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Are there enough lithium reserves to store billions of kwh? (Ignoring their usage in cars, phones, medical devices, and everything else)
by missedthecue 6y ago
Are there enough lithium reserves to store billions of kwh? (Ignoring their usage in cars, phones, medical devices, and everything else)
- epistasis 6y agoYes, we haven't even been looking for lithium until recently, and the availability of it has more than doubled in just a few years. (Note that a lot of lithium comes from "resources" and not from "reserves," as the latter term usually refers to mining rather than brining.) For current chemistries, cobalt is more of a concern, but that's mostly a concern for car batteries, and the concern is more about the terrible conditions of extraction (some child labor from small scale mining) than the total amount. For stationary storage, sodium behaves a lot like lithium, but is far heavier. And there are all sorts of flow chemistries that have barely been examined. However I think the lithium train has left the station, unless there's some sort of serious market interference to cause huge unexpected shortages, there's little chance for lithium competitors to catch up within the next 15 years.