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Extracting from seawater is a great example of a source that will certainly cost a lot more than current price levels to extract. The sources you link total ~6
by theptip 4y ago
Extracting from seawater is a great example of a source that will certainly cost a lot more than current price levels to extract.
The sources you link total ~65m tons which is ~17 years of consumption at the projected rate.
In contrast oil has something like 47 years of consumption left in verified reserves (https://www.worldometers.info/oil/ https://www.worldometers.info/oil/).
So it sounds to me like we're relying on recycling or some major new discoveries to actually be able to sustain the current prices used for that estimate (or of course new battery chemistries). I really don't have a feel for how fast new deposits are discovered; I'd be interested to know how fast new reserves of oil were being discovered prior to peak oil.
- nine_k 4y agoWith current technologies, extraction from seawater is definitely uneconomical. This is because nobody invested in improving the process. Compare the efficuency of producing gasoline in 1900 and in 1930. Same with solar panels in 1990 and 2020. Demand-driven research repeatedly demonstrated driving costs down a couple orders of magnitude.