2 ms·

Right, and unless we are able to build more extraction capacity there is indeed going to be a fundamental limitation on lithium supply. "Build more mines" is a

Right, and unless we are able to build more extraction capacity there is indeed going to be a fundamental limitation on lithium supply. "Build more mines" is a lot easier said than done. The nature of mining is that the most accessible reserves are exploited first, and more and more difficult to access sites get developed as scarcity grows. The common discourse around lithium ion batteries doesn't comprehend the idea of input limitations. If they were taken back to 1920, they'd look at how a car cost $100,000 in 1910 and $10,000 in 1920 and conclude that cars will cost $1,000 in 1930, $100 in 1940 and $10 in 1950. They'll just build more iron mines and steel mills. That's not how it works: mining isn't as amenable to order of magnitude increases: A car cannot cost less than it's constituent input materials, and mining and metallurgy can't deliver at that scale.

epistasis 4y ago
> The common discourse around lithium ion batteries doesn't comprehend the idea of input limitations. I'm not sure I agree with that at all. Even Fox News reported on the IEA's "we need more mineral extraction than fossil fuel extraction" report from a few years ago, because my anti-wind-power father got on the phone to tell me as soon as he heard it, as if it would surprise me at all. Everybody knows we need this stuff, and I have never encountered a person that disagrees in the least. Cost drops for lithium ion batteries are not coming from lower input costs, and in fact input costs are going up. Batteries are getting cheaper because of process improvements, using less materials, less labor, etc. The same thing happened in solar, cost drops come from improved tech that use less material and manufacturing improvements, not from cheaper inputs. The story of industrialization is a story of innovating around materials shortages, finding alternatives, and continually outcompeting the older less innovative companies. I don't know why problem suddenly forget this when it comes to renewables.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  For the third time, battery prices aren't going down anymore. They've actually started to rise. You're right that improvements in chemistry and manufacturing means that battery costs of 2018 were nearly two orders of magnitude lower since 1990. But after that the cost history has been mostly flat. And in recent years, following large increases of input material costs they've actually started to creep upwards. Improvements in manufacturing aren't keeping up with the current costs of inputs. Again, were going down years ago but aren't going down now. So the entire premise of this comment is on a broken foundation.
  - epistasis 4y ago
    Wait, are you seriously asserting that because they have risen in price now, that's evidence that batteries won't continue their march downwards over the next decade? Would you actually be willing to put money behind that assertion? As new markets open up and new applications become feasibly, prices will experience temporary spikes due to supply constraints, but it would be foolish to think that these somehow stop the future drop in prices. You see it all over the drop in solar prices; every temporary price increase results in a huge influx of capital, new production capacity, and improvements to manufacturing tech that comes with that.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      Yes, because the bottleneck of lithium battery production has shifted to extraction. You are correct that the higher prices might justify more expensive extraction options, but said options are only profitable if the price remains high. This is why cars don't cost $10: the price of steel would have to be pitifully low, and no mines or steel mills can profitably operate at such a low cost. Solar, similarly, isn't seeing the same order-of-magnitude improvements anymore. It was, back when it was new technology and big improvements could be made. But now the cells themselves are near the thermodynamic maximums: there's fundamentally only so much energy you can store with a gram of lithium. Consequently, the price drops are miniscule compared to what they used to be.
      - tuatoru 4y ago
        At present the grid/stationary storage battery market is essentially a sideline for vehicle battery makers.[1] Vehicle batteries have to balance between energy density, power performance, tolerance for temperature extremes, structural factors (vibration), safety, cycle life, and cost. As stationary batteries become a market of their own, some of these requirements can be relaxed; engineers can focus on capital cost and cycle life. (This is already happening with early-stage technologies like carbon polymer, redox flow, and molten salt, which are already competitive with lithium chemistries.) This allows, and will almost certainly result in, speeding up the rate at which battery costs fall. 1. Similar to the situation for PV cells up to about 2004 - 2005: they were a sideline business for wafer makers focused on logic semiconductors. After crossing over to having their own silicon production (by 2009) the fall in PV cell costs accelerated.

epistasis 4y ago

> The common discourse around lithium ion batteries doesn't comprehend the idea of input limitations. I'm not sure I agree with that at all. Even Fox News reported on the IEA's "we need more mineral extraction than fossil fuel extraction" report from a few years ago, because my anti-wind-power father got on the phone to tell me as soon as he heard it, as if it would surprise me at all. Everybody knows we need this stuff, and I have never encountered a person that disagrees in the least. Cost drops for lithium ion batteries are not coming from lower input costs, and in fact input costs are going up. Batteries are getting cheaper because of process improvements, using less materials, less labor, etc. The same thing happened in solar, cost drops come from improved tech that use less material and manufacturing improvements, not from cheaper inputs. The story of industrialization is a story of innovating around materials shortages, finding alternatives, and continually outcompeting the older less innovative companies. I don't know why problem suddenly forget this when it comes to renewables.

Manuel_D 4y ago
For the third time, battery prices aren't going down anymore. They've actually started to rise. You're right that improvements in chemistry and manufacturing means that battery costs of 2018 were nearly two orders of magnitude lower since 1990. But after that the cost history has been mostly flat. And in recent years, following large increases of input material costs they've actually started to creep upwards. Improvements in manufacturing aren't keeping up with the current costs of inputs. Again, were going down years ago but aren't going down now. So the entire premise of this comment is on a broken foundation.
- epistasis 4y ago
  Wait, are you seriously asserting that because they have risen in price now, that's evidence that batteries won't continue their march downwards over the next decade? Would you actually be willing to put money behind that assertion? As new markets open up and new applications become feasibly, prices will experience temporary spikes due to supply constraints, but it would be foolish to think that these somehow stop the future drop in prices. You see it all over the drop in solar prices; every temporary price increase results in a huge influx of capital, new production capacity, and improvements to manufacturing tech that comes with that.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    Yes, because the bottleneck of lithium battery production has shifted to extraction. You are correct that the higher prices might justify more expensive extraction options, but said options are only profitable if the price remains high. This is why cars don't cost $10: the price of steel would have to be pitifully low, and no mines or steel mills can profitably operate at such a low cost. Solar, similarly, isn't seeing the same order-of-magnitude improvements anymore. It was, back when it was new technology and big improvements could be made. But now the cells themselves are near the thermodynamic maximums: there's fundamentally only so much energy you can store with a gram of lithium. Consequently, the price drops are miniscule compared to what they used to be.
    - tuatoru 4y ago
      At present the grid/stationary storage battery market is essentially a sideline for vehicle battery makers.[1] Vehicle batteries have to balance between energy density, power performance, tolerance for temperature extremes, structural factors (vibration), safety, cycle life, and cost. As stationary batteries become a market of their own, some of these requirements can be relaxed; engineers can focus on capital cost and cycle life. (This is already happening with early-stage technologies like carbon polymer, redox flow, and molten salt, which are already competitive with lithium chemistries.) This allows, and will almost certainly result in, speeding up the rate at which battery costs fall. 1. Similar to the situation for PV cells up to about 2004 - 2005: they were a sideline business for wafer makers focused on logic semiconductors. After crossing over to having their own silicon production (by 2009) the fall in PV cell costs accelerated.