3 ms·

>There is no scenario where the cost curve per kWh of battery storage goes up. Lithium shortage.

kwhitefoot 10y ago
Lithium is a common element. The difficulty is always that it is rather even distributed making it expensive to concentrate. It's the kind of thing that is solved simply by scaling up. It is in fact more abundant in the Earth's crust (17ppm) than lead (10ppm) and according to Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... 2012 production of lead was 5.2MT while lithium was 37kT.
- planteen 10y ago
  Abundance in Earth's crust doesn't help at all during a supply crunch. Bringing a mine up takes at least 5 years. And your mine is going to be on an orebody, not just processing random rocks. Cobalt is another critical element for batteries I believe.
  - kbenson 10y ago
    Lithium is "mined" by pumping underwater brine to a surface pool and letting it evaporate. The cost effectiveness of this apparently caused most Lithium mines to shut down inthe 90's because they couldn't compete[1]. Lithium is also present in seawater, but they apparently don't have a cost effective way to extract it from that yet. Apparently the evaporation process is 18-24 months per batch though, so there is some lead time, just not 5 years (good), and it doesn't necessarily lesson by all that much if you have the facility already set up (as in you can't necessarily throw more people/machines at it for a short term increase, which is bad). A commercially viable way to extract it from seawater would likely solve any supply problems indefinitely. This, of course, doesn't address the need for Cobalt, but I'm not sure how much is required for the process. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#History
- crdoconnor 10y ago
  >The difficulty is always that it is rather even distributed making it expensive to concentrate. This is exactly what could lead to a shortage. This, demand that is (currently) outstripping supply and the long ramp up time for new operations.
raverbashing 10y ago
Ramping up recycling of old batteries helps
nl 10y ago
Lithium isn't always required. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/08/hecate-vizn-to-deploy-north-america-s-largest-redox-flow-battery-system.html http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/08/hecate-...

Lithium is a common element. The difficulty is always that it is rather even distributed making it expensive to concentrate. It's the kind of thing that is solved simply by scaling up. It is in fact more abundant in the Earth's crust (17ppm) than lead (10ppm) and according to Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth%27s_crust> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... 2012 production of lead was 5.2MT while lithium was 37kT.

planteen 10y ago
Abundance in Earth's crust doesn't help at all during a supply crunch. Bringing a mine up takes at least 5 years. And your mine is going to be on an orebody, not just processing random rocks. Cobalt is another critical element for batteries I believe.
- kbenson 10y ago
  Lithium is "mined" by pumping underwater brine to a surface pool and letting it evaporate. The cost effectiveness of this apparently caused most Lithium mines to shut down inthe 90's because they couldn't compete[1]. Lithium is also present in seawater, but they apparently don't have a cost effective way to extract it from that yet. Apparently the evaporation process is 18-24 months per batch though, so there is some lead time, just not 5 years (good), and it doesn't necessarily lesson by all that much if you have the facility already set up (as in you can't necessarily throw more people/machines at it for a short term increase, which is bad). A commercially viable way to extract it from seawater would likely solve any supply problems indefinitely. This, of course, doesn't address the need for Cobalt, but I'm not sure how much is required for the process. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#History
crdoconnor 10y ago
>The difficulty is always that it is rather even distributed making it expensive to concentrate. This is exactly what could lead to a shortage. This, demand that is (currently) outstripping supply and the long ramp up time for new operations.

raverbashing 10y ago

Ramping up recycling of old batteries helps

nl 10y ago

Lithium isn't always required. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_battery http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/08/hecate-vizn-to-deploy-north-america-s-largest-redox-flow-battery-system.html http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/2015/08/hecate-...