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Does this mean when we run out of lithium we will fall into some kind of dark age?

• Robotbeat 6y ago
  We will never run out. Lithium is infinitely recyclable, is common in underground brines and some rocks all over the world, and has sufficient concentration in seawater that it can usefully be extracted (for non-insane cost) if for whatever reason all other sources are exhausted.
  • adrian_b 6y ago
    Correct. Certain kinds of lithium batteries can be limited by the availability of other elements used in them, which are less abundant than Li, e.g. cobalt. There are efforts to reduce or eliminate the use of such elements.
    • Robotbeat 6y ago
      Yup, and worth pointing out such chemistries are already common, although slightly heavier. Lithium iron phosphate, for instance, which also tends to be safer and have longer cycle life, has improved to the point that Tesla is planning on using it for low cost versions of Model 3 (and/or whatever their $25k model will be called), as is already common for electric cars there. Iron and phosphorous are very common and cheap. So there are lots of alternative batter chemistries that all have lithium as the common element.
      • CrazyCatDog 6y ago
        LiFePo4 is a fantastic middle ground between Li-ion and LiPo—I made out like a bandit at the end of the Obama administration when all the green startups went belly-up; Chinese LiFePo4 cells were a dirt cheap and ubiquitous in California back then. I still use some of those cells to charge Lipo cells in the field.
• gorgoiler 6y ago
  The lith in lithium is the same word that describes the Earth’s crust. To a reasonable approximation, the day we run out of lithium is the day we’ve mined the entire planetary surface.