5 ms·
What happens when we run out of Lithium?
by iinnPP 4y ago
What happens when we run out of Lithium?
- bdamm 4y agoThen we mine more from whatever is convenient. Lithium is abundant in the earth, and can even be extracted from ocean water. Lithium is one of the easiest elements to acquire.
- _hypx 4y agoLithium isn’t easy to mine, and basically impossible to extract in meaningful quantities from seawater. The word itself derives from lithos, meaning rock, because it is usually found in certain rocks. This hints at the challenges it takes to mine it. Lithium is a lot like the rare earth element, which means while it is technically not a rare substance, good ores of it however are rare.
- Tade0 4y ago> basically impossible to extract in meaningful quantities from seawater. The impossible has been made possible: https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D1EE00354B#!divAbstract https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D1EE0...
- _hypx 4y agoWrong. It is still impossible due to the extremely low concentrations of lithium. Studies like these are just wishful thinking. Just because you can extract minute quantities of it doesn’t make it remotely economically viable.
- hedora 4y agoThe earth's crust is 20ppm lithium, and the oceans are 0.17ppm. A typical EV has ~22lbs of lithium per ~3000 lbs of vehicle weight, which works out to 7333 ppm lithium. If my math is right, we would have to turn ~1/366th of the earths crust to EVs in order to "run out" of lithium. Extraction costs are a different issue.
- iinnPP 4y agoThank you. What if I reframed the question to: What amount of lithium is currently extractable at an effective cost and how long does it last if we replace every vehicle on the planet with an EV overnight. My searches seem to come to a number of ~14million tonnes which seems to be enough for ~1.4b Tesla's(at ~10kg of lithium each) Is my math here wildly incorrect or maybe I am not understanding the potential for increased extraction at a reasonable cost?
- _hypx 4y agoNeither 20ppm nor 0.17ppm are mineable reserves. The fundamental problem is that we run out of viable lithium ore, a realistic prospect if we’re planning to power ships with them.
- chrismartin 4y agoDoes it become like petroleum where we can extract greater quantities with more advanced (yet expensive and possibly dirty) extraction methods? Will there be a tar sands equivalent of lithium?
- _hypx 4y agoLikely at some point, yes. It can be argued that we're already at that point, since most new mining proposals are open pit mines.
- shiftpgdn 4y agoOutside of Australia (where they do indeed mine Lithium ore) most lithium comes from brine water solutions.
- _hypx 4y agoNearly all future mining proposals are lithium ore. We simply don’t have enough brine water to meet demand.