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Is there enough lithium on the planet to move everyone entirely over to electric cars, and still keep up with the demand for phones, tablets, drones, etc?

neals 5y ago
Interesting question. If you look it up, you'll find that estimates grow each year, probably because we're increasing our search for it? This article* talks about enough for 3 billion EV's, depleting supply in 2100-something. * https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/15/how-long-will-the-lithium-supply-last/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/15/how-long-will-the-lit...
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  Mostly because we're looking at new ways of extracting it. Most well known is the Tesla parent for extracting from mud. Most well known because Tesla, but there are lots of other companies looking at different extraction methods. Lithium price has gone up a lot because demand is growing faster than the mines and plants that extract it. That 80 million tonne figure was based on low prices -- at high prices a lot more reservess become viable and we have a lot more.
- KennyBlanken 5y ago
  If Lithium scarcity becomes a significant problem, there will be plenty of economic incentives for recycling. There are already multiple competing companies offering ~95% recycling of lithium ion battery materials. Also, batteries more suited to grid-scale operation like iron-flow are already in commercial use and will likely replace a fair bit of the large-scale lithium ion battery market.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
There are 230 billion tonnes of Lithium in sea water, and it constitutes .002 percent pf the Earth's crust. It is very common, and widely available in economically viable concentrations. The concerns are building new mines and extraction plants fast enough to meet during demand, and the environmental damage from doing so. There are no concerns about running out.
- prox 5y ago
  I wonder if there is such a thing as a Lithium asteroid that would be easier to extract using Starship level of technology.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    Lithium is $17,000 per tonne. Even if you found a pure Lithium asteroid, it wouldn't be worth shipping in a 100 tonne Starship that would need a dozen refueling trips to make it to the asteroid and back
    - Teever 5y ago
      You don't use something like Starship to haul lithium back from the asteroid belt 100 tonnes at a time. You use something like Starship to deliver construction equipment that can be used to build engines on the asteroid it to earth orbit for processing. Ideally you'd bring the minimum amount of equipment necessary to do in-situ production of the rest of the equipment, but we're not at that boot-strap self-replicating level quite yet.
      - WJW 5y ago
        Why not just use the engines that come with the starship? In any case, both shipping the asteroid bit by bit inside a rocket or converting the entire asteroid into a rocket will need basically the same amount of fuel. You would need to bring over the lithium ore processing equipment as well, so you only need to transport refined lithium metal back to earth. You might even be able to use the non-lithium parts of the asteroid as reaction mass in that case.
      - CPLX 5y ago
        I’m pretty sure you don’t do any of these things.
      - KennyBlanken 5y ago
        I don't think you have an appreciation for how much fuel is required to adjust an asteroid's orbit to approach earth. Much less align with earth's orbit. Much less get it into stable orbit around earth. Or the fuel required to get the fuel you need to the asteroid. Fuel that has to be lifted into orbit. Which requires fuel. Go look up the costs of lifting equipment just into orbit. Then look at how much lithium is worth per kg. Then go look at the fact that we have exactly zero manufacturing capacity in space. Simple operations and repairs using pre-made parts on the ISS take hours-long spacewalks that require weeks of planning. And you think we can "build engines" on asteroids?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
panick21_ 5y ago
The problem with lithium is not availability. Not in the least. There is enough 10x over. The problem with lithium is that it is spread out, that means you can't really find good ores with high concentration. Additionally, lithium behaves less like copper, nickel and so on, and more like a specialty chemical. Mining lithium is basically more running a chemical plan and only very few companies can do it so far. This leads to a situation where lithium mines are very hard to make profitable and you need a huge amount of knowledge to run one. The on-boarding of new mines and expansion of capacity is the problem, not the total availability.
emkoemko 5y ago
are they not switch from lithium to sodium ? i heard some announcements from a big battery maker can't remember their name
- Gibbon1 5y ago
  This is from memory Lithium ion batteries use a zeolite cathode which have atomic sized pores that safely 'stores' the metallic lithium[1]. Issue with sodium is unlike lithium sodium increases in size when reduced. That tends to damage the cathode. For ion batteries the cathode is the big technological challenge. Has to be cheap, manufacturable, stable, conductive, and hold as high a percentage of lithium as possible. [1] There are lithium batteries with bulk lithium cathodes. But they are hazardous.
  - emkoemko 5y ago
    yea but a major battery maker now has sodium ion batteries that are comparable to the lithium ones that Tesla uses in China and will be using in future cars from now on.

neals 5y ago

Interesting question. If you look it up, you'll find that estimates grow each year, probably because we're increasing our search for it? This article* talks about enough for 3 billion EV's, depleting supply in 2100-something. * https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/15/how-long-will-the-lithium-supply-last/ https://www.pv-magazine.com/2020/09/15/how-long-will-the-lit...

bryanlarsen 5y ago
Mostly because we're looking at new ways of extracting it. Most well known is the Tesla parent for extracting from mud. Most well known because Tesla, but there are lots of other companies looking at different extraction methods. Lithium price has gone up a lot because demand is growing faster than the mines and plants that extract it. That 80 million tonne figure was based on low prices -- at high prices a lot more reservess become viable and we have a lot more.
KennyBlanken 5y ago
If Lithium scarcity becomes a significant problem, there will be plenty of economic incentives for recycling. There are already multiple competing companies offering ~95% recycling of lithium ion battery materials. Also, batteries more suited to grid-scale operation like iron-flow are already in commercial use and will likely replace a fair bit of the large-scale lithium ion battery market.

bryanlarsen 5y ago

There are 230 billion tonnes of Lithium in sea water, and it constitutes .002 percent pf the Earth's crust. It is very common, and widely available in economically viable concentrations. The concerns are building new mines and extraction plants fast enough to meet during demand, and the environmental damage from doing so. There are no concerns about running out.

prox 5y ago
I wonder if there is such a thing as a Lithium asteroid that would be easier to extract using Starship level of technology.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  Lithium is $17,000 per tonne. Even if you found a pure Lithium asteroid, it wouldn't be worth shipping in a 100 tonne Starship that would need a dozen refueling trips to make it to the asteroid and back
  - Teever 5y ago
    You don't use something like Starship to haul lithium back from the asteroid belt 100 tonnes at a time. You use something like Starship to deliver construction equipment that can be used to build engines on the asteroid it to earth orbit for processing. Ideally you'd bring the minimum amount of equipment necessary to do in-situ production of the rest of the equipment, but we're not at that boot-strap self-replicating level quite yet.
    - WJW 5y ago
      Why not just use the engines that come with the starship? In any case, both shipping the asteroid bit by bit inside a rocket or converting the entire asteroid into a rocket will need basically the same amount of fuel. You would need to bring over the lithium ore processing equipment as well, so you only need to transport refined lithium metal back to earth. You might even be able to use the non-lithium parts of the asteroid as reaction mass in that case.
    - CPLX 5y ago
      I’m pretty sure you don’t do any of these things.
    - KennyBlanken 5y ago
      I don't think you have an appreciation for how much fuel is required to adjust an asteroid's orbit to approach earth. Much less align with earth's orbit. Much less get it into stable orbit around earth. Or the fuel required to get the fuel you need to the asteroid. Fuel that has to be lifted into orbit. Which requires fuel. Go look up the costs of lifting equipment just into orbit. Then look at how much lithium is worth per kg. Then go look at the fact that we have exactly zero manufacturing capacity in space. Simple operations and repairs using pre-made parts on the ISS take hours-long spacewalks that require weeks of planning. And you think we can "build engines" on asteroids?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

panick21_ 5y ago

The problem with lithium is not availability. Not in the least. There is enough 10x over. The problem with lithium is that it is spread out, that means you can't really find good ores with high concentration. Additionally, lithium behaves less like copper, nickel and so on, and more like a specialty chemical. Mining lithium is basically more running a chemical plan and only very few companies can do it so far. This leads to a situation where lithium mines are very hard to make profitable and you need a huge amount of knowledge to run one. The on-boarding of new mines and expansion of capacity is the problem, not the total availability.

emkoemko 5y ago

are they not switch from lithium to sodium ? i heard some announcements from a big battery maker can't remember their name

Gibbon1 5y ago
This is from memory Lithium ion batteries use a zeolite cathode which have atomic sized pores that safely 'stores' the metallic lithium[1]. Issue with sodium is unlike lithium sodium increases in size when reduced. That tends to damage the cathode. For ion batteries the cathode is the big technological challenge. Has to be cheap, manufacturable, stable, conductive, and hold as high a percentage of lithium as possible. [1] There are lithium batteries with bulk lithium cathodes. But they are hazardous.
- emkoemko 5y ago
  yea but a major battery maker now has sodium ion batteries that are comparable to the lithium ones that Tesla uses in China and will be using in future cars from now on.