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Yes, because the bottleneck of lithium battery production has shifted to extraction. You are correct that the higher prices might justify more expensive extract

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.
tuatoru 4y ago
On PV price drops, they are pretty much on trend, using Wright's Law. There's about a 16% reduction in cost per doubling of cumulative production.[1] If announced capacity expansions and renewables commitments come true, we can expect four cumulative doublings of installed PV modules in the next decade, which drops their price by half. However perovskites could gazump that. If their calendar lifetime can be made acceptable (currently around 10 years), they offer capital PV module costs about a tenth of today's. Also a version of Amdahl's law applies. Modules are now under 20% of total system cost: cost like the inverters, the connection to the grid, earthworks, structures and wires, installation labor, and so on, add up. Putting batteries on the PV farm means most of these costs are only incurred once, for much more electricity produced. 1. https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X

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.

tuatoru 4y ago

On PV price drops, they are pretty much on trend, using Wright's Law. There's about a 16% reduction in cost per doubling of cumulative production.[1] If announced capacity expansions and renewables commitments come true, we can expect four cumulative doublings of installed PV modules in the next decade, which drops their price by half. However perovskites could gazump that. If their calendar lifetime can be made acceptable (currently around 10 years), they offer capital PV module costs about a tenth of today's. Also a version of Amdahl's law applies. Modules are now under 20% of total system cost: cost like the inverters, the connection to the grid, earthworks, structures and wires, installation labor, and so on, add up. Putting batteries on the PV farm means most of these costs are only incurred once, for much more electricity produced. 1. https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(22)00410-X