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For the second time, there is no "natural price". You need to iron this kind of wishful thinking out of your head. Companies want to buy more and more lithium,

For the second time, there is no "natural price". You need to iron this kind of wishful thinking out of your head. Companies want to buy more and more lithium, so unless you've got some breakthrough that makes mining a heck of a lot cheaper the cost will keep going up and up as more and more inaccessible reserves need to be exploited. If I have a reserve that costs $4/kg to operate when the price is $5/kg and another reserve that costs $7/kg, I may open the latter if the price rises to $8/kg. But if the price drops back down to $5/kg it's unprofitable to operate. Here's a way to articulate this that might better mesh with your mental model. The "natural price" of a commodity isn't static. If demand increases and the only way to meet demand is to use more and more expensive mining operations, then this raises the "natural price". As per the above example, the "natural price" rose to $8. It won't drop back below $8/kg unless either we find a way to make mining cheaper, or demand drops back to levels that can be satisfied by my cheaper-to-operate reserve.

coder543 4y ago
You have too many assumptions about the availability of lithium, and lack of “easy” reserves. That’s the fundamental disconnect here. Lithium is not inaccesible, and it is super common. The “hard” ways to mine lithium aren’t that hard. We’re not talking about gold or platinum, where your discussion points would be relevant. I’m not wishing over here. But anyways, I’ve tried to explain the reason why the market disagrees with you, and why people are rapidly seeking to integrate batteries into the grid and into cars, which would not be possible if you were correct about lithium becoming insanely expensive. Battery production will keep scaling at a huge rate, and the prices will be fine. A modest price increase is irrelevant to anything discussed here today.
- Manuel_D 4y ago
  Lithium is far from easy to extract. It also needs to be refined on-site because its raw form is too low-density to economically transport. So most lithium mines require large amounts of water to fill brine pools. The number of sites that are actually viable to produce lithium are not nearly so common. Again, the market disagrees with you not me. Lithium commodity prices are rising, and so are battery prices. People are indeed seeking to integrate batteries into the grid - I'm not disputing that. I'm pointing out that these batteries are actually becoming more expensive [1], not less and it's unlikely this trend will reverse on a dime. 1. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-costs-rise-interconnection-queue-12-gw/621954/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co...
  - coder543 4y ago
    Commodity prices are rising… causing more mines to open… causing more supply… which will cause prices to drop. Why do you keep pointing to that? Your argument makes no sense. That’s how commodities scale.
    - Manuel_D 4y ago
      > Commodity prices are rising… causing more mines to open… Yes. > causing more supply… Yes > which will cause prices to drop. Nope! Remember, the expanded supply is only profitable to operate at higher prices. So the price will drop if demand drops and then supplier will operate the more efficient extraction sites. But if demand stays high, so will prices.
      - coder543 4y ago
        You should be linking to evidence that prices will rise uncontrollably if you want to support your argument that battery production won't keep increasing. I will remind you that this is your absurd argument: > By comparison, the entire world only produces ~400 GWh of batteries each year. So it'd only take a decade and a half of global battery production to satisfy the storage demands of just the USA. The rest of the world would be left with zero EV or electronics production for a decade and a half and no grid storage to show for it. > Thanks for the site: it's a good tool to demonstrate just how unfeasible energy storage really is. Which is totally different from "battery prices might increase a little", which I have repeatedly indicated is not a problem, and I even pointed out that it is a possibility a long time upthread from here.
        Manuel_D 4y ago
        Again we're talking about 6,000 GWh of grid storage for just one country. And that's also competing with batteries for EVs, and batteries for electronics. That site estimate's for storage necessity are also pretty optimistic. Most estimates for a completely decarbonized grid - not using peaker gas plants - call for weeks of storage not days: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...

coder543 4y ago

You have too many assumptions about the availability of lithium, and lack of “easy” reserves. That’s the fundamental disconnect here. Lithium is not inaccesible, and it is super common. The “hard” ways to mine lithium aren’t that hard. We’re not talking about gold or platinum, where your discussion points would be relevant. I’m not wishing over here. But anyways, I’ve tried to explain the reason why the market disagrees with you, and why people are rapidly seeking to integrate batteries into the grid and into cars, which would not be possible if you were correct about lithium becoming insanely expensive. Battery production will keep scaling at a huge rate, and the prices will be fine. A modest price increase is irrelevant to anything discussed here today.

Manuel_D 4y ago
Lithium is far from easy to extract. It also needs to be refined on-site because its raw form is too low-density to economically transport. So most lithium mines require large amounts of water to fill brine pools. The number of sites that are actually viable to produce lithium are not nearly so common. Again, the market disagrees with you not me. Lithium commodity prices are rising, and so are battery prices. People are indeed seeking to integrate batteries into the grid - I'm not disputing that. I'm pointing out that these batteries are actually becoming more expensive [1], not less and it's unlikely this trend will reverse on a dime. 1. https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-costs-rise-interconnection-queue-12-gw/621954/ https://www.utilitydive.com/news/new-york-battery-storage-co...
- coder543 4y ago
  Commodity prices are rising… causing more mines to open… causing more supply… which will cause prices to drop. Why do you keep pointing to that? Your argument makes no sense. That’s how commodities scale.
  - Manuel_D 4y ago
    > Commodity prices are rising… causing more mines to open… Yes. > causing more supply… Yes > which will cause prices to drop. Nope! Remember, the expanded supply is only profitable to operate at higher prices. So the price will drop if demand drops and then supplier will operate the more efficient extraction sites. But if demand stays high, so will prices.
    - coder543 4y ago
      You should be linking to evidence that prices will rise uncontrollably if you want to support your argument that battery production won't keep increasing. I will remind you that this is your absurd argument: > By comparison, the entire world only produces ~400 GWh of batteries each year. So it'd only take a decade and a half of global battery production to satisfy the storage demands of just the USA. The rest of the world would be left with zero EV or electronics production for a decade and a half and no grid storage to show for it. > Thanks for the site: it's a good tool to demonstrate just how unfeasible energy storage really is. Which is totally different from "battery prices might increase a little", which I have repeatedly indicated is not a problem, and I even pointed out that it is a possibility a long time upthread from here.
      - Manuel_D 4y ago
        Again we're talking about 6,000 GWh of grid storage for just one country. And that's also competing with batteries for EVs, and batteries for electronics. That site estimate's for storage necessity are also pretty optimistic. Most estimates for a completely decarbonized grid - not using peaker gas plants - call for weeks of storage not days: https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/ https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-stora...