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There is conversation about whether we have sufficient extractable lithium reserves to replace 2 billion ICE cars. Do you we have enough lithium to do that and

• ben_w 4y ago
  For currently identified reserves of lithium perhaps, but: 1) we stopped putting much effort into looking when we had more than we could mine — there's not much point looking inside mountains when there are known huge salt lakes where evaporation has conveniently concentrated it on the surface. 2) the rate of discovery (in the "you're not literally tripping over it") category implies there is much more that is still easy to find. The estimated total yet to be located is far more than we need. And 3), batteries aren't reliant on lithium, lithium is merely convenient and cheap. Sodium-ion batteries are available as an alternative.
  • bradknowles 4y ago
    Lithium can be obtained from plain old seawater. The issue is that the concentration per liter is low so it takes a lot of seawater to obtain useful amounts of lithium -- it concentrates out just like any other salt, and as we know seawater is saltwater. But these processes are getting more efficient. And you can also recover other salts from seawater that may also be commercially useful. This is a planetary scale resource that can be "mined" from just about any coastline anywhere in the world.