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No need to worry, plenty of lithium exists elsewhere and is already being actively mined. Until a few years ago, lithium was a by product of other types of mini

No need to worry, plenty of lithium exists elsewhere and is already being actively mined. Until a few years ago, lithium was a by product of other types of mining that would be discarded as it did not have a huge market. That obviously changed in the last decade or so and there are now lots of companies looking all over the world for lithium deposits. And they are finding them too. And some of those new deposits are being mined already. Lithium is a fairly common element. It's not a rare earth. Extracting it and processing it are energy and water intensive processes and mining of itself also has issues with pollution. So doing that in the Andes where water is scarce, is indeed problematic. This is also a reason that some areas are hesitant with giving permits for lithium mining. Nevertheless, there are new mines in Nevada, Texas, Canada, Cornwall, Australia, and other places that are starting to ramp up. The sentiment in this thread seems to be a bit weirdly anti car and even pro ICE cars. However, this is not the show stopper that some ICE car fanatics want you to believe it is. If only they applied the same outrage against burning oil, fracking, oil spills, damage done by oil refineries, oil drilling in senstive ecosystems, and all the rest. The damage lithium mining does pales in comparison to that. This is just a minor growing pains for an exponentially growing industry that is going from almost no volume ten years ago to shipping tens of millions of vehicles as well as grid storage, home storage, and other batteries. Anything with wheels is going to stop burning stuff and start using lithium. And close 100% of that lithium can be recycled when the battery eventually reaches its end of life. Lithium ion and other batteries are part of the solution to the problems caused by burning oil. The solution is not advertising we all turn ourselves into Luddites. Good luck advertising it; but I have no confidence that you'll move the needle in a way that matters. Batteries on the other hand are succeeding where generations of hippies have failed to even slow down the growth at which the problem was accelerating. ICE cars are now legacy vehicles and the transition to EVs is well under way. Thanks to lithium ion batteries.

user3939382 4y ago
IMHO we should never be having a conversation about gas vs electric vehicles without discussing the sources (and future thereof) of the power grid energy charging these cars. Otherwise we run the risk of, for example, EVs laundering the output of the coal industry.
- eloff 4y ago
  These are two separate problems that can be solved concurrently. The future here looks bright. On the frontpage of HN today is an article on Ars Technica saying the cost of installing and operating new solar power farms is dropping below the operating costs for existing gas power plants, nevermind coal. It's not directly comparable because you'd need to add energy storage to be truly equivalent. Still, it's very promising. I have no doubt that we will solve these problems this century.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  This nonsense and a lazy argument that used to be popular before Putin finally made a really convincing argument that coal and gas are stupidly expensive. It's not a hard argument to make these days. Just look at your monthly energy bills. The few coal plants still operating were rapidly reducing in numbers even before the Ukrainian crisis. A lot of EV chargers of course use solar panels and other renewable energy sources for the simple reason that that's just the cheapest way to charge an EV. And even if somehow you do charge using coal produced energy because you live in a place that forces you to buy from your local coal burning energy monopolists, you are using fossil fuels at much more efficient rate than an ICE car. So, it's dirty and expensive but a lot less dirty and expensive than an ICE car. If you think about it coal energy is expensive. That's why lots of coal plants are being shut down. They are no longer cost effective and there are cheaper ways of generating energy. If you are in the business of using lots of energy (e.g. because you charge electrical cars), you are going to buy the cheapest energy you can get. Hint: coal/gas/nuclear energy are an absolute last resort in this market. In fact people that own EVs tend to also invest in solar + batteries in their home. Those people are using 100% clean energy and save a lot of money. Many companies with EVs in their fleet do the same thing.
- the_duke 4y ago
  The well to wheel efficiency is still better for EVs, even if they are powered by coal , significantly better if powered by gas, and much , much better when powered by renewables. So EVs are better in all circumstances, and enable continuous improvements by using more renewables. The existence of more EVs also creates the incentive to build out renewables. These big shifts never happen in isolation, they need to happen in lockstep.
comfypotato 4y ago
I’m intrigued by the recycling process of lithium. You need to take batteries to special drop off locations to have them recycled, no? I wonder if there will be a financial incentive that coexists with device design policies to make this process easier to execute for the lazy consumer. Would be nice if my phone battery had a built-in $20.00 deposit (this is my opinion of course).
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  Lithium is a very valuable commodity and it is present in extremely dense quantities in used up batteries. It's probably cheaper to recycle it than to extract it from very low concentration brines or deposits in nature. Recycling is not a problem but a huge business opportunity; which is why there are a lot of very big investments in this space happening. There are going to be a massive amount of used up batteries in a few decades full of valuable materials that can be extracted and sold at a profit. Anyone that can figure out how to recycle them cost effectively will be making a lot of profit. Seriously, nobody is going to dump EV batteries in a landfill; that would be extremely stupid (and illegal in most civilized places). And if people somehow did this anyway, companies would popup to mine those landfills. Because why would you leave batteries in the ground that are contain tens/hundreds of dollars worth of raw materials? That's not going to be a thing. A dead EV battery is actually worth more than most second/third hand ICE cars changing hands for a few hundred/thousand dollars. And those are recycled as well eventually. Including their lead acid batteries which in comparison are almost worthless. Just look up the kilo price of lithium. It's around 70$ currently. Lead is worth a bit under 2$/kg. Yet lead battery recycling is very successful. Scrap pricing for lead batteries is around 50 cents per kilo and recycling them is a profitable business. A Tesla has around 12kg of lithium as well as few other valuable materials (depending on the model). So, the raw materials in a dead Tesla battery is worth at least 840$ (just the lithium). So when it dies, you don't trash it but you sell it to the highest bidder. Even if that price comes down a bit eventually, it's still going to be lucrative. There is not going to be a shortage of demand for lithium for the foreseeable future. It's a growth market that will keep on growing for a few decades.
  - comfypotato 4y ago

user3939382 4y ago

IMHO we should never be having a conversation about gas vs electric vehicles without discussing the sources (and future thereof) of the power grid energy charging these cars. Otherwise we run the risk of, for example, EVs laundering the output of the coal industry.

eloff 4y ago
These are two separate problems that can be solved concurrently. The future here looks bright. On the frontpage of HN today is an article on Ars Technica saying the cost of installing and operating new solar power farms is dropping below the operating costs for existing gas power plants, nevermind coal. It's not directly comparable because you'd need to add energy storage to be truly equivalent. Still, it's very promising. I have no doubt that we will solve these problems this century.
jillesvangurp 4y ago
This nonsense and a lazy argument that used to be popular before Putin finally made a really convincing argument that coal and gas are stupidly expensive. It's not a hard argument to make these days. Just look at your monthly energy bills. The few coal plants still operating were rapidly reducing in numbers even before the Ukrainian crisis. A lot of EV chargers of course use solar panels and other renewable energy sources for the simple reason that that's just the cheapest way to charge an EV. And even if somehow you do charge using coal produced energy because you live in a place that forces you to buy from your local coal burning energy monopolists, you are using fossil fuels at much more efficient rate than an ICE car. So, it's dirty and expensive but a lot less dirty and expensive than an ICE car. If you think about it coal energy is expensive. That's why lots of coal plants are being shut down. They are no longer cost effective and there are cheaper ways of generating energy. If you are in the business of using lots of energy (e.g. because you charge electrical cars), you are going to buy the cheapest energy you can get. Hint: coal/gas/nuclear energy are an absolute last resort in this market. In fact people that own EVs tend to also invest in solar + batteries in their home. Those people are using 100% clean energy and save a lot of money. Many companies with EVs in their fleet do the same thing.
the_duke 4y ago
The well to wheel efficiency is still better for EVs, even if they are powered by coal , significantly better if powered by gas, and much , much better when powered by renewables. So EVs are better in all circumstances, and enable continuous improvements by using more renewables. The existence of more EVs also creates the incentive to build out renewables. These big shifts never happen in isolation, they need to happen in lockstep.

comfypotato 4y ago

I’m intrigued by the recycling process of lithium. You need to take batteries to special drop off locations to have them recycled, no? I wonder if there will be a financial incentive that coexists with device design policies to make this process easier to execute for the lazy consumer. Would be nice if my phone battery had a built-in $20.00 deposit (this is my opinion of course).

jillesvangurp 4y ago
Lithium is a very valuable commodity and it is present in extremely dense quantities in used up batteries. It's probably cheaper to recycle it than to extract it from very low concentration brines or deposits in nature. Recycling is not a problem but a huge business opportunity; which is why there are a lot of very big investments in this space happening. There are going to be a massive amount of used up batteries in a few decades full of valuable materials that can be extracted and sold at a profit. Anyone that can figure out how to recycle them cost effectively will be making a lot of profit. Seriously, nobody is going to dump EV batteries in a landfill; that would be extremely stupid (and illegal in most civilized places). And if people somehow did this anyway, companies would popup to mine those landfills. Because why would you leave batteries in the ground that are contain tens/hundreds of dollars worth of raw materials? That's not going to be a thing. A dead EV battery is actually worth more than most second/third hand ICE cars changing hands for a few hundred/thousand dollars. And those are recycled as well eventually. Including their lead acid batteries which in comparison are almost worthless. Just look up the kilo price of lithium. It's around 70$ currently. Lead is worth a bit under 2$/kg. Yet lead battery recycling is very successful. Scrap pricing for lead batteries is around 50 cents per kilo and recycling them is a profitable business. A Tesla has around 12kg of lithium as well as few other valuable materials (depending on the model). So, the raw materials in a dead Tesla battery is worth at least 840$ (just the lithium). So when it dies, you don't trash it but you sell it to the highest bidder. Even if that price comes down a bit eventually, it's still going to be lucrative. There is not going to be a shortage of demand for lithium for the foreseeable future. It's a growth market that will keep on growing for a few decades.
- comfypotato 4y ago