changing the world.
- scythe 10y ago
  It's worth pointing out that "cost-effective" in a competitive market is actually a pretty high bar. For context, lithium can be reliably extracted from seawater, with more available than humans could dream of using. To do so costs about $30/lb, which certainly isn't breaking the bank if you're using it for a car battery. Trouble is, the market price for lithium is closer to $5/lb, so good luck selling any. (Prices in this post are examples, and from memory)
  - manicdee 10y ago
    So six times the price is not going to break the bank? Sure, aganst ten times the value of other msterials per weight of battery, it's not a bank breaker, but what is that price compared to the profit margin? If the margin on a $100 cell is $15, and the value of lithium in the cell is $5, you've broken the bank by costing the entire margin and then some.
    - hueving 10y ago
      So right now lithium is at $5/lb. Let's say you have an incredible breakthrough and reduce it to $1/lb. The cost of that battery now becomes $96 with the same profit margin. I don't think that really falls into the category of "changing the world", at least in the sense of it revolutionizing the battery industry.
arprocter 10y ago
The Chilean nitrate mines are pretty interesting - short write up here http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nitrate-towns-chile http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nitrate-towns-chile There was also an episode of the Discovery documentary Forgotten Planet which covers it
Retric 10y ago
ED: Sounds interesting, I hope the economics work out. Current production of lithium is low because demand for lithium is low. Lithium @ 17 ppm is actually more common than Lead @ 10ppm in the earths crust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... PS: 37,000 tonns of Lithium are produced in 2012 vs 5,200,000 of lead.
- yathern 10y ago
  Is ppm by volume? Because lead weighs significantly more than lithium as the GP said.
  - Retric 10y ago
    In terms of Moles / chemistry which is != weight or volume. Lead is more common by weight and as OP said Lithium is light. However, even when adjusting for heaver Lead atoms we produce far more Lead.
- maxerickson 10y ago
  I'm not real worried about resource availability limiting production of batteries, but the lead comparison doesn't seem to provide much information about how much lithium can be produced over short to medium terms. I know next to nothing about geology, but a little browsing suggests that it is easy to find galena and that it is a much more productive ore than the typical lithium ores.
  - Retric 10y ago
    I am really only approaching this as an investor so take this in that context. My point was, it's not really a question of how much can be produced, but at what price you can produce it. Right now the market is paying ~6,000$ per tonne which has been fairly steady if slowly growing over time. With battery's making up about ~1/3 of the market. At say ~12,000$ per tonne production could double in well under 5 years. So, as long as Tesla is happy to pay 12k/tonne they can get more or less as much lithium as they could ever want. More importantly the price need not spike anywhere near that much as long as demand is predictable. In 5 years the price for most commodities is often more or less a function of the delta between expected demand and actual demand. If you can get into production at say 4k/ tonne it's no question the market is growing so at the price is unlikely to crash any time soon. At ~6k/tonne cost cutting is going to be really important fairly quickly, but it's a reasonable investment. At 7+k/tonne it's a huge risk which is only worth it IMO if you can line up a long term contract at a fixed and profitable price or if you can tightly control costs and only ramp up in case demand spikes (ex: your mining something else, but you could also exact lithium from your tailing).
taneq 10y ago
> I've found a way. So how you doin'?
aerovistae 10y ago
> I've found a way Good luck! (Genuine) Hope it makes it to reality and scales well. If lithium can be generated at scale in the US, the cost of electric cars domestically would drop like a rock, while keeping the money in the country. For the US, the benefits would be immense. That would be so great. (Not that trading abroad is a bad thing, but we need all the "Made in America" we can get these days, where everything is Made in China.)
- JshWright 10y ago
  Assuming 50 kg of lithium carbonate per car (most sources I can find are somewhere in the 500-700g/kWh for lithium carbonate), and a price of $5/kg, you're looking at $250 in lithium per car. Even if you take the high end estimates I found (1.3kg LCE/kWh and $6/kg for LCE), you're still well under $1,000 in lithium costs. I'm sure a reduction in lithium costs would be welcomed by everyone involved, but it certainly wouldn't cause price to plummet.
  - aerovistae 10y ago
    Hmm. Nice work doing the math out. My statement was evidently erroneous. Which component makes the battery so expensive, then? Do you know? I am not really familiar with its make-up past the lithium. One thing to consider, though, is that lithium coming from Chile is going to have a significant mark-up owing to transportation and tariff costs. Do your numbers take that into account, or were you looking at the raw material value?
    - alex_hirner 10y ago
      Lithium makes up ~11% of a pack, according to this source. Anode and cathode materials together incur around three times as much cost. https://www.quora.com/How-will-Tesla-deal-with-the-rising-cost-of-lithium-and-falling-oil-prices/answer/Jared-Croft https://www.quora.com/How-will-Tesla-deal-with-the-rising-co...
adventured 10y ago
> Lithium occurs throughout the US in ores like Lepidolite, but it's never been considered cost-effective to extract it. I've found a way. That's an unusual claim. Lithium is actively being extracted by Albemarle in the US, in Nevada. They essentially have a monopoly on US lithium production via the Silver Peak mine. About 3.4% of the world's Lithium production comes out of that one mine. They're likely going to be able to expand their US production significantly without requiring any big breakthroughs. http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/lithium-tesla-mine-nevada/ http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/lithium-tesla-mine-nevada/ Further, Tesla has already agreed to purchase lithium supply from another Nevada mining project underway: http://fortune.com/2015/09/16/tesla-lithium-gigafactory-nevada/ http://fortune.com/2015/09/16/tesla-lithium-gigafactory-neva...
- mchannon 10y ago
  The context of what I wrote is important. As I said, Lithium is extracted from briny lakes and salt deserts, which is what both of those US-based mines you provided links to are going after. Nobody's going after ore for their Lithium. Almost nobody, anyway.
triplesec 10y ago
To be more accurate, there's not a very small amount of lithium in Lithium Carbonate, but about 1 part Lithium to 5 parts carbonate, so in a tonne of Li2CO3 there's about 170Kg Lithium
codingdave 10y ago
I'm a little perplexed by you just dropping the statement: "I've found a way." It seems to me that you should either discuss your findings and intentions, or not mention it until you want a public discussion of it. I'm surely not alone in a desire to escape the life of sitting behind a desk, and would love to help such a project, in particular to get in early at the prospecting stage. But it is hard to tell from a generic statement like that if you are really working towards something or not.
- stcredzero 10y ago
  I'm a little perplexed by you just dropping the statement: "I've found a way." It's a little like being a 17th century French lawyer and writing an allusion to a proof in the margins of a book.
  - verisimilitude 10y ago
    To make an implied reference explicit: "[Fermat's] famous Last Theorem was first discovered by his son in the margin in his father's copy of an edition of Diophantus, and included the statement that the margin was too small to include the proof." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Fermat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Fermat
amelius 10y ago
> The article completely misses the fact that lithium is not the most important metal in a lithium-ion battery. More pounds of cobalt are required Yes, but then you should also say something about the relative availability of lithium and cobalt.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

djb_hackernews 10y ago

> I've found a way. Need help?

mchannon 10y ago
Messaged you.

ipince 10y ago

I want to help too!

simplemath 10y ago

>I've found a way wow. If you're not bullshitting, and your method is scalable,reliable,and cost-effective congratulations on changing the world.

scythe 10y ago
It's worth pointing out that "cost-effective" in a competitive market is actually a pretty high bar. For context, lithium can be reliably extracted from seawater, with more available than humans could dream of using. To do so costs about $30/lb, which certainly isn't breaking the bank if you're using it for a car battery. Trouble is, the market price for lithium is closer to $5/lb, so good luck selling any. (Prices in this post are examples, and from memory)
- manicdee 10y ago
  So six times the price is not going to break the bank? Sure, aganst ten times the value of other msterials per weight of battery, it's not a bank breaker, but what is that price compared to the profit margin? If the margin on a $100 cell is $15, and the value of lithium in the cell is $5, you've broken the bank by costing the entire margin and then some.
  - hueving 10y ago
    So right now lithium is at $5/lb. Let's say you have an incredible breakthrough and reduce it to $1/lb. The cost of that battery now becomes $96 with the same profit margin. I don't think that really falls into the category of "changing the world", at least in the sense of it revolutionizing the battery industry.

arprocter 10y ago

The Chilean nitrate mines are pretty interesting - short write up here http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nitrate-towns-chile http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/nitrate-towns-chile There was also an episode of the Discovery documentary Forgotten Planet which covers it

Retric 10y ago

ED: Sounds interesting, I hope the economics work out. Current production of lithium is low because demand for lithium is low. Lithium @ 17 ppm is actually more common than Lead @ 10ppm in the earths crust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... PS: 37,000 tonns of Lithium are produced in 2012 vs 5,200,000 of lead.

yathern 10y ago
Is ppm by volume? Because lead weighs significantly more than lithium as the GP said.
- Retric 10y ago
  In terms of Moles / chemistry which is != weight or volume. Lead is more common by weight and as OP said Lithium is light. However, even when adjusting for heaver Lead atoms we produce far more Lead.
maxerickson 10y ago
I'm not real worried about resource availability limiting production of batteries, but the lead comparison doesn't seem to provide much information about how much lithium can be produced over short to medium terms. I know next to nothing about geology, but a little browsing suggests that it is easy to find galena and that it is a much more productive ore than the typical lithium ores.
- Retric 10y ago
  I am really only approaching this as an investor so take this in that context. My point was, it's not really a question of how much can be produced, but at what price you can produce it. Right now the market is paying ~6,000$ per tonne which has been fairly steady if slowly growing over time. With battery's making up about ~1/3 of the market. At say ~12,000$ per tonne production could double in well under 5 years. So, as long as Tesla is happy to pay 12k/tonne they can get more or less as much lithium as they could ever want. More importantly the price need not spike anywhere near that much as long as demand is predictable. In 5 years the price for most commodities is often more or less a function of the delta between expected demand and actual demand. If you can get into production at say 4k/ tonne it's no question the market is growing so at the price is unlikely to crash any time soon. At ~6k/tonne cost cutting is going to be really important fairly quickly, but it's a reasonable investment. At 7+k/tonne it's a huge risk which is only worth it IMO if you can line up a long term contract at a fixed and profitable price or if you can tightly control costs and only ramp up in case demand spikes (ex: your mining something else, but you could also exact lithium from your tailing).

taneq 10y ago

> I've found a way. So how you doin'?

aerovistae 10y ago

> I've found a way Good luck! (Genuine) Hope it makes it to reality and scales well. If lithium can be generated at scale in the US, the cost of electric cars domestically would drop like a rock, while keeping the money in the country. For the US, the benefits would be immense. That would be so great. (Not that trading abroad is a bad thing, but we need all the "Made in America" we can get these days, where everything is Made in China.)

JshWright 10y ago
Assuming 50 kg of lithium carbonate per car (most sources I can find are somewhere in the 500-700g/kWh for lithium carbonate), and a price of $5/kg, you're looking at $250 in lithium per car. Even if you take the high end estimates I found (1.3kg LCE/kWh and $6/kg for LCE), you're still well under $1,000 in lithium costs. I'm sure a reduction in lithium costs would be welcomed by everyone involved, but it certainly wouldn't cause price to plummet.
- aerovistae 10y ago
  Hmm. Nice work doing the math out. My statement was evidently erroneous. Which component makes the battery so expensive, then? Do you know? I am not really familiar with its make-up past the lithium. One thing to consider, though, is that lithium coming from Chile is going to have a significant mark-up owing to transportation and tariff costs. Do your numbers take that into account, or were you looking at the raw material value?
  - alex_hirner 10y ago
    Lithium makes up ~11% of a pack, according to this source. Anode and cathode materials together incur around three times as much cost. https://www.quora.com/How-will-Tesla-deal-with-the-rising-cost-of-lithium-and-falling-oil-prices/answer/Jared-Croft https://www.quora.com/How-will-Tesla-deal-with-the-rising-co...

adventured 10y ago

> Lithium occurs throughout the US in ores like Lepidolite, but it's never been considered cost-effective to extract it. I've found a way. That's an unusual claim. Lithium is actively being extracted by Albemarle in the US, in Nevada. They essentially have a monopoly on US lithium production via the Silver Peak mine. About 3.4% of the world's Lithium production comes out of that one mine. They're likely going to be able to expand their US production significantly without requiring any big breakthroughs. http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/lithium-tesla-mine-nevada/ http://fortune.com/2016/03/29/lithium-tesla-mine-nevada/ Further, Tesla has already agreed to purchase lithium supply from another Nevada mining project underway: http://fortune.com/2015/09/16/tesla-lithium-gigafactory-nevada/ http://fortune.com/2015/09/16/tesla-lithium-gigafactory-neva...

mchannon 10y ago
The context of what I wrote is important. As I said, Lithium is extracted from briny lakes and salt deserts, which is what both of those US-based mines you provided links to are going after. Nobody's going after ore for their Lithium. Almost nobody, anyway.

triplesec 10y ago

To be more accurate, there's not a very small amount of lithium in Lithium Carbonate, but about 1 part Lithium to 5 parts carbonate, so in a tonne of Li2CO3 there's about 170Kg Lithium

codingdave 10y ago

I'm a little perplexed by you just dropping the statement: "I've found a way." It seems to me that you should either discuss your findings and intentions, or not mention it until you want a public discussion of it. I'm surely not alone in a desire to escape the life of sitting behind a desk, and would love to help such a project, in particular to get in early at the prospecting stage. But it is hard to tell from a generic statement like that if you are really working towards something or not.

stcredzero 10y ago
I'm a little perplexed by you just dropping the statement: "I've found a way." It's a little like being a 17th century French lawyer and writing an allusion to a proof in the margins of a book.
- verisimilitude 10y ago
  To make an implied reference explicit: "[Fermat's] famous Last Theorem was first discovered by his son in the margin in his father's copy of an edition of Diophantus, and included the statement that the margin was too small to include the proof." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Fermat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_de_Fermat

amelius 10y ago

> The article completely misses the fact that lithium is not the most important metal in a lithium-ion battery. More pounds of cobalt are required Yes, but then you should also say something about the relative availability of lithium and cobalt.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]