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Chart: Lithium prices are through the roof this year
- ramshanker 4y agoI am hoping for Sodium based batteries breakthrough more than increased lithium mining. All those static grid storage don’t need weight advantages of lithium. Neither home storage.
- evandijk70 4y agoNote that the Tesla Powerwall is already quite heavy: 97 kg (250 lb). A sodium based battery will double that, which would make the logistics of transport and installation harder. So weight is not totally irrelevant for home storage.
- fartcannon 4y agoExpect groups with lithium claims to interfere with cheaper competitive elements.
- shiftpgdn 4y agoEvery single pumpjack well in Texas is pulling up brine water extremely rich with lithium that could be cheaply extracted with evap pools. It just hasn’t been profitable until now. Lithium typically isn’t mined like gold, silver or diamonds, with a handful of exceptions.
- fartcannon 4y agoOh, OK, so expect the oil companies to interfere with alternatives then.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoIdeally, you'd buy these wells from O&G companies at distressed prices using ESG funding and repurpose them for lithium production.
- fartcannon 4y agoA quick google search suggests that sodium is 1000x more abundant than lithium. Will distressed prices be 1000x lower?
- shiftpgdn 4y agoYou actually don't even need to buy the well. Currently they pay to haul the brine water away and reinject it into a disposal well.
- epistasis 4y agoI think that it's going to be hard to interfere that way, they'll be too busy making money hand over fist from lithium. The grid storage market, which sodium would serve, tends to be far more price sensitive since the storage is not attached to a massive amount of other tech that is sold primarily based on marketing and emotion, which is what sells cars. Grid storage is pure industrial economics. I bet lithium miners and lithium battery manufacturers will be happy to hand over the grid storage market for the next decade, as vehicle battery demand will keep far ahead of vehicle battery supply.
- _hypx 4y agoNickel-Zinc is probably closer to reality. Sad that there’s so little talk about NiZn batteries.
- coryrc 4y agoBecause the dendrite problem has not been solved, and specific weight and efficiency is lower than lithium. (descending order of problems IMO).
- _hypx 4y agoIt has been solved in modern cell designs. A lot of this is just outdated criticism. For stationary energy storage, you don't need li-ion batteries at all.
- coryrc 4y agoThat's what every company says, until they're in the field for a while then start dying. Also, nickel is worse than lithium (metal) in about every way, so lifepo4 batteries are better on every dimension than NiZn: specific capacity, environmental impact, lifespan, specific power...
- _hypx 4y agoThese problems seem to be really solved now. They’ve already are in the field and none of those doomsday scenarios seem to be happening. NiZn batteries are actually recyclable, where as LiFePO₄ batteries are not.
- coryrc 4y agoYou're ignoring that they are worse on every metric but below-freezing charging than lithium batteries: NiZn: 70 to 85Wh / kg Lifepo4: > 180 NiZn: 1000 charge-discharge cycles Lifepo4: 3000 cycles NiZn: significant self-discharge Lifepo4: negligible self-discharge NiZn: nickel is more expensive than all the metals in lifepo4 and more environmentally damaging to extract There's nothing good about them, even if the dendrite problem was solved (which I doubt). Lifepo4 can be recycled just fine, provided there's actually enough of them to be recycled, which won't be for a long time since they last so long.
- KennyBlanken 4y agoIron flow batteries are already in commercial use. For example: https://essinc.com https://essinc.com The 'cells' cost practically nothing to manufacture and utilize a membrane already common in lithium ion battery manufacturing, and there's nothing dangerous or toxic in the battery system. It's iron (in various oxidation states), salt, and water. It's been a while since I looked at the whitepapers (which they've since pulled) but I think the secret sauce was how they managed the electrolyte's pH level.
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- Ballas 4y agoWhat is the energy density of these batteries? Last time I checked, it was infeasible to replicate something like a powerwall in even 10x the volume. Which means it is a non-starter for EV.
- johnny22 4y agoGP says "All those static grid storage don’t need weight advantages of lithium. Neither home storage." so it might have been in that context, thus not relevant to EV
- seibelj 4y agoThis is how the free market works. Sky rocketing price of lithium is the world screaming to entrepreneurs, “Hey! We need lithium!” And the supply will increase to meet the demand, or substitutes will be found for use cases where the price is too high.
- babelfish 4y agoAnd in the meantime, capitalists like Musk threaten to coup “whoever they want” for their lithium, worsening conditions and tightening control over the global south
- passerby1 4y agoCould you give some examples of coups for resources other that oil?
- colechristensen 4y agoPlenty in the mid 20th century in South America, etc over agricultural resources. Hawaii too.
- smnrchrds 4y agoBananas, hence the term "banana republic".
- babelfish 4y agoWhy are you omitting coups for oil? They are still coups?
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- zionic 4y agoSigh, that tweet was a joke. It was clearly a joke, come on.
- 4y ago
- bryanlarsen 4y agoAn electric car uses 5 - 30 kg of Lithium, which can be recycled. A gas car uses 25 tons of gasoline, which can't.
- tonymet 4y agoyou’re comparing the fuel to the tank . how much fuel is spent to put energy into the lithium ?
- bryanlarsen 4y agoI'm heading off the criticism that electric cars aren't green because of resource mining. But compared to gas cars... And to answer your question: none. New electricity generation capacity in the States is expected to be carbon negative over the next two years because of retiring coal. We're adding mostly renewables, but some NatGas too. However, the duty cycles of NatGas generators are expected to decline as they switch to a peaking role as renewables cover base energy.
- ekianjo 4y agonatgas is not carbon free so not sure where you get to carbon negative in 2 years
- bryanlarsen 4y agoAccording to projections, we'll have more natgas capacity, but the plants will be running less often because they're only supplementing renewables rather than providing base power. By carbon negative I just mean that generation will emit less carbon two years from now despite generating more power.
- morsch 4y agoThat still doesn't mean no resources are spent producing the electricity that powers your electric car. (Which is what you claimed: "And to answer your question: none.") Just fewer resources than would have been required it electricity production had been as carbon intensive as today.
- AdamH12113 4y agoThe graph shown in the article is based on yearly averages, and has one data point per year. I was curious whether the price spike had anything to do with the invasion of Ukraine, so I found a better graph[1]. Turns out the answer is no. Lithium prices rose dramatically through the autumn and winter of 2021, and hit their peak in late March of 2022. [1] https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium