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It is not an energy source though. So the comparison to oil is at least a bit flawed if you ask me.

• tiborsaas 5y ago
  It's an intermediary source and it doesn't care where that energy came from. The oil analogy is not that far fetched if you consider that both are tied to a geographic location where they needs to be extracted.
  • starbugs 5y ago
    That's likely true if you look at network effects, but maybe not so true if you look at energy return on energy invested (ERoEI). In my opinion, the latter is a big part of oil's status as a "universal" energy source/carrier.
• fendy3002 5y ago
  As a factorio player, energy storages are as important as energy source itself. Especially for renewables since the energy sources are practically unlimited (and the efficiencies are increasing) but very fluctuate. And if you see from other perspective, oil are both energy storage and energy source, which is "almost" equivalent with solar cells and batteries.
  • starbugs 5y ago
    As I said in my other reply, I think the difference is really ERoEI. And that's very likely an important difference. Because you wouldn't get an economical system if you're not able to get a competitive ERoEI from the whole system (including storage). I suspect to take oil's status you'd therefore have to have something that allows you to also cheaply get the energy, not only store it. Lithium as an input to storage is really just a small part of the whole picture. Like a barrel is for oil.