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It might seem that way today, but scaling up the EV adoption looks very different to scaling up fossil fuel consumption. It won’t be long before demand for batt

It might seem that way today, but scaling up the EV adoption looks very different to scaling up fossil fuel consumption. It won’t be long before demand for battery minerals is mostly satisfied by recycling — and the need for ongoing mining of virgin material is mostly eliminated. Furthermore, lithium is an extremely abundant mineral. It's available pretty much everywhere, including the deserts of Nevada and Australia. The idea that we have to destroy rare ecosystems to get it is ridiculous.

Victerius 4y ago
> Furthermore, lithium is an extremely abundant mineral. The idea that we have to destroy rare ecosystems to get it is ridiculous. 1880 AD: Furthermore, oil is an extremely abundant resource. The idea that we have to destroy rare ecosystems to get it is ridiculous. 142 years later: Look how they massacred my boy
- jjoonathan 4y ago
  EVs don't work by burning lithium into the atmosphere.
- smileysteve 4y ago
  16kg of lithium lasts ~2000 (*200 miles) recharges and can be recycled into a new battery pack with little lithium loss and a some energy input. 16kg of gasoline lasts 1 "cycle" for 18-45 miles. The output requires significant energy input to capture and convert the co2 and H2O back into a fuel.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    Are you saying you get 18-45 miles from 16kgs of gasoline? If so, that’s amazingly bad.
    - smileysteve 4y ago
      Good call-out, multiply by 4
- simondotau 4y ago
  Equating a single-use combustion fuel with the metals/minerals in a reusable and very highly recyclable battery is ridiculous.
Retric 4y ago
Yes, Lithium is roughly as abundant in earths crust as Lead. A normal car’s lead acid battery has ~9kg of Lead, while a 100kWh battery pack needs ~16kg of Lithium which currently costs around 1,100$. It’s not that Lithium is actually going to be in short supply, it simply collects in different areas.
- pkphilip 4y ago
  The difference is that it takes very little lead to make a lead acid battery because the entire car is not powered only by that battery.. that is not the case with EVs. It is estimated that it takes 500,000lbs of ore needs to be mined to get enough material for a single EV car's battery
  - mburee 4y ago
    The volume of a kg of lead and lithium is also just vastly different
    - elevaet 4y ago
      In cas anyone else was curious, I just looked it up: Lead has about 21.3x the density of lithium.
  - cantaloupe 4y ago
    Do you have a source for that estimate? Seems truly absurd. I found a source that you are perhaps misquoting: 400,000 gallons of water are used produce 1 ton of lithium from brine [1]. It also apparently takes 8 kilograms for an EV battery [2]. So 3500 gallons per vehicle. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mining-lithium-for-electric-vehicle-batteries-may-threaten-flamingos-a-study-finds-180979741/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mining-lithium-for... [2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-world-enough-lithium-resources/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-wor...
    - plantain 4y ago
sbaiddn 4y ago
Abundance doesnt mean its easy or clean to mine. Al is one the most abundant elements in the Earth's crust, but extracting it is brutally destructive. Now, you can say the same thing for oil. Sure. But EVs are bad for the environment and its not obvious they're even a net good.
- shiftpgdn 4y ago
  Destructive extraction of lithium is completely a myth. There is currently enough lithium in Texas oil wells that were capped because they were full of salt water that’s easily extracted and evap pooled to satisfy global lithium demand for 100 years.
  - sbaiddn 4y ago
    Im skeptical, so Ill need a reference, but consider: - You're commenting on a thread about a collapsing water table due to Li extraction. - Li's price has risen and projected to continue to do so for quite some time. - You post that Li extraction is cheap, clean and widely available in TX (perhaps the most covetous state of the Union?). Money is literally in a capped oil well and Texans are too lazy to pick it up. Perhaps Li isn't as easy and clean to extract as you were led to believe?
    - simondotau 4y ago
      The limiting factor on lithium isn't raw material availability or extraction, it's refinement. Approximately 80% of the world's lithium refinery capacity is located in China. Nobody is refining lithium at scale in North America, so I'd say it's obvious why nobody's rushing to pay American-level salaries to suck it out of wells in Texas. Tesla has expressed interest in developing a lithium refinery in Texas, so we might see some hoses drinking from those old wells soon enough.
    - shiftpgdn 4y ago
      https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/customers/piedmont-lithium-chooses-csx-select-site-in-tennessee-for-major-facility/ https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/customers/piedmont-lithium-cho... Brine has to be pumped to evap pools and then refined.
xhevahir 4y ago
I don't know. There are lots of other places where you can get tin and zinc and so on, but that hasn't stopped people from wrecking lots of Bolivia in order to mine them. If the demand is there some poor and/or corrupt countries are probably going to supply the metals regardless of the risks to the environment.
- simondotau 4y ago
  Completely agree. My point is only that it isn’t necessary. And frankly it should be up to governments to provide leadership when there is a stark ethical choice that’s so many steps removed from consumer choice.

Victerius 4y ago

> Furthermore, lithium is an extremely abundant mineral. The idea that we have to destroy rare ecosystems to get it is ridiculous. 1880 AD: Furthermore, oil is an extremely abundant resource. The idea that we have to destroy rare ecosystems to get it is ridiculous. 142 years later: Look how they massacred my boy

jjoonathan 4y ago
EVs don't work by burning lithium into the atmosphere.
smileysteve 4y ago
16kg of lithium lasts ~2000 (*200 miles) recharges and can be recycled into a new battery pack with little lithium loss and a some energy input. 16kg of gasoline lasts 1 "cycle" for 18-45 miles. The output requires significant energy input to capture and convert the co2 and H2O back into a fuel.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  Are you saying you get 18-45 miles from 16kgs of gasoline? If so, that’s amazingly bad.
  - smileysteve 4y ago
    Good call-out, multiply by 4
simondotau 4y ago
Equating a single-use combustion fuel with the metals/minerals in a reusable and very highly recyclable battery is ridiculous.

Retric 4y ago

Yes, Lithium is roughly as abundant in earths crust as Lead. A normal car’s lead acid battery has ~9kg of Lead, while a 100kWh battery pack needs ~16kg of Lithium which currently costs around 1,100$. It’s not that Lithium is actually going to be in short supply, it simply collects in different areas.

pkphilip 4y ago
The difference is that it takes very little lead to make a lead acid battery because the entire car is not powered only by that battery.. that is not the case with EVs. It is estimated that it takes 500,000lbs of ore needs to be mined to get enough material for a single EV car's battery
- mburee 4y ago
  The volume of a kg of lead and lithium is also just vastly different
  - elevaet 4y ago
    In cas anyone else was curious, I just looked it up: Lead has about 21.3x the density of lithium.
- cantaloupe 4y ago
  Do you have a source for that estimate? Seems truly absurd. I found a source that you are perhaps misquoting: 400,000 gallons of water are used produce 1 ton of lithium from brine [1]. It also apparently takes 8 kilograms for an EV battery [2]. So 3500 gallons per vehicle. [1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mining-lithium-for-electric-vehicle-batteries-may-threaten-flamingos-a-study-finds-180979741/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mining-lithium-for... [2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-world-enough-lithium-resources/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-wor...
  - plantain 4y ago

sbaiddn 4y ago

Abundance doesnt mean its easy or clean to mine. Al is one the most abundant elements in the Earth's crust, but extracting it is brutally destructive. Now, you can say the same thing for oil. Sure. But EVs are bad for the environment and its not obvious they're even a net good.

shiftpgdn 4y ago
Destructive extraction of lithium is completely a myth. There is currently enough lithium in Texas oil wells that were capped because they were full of salt water that’s easily extracted and evap pooled to satisfy global lithium demand for 100 years.
- sbaiddn 4y ago
  Im skeptical, so Ill need a reference, but consider: - You're commenting on a thread about a collapsing water table due to Li extraction. - Li's price has risen and projected to continue to do so for quite some time. - You post that Li extraction is cheap, clean and widely available in TX (perhaps the most covetous state of the Union?). Money is literally in a capped oil well and Texans are too lazy to pick it up. Perhaps Li isn't as easy and clean to extract as you were led to believe?
  - simondotau 4y ago
    The limiting factor on lithium isn't raw material availability or extraction, it's refinement. Approximately 80% of the world's lithium refinery capacity is located in China. Nobody is refining lithium at scale in North America, so I'd say it's obvious why nobody's rushing to pay American-level salaries to suck it out of wells in Texas. Tesla has expressed interest in developing a lithium refinery in Texas, so we might see some hoses drinking from those old wells soon enough.
  - shiftpgdn 4y ago
    https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/customers/piedmont-lithium-chooses-csx-select-site-in-tennessee-for-major-facility/ https://www.csx.com/index.cfm/customers/piedmont-lithium-cho... Brine has to be pumped to evap pools and then refined.

xhevahir 4y ago

I don't know. There are lots of other places where you can get tin and zinc and so on, but that hasn't stopped people from wrecking lots of Bolivia in order to mine them. If the demand is there some poor and/or corrupt countries are probably going to supply the metals regardless of the risks to the environment.

simondotau 4y ago
Completely agree. My point is only that it isn’t necessary. And frankly it should be up to governments to provide leadership when there is a stark ethical choice that’s so many steps removed from consumer choice.