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I find his work not so credible. He seems to assume LFP does not exist as a viable alternative for nickel/cobolt requiring chemistries. and He's also missing th

I find his work not so credible. He seems to assume LFP does not exist as a viable alternative for nickel/cobolt requiring chemistries. and He's also missing that the lithium reserves keep on increasing on a rapid pace. (I refer to his work a couple of years ago, if he has something brand new, I don't know about that.)

SinParadise 3y ago
Based on his calculations from a video a year ago. He projects that we would need 940M tons of lithium, while 2022 reported reserves is 95M tons.[0] Are we going realistically find enough undiscovered lithium reserves that is the same size as our known reserves as of 2022, even assuming that he is off by a factor of 4? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc&t=2604s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc&t=2604s
- beefield 3y ago
  I was referring his claims about electrification of glo al car fleet. Now that you mention, he had also some claims about lithium needs for replacing all fossil production with lithium batteries, baut also there the assumptions were not so realistic if I recall correctly. If you want to quote him, I would recommend going through his assumptions very carefully.
  - beefield 3y ago
    Oh yeah, and even then: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/kaust-spinout-will-extract-lithium-from-seawater/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/kaust-spinout-wil... We have not run out of any mineral ever and I don't believe we ever will.
    - SinParadise 3y ago
      > We have not run out of any mineral ever and I don't believe we ever will. Is mineral not a finite resource? I don't understand your source of optimism here.
      - beefield 3y ago
        We very rarely need specific minerals. We need energy, nutrition, conducting materials etc. Most of these needs we can fulfil with many different minerals. And the amlunt of all [1] minerals in earths crust is staggering compared to any foreseeable futre, so we are just going to flip to whatever is easiest/cheapest to dig. None will "run out" as in there is no more available, only that the remaining ones are too expensive to extract at the moment. [1] Helium may be one of the exceptions here, but I would guess even that is produceable with some future nucleaf technology given enough money.
        SinParadise 3y ago
        > We very rarely need specific minerals. Because historically we do not have technology complex enough to need specific minerals. Now we do. > Most of these needs we can fulfill with many different minerals. And the amount of all [1] minerals in earths crust is staggering compared to any foreseeable futre, so we are just going to flip to whatever is easiest/cheapest to dig. There is another factor at play though: energy required to extract the minerals. Ones deeper in the earth's crust are likely more energy intensive to extract and perhaps even purify. At some point it won't be worth it.
        walleeee 3y ago
        > None will "run out" as in there is no more available, only that the remaining ones are too expensive to extract at the moment. Right, the issue is cost of extraction (in materials, energy, and externalities, the only real currencies), not exhaustion of the reserves. I think Simon would argue 1) that the degree to which the current economy depends on fossil resources (e.g. for metal-working; how do we reach the required temperatures without melting an electrically-powered heating element?) has not been grasped by policy-makers or the public, and 2) that we are already in energy decline, exacerbated by ongoing failure of ecosystem services. In other words, he thinks we have bled too much momentum and triggered too many blowbacks to "level off" at current living standards, if that were even a viable path forward (given the rate at which we are destroying the biological basis for human life, it is not).
- burkaman 3y ago
  95M tons is nickel, he says there's 22M tons of lithium. That's actually the 2021 number, 2022 is 26M tons, which is double the known reserves in 2010: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves.... Of course this can't go on forever, but there's no reason to think growth will suddenly stop in the next few years. The very recent explosion in demand for lithium incentivizes search for more reserves. If we really can't find any more, then billions or trillions of dollars will be redirected to bring lithium extraction from seawater to commercial scale.
  - SinParadise 3y ago
    >If we really can't find any more, then billions or trillions of dollars will be redirected to bring lithium extraction from seawater to commercial scale. And we are probably going to burn fossil fuel to obtain the energy for this?
    - burkaman 3y ago
      No probably not, since solar is already the cheapest option for new generation and lithium extraction is an ideal application for intermittent power, I would expect these operations to be primarily powered by renewables. That's just thinking about the economics, but obviously there will also be very strong cultural and legal pressure to minimize emissions as well. You can look at recently-proposed remote green hydrogen facilities as inspiration. Similar to hydrogen, since you don't need to worry about connecting to the grid, you can build solar and wind generators pretty much anywhere that has a ton of sun and wind, extract the lithium onsite, and then ship it to where it's needed.
glogla 3y ago
This is a common issue with any material reserves. You will hear people say that we don't have enough uranium reserves to have more nuclear power, or more lithium reserves for batteries, etc. People also used to say that about oil (remember "peak oil"?) but not anymore. The thing is, there's always only certain amount of known reserves. When there's not enough known reserves of something, the price will go up, and it is pretty lucrative to look for more, or even come up with new ways of getting that thing (see fracking). When there's too much known reserves, the price will go down, and it might not be worth it to look for more, because not only you won't get as much money, but the people who currently own reserves will lose money as the price goes further down (for similar example, see landlords being NIMBYS because new housing lowers their property). So yes, we do have 50 years of known reserves of Uranium on current consumption. But we also had 50 years or known reservers of it thirty years ago. Known reserves of stuff tend to keep around that number. That of course does not mean that there is literally unlimited amount of minerals in Earth's crust - but we do have enough of stuff for quite a while, Earth is a pretty big planet. Edit: that said I'm myself not convinced by "solar + grid scale batteries" strategy, I would rather see nuclear power and keep the batteries for cars.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  The uranium argument is about resources, not proven reserves. Power the world with LWRs and the estimated uranium resource runs out in about five years.
- tomatocracy 3y ago
  With peak oil, there was also misunderstanding by a lot of people on the difference between reserves (and what proven/probable/possible actually mean) and resource.

SinParadise 3y ago

Based on his calculations from a video a year ago. He projects that we would need 940M tons of lithium, while 2022 reported reserves is 95M tons.[0] Are we going realistically find enough undiscovered lithium reserves that is the same size as our known reserves as of 2022, even assuming that he is off by a factor of 4? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc&t=2604s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBVmnKuBocc&t=2604s

beefield 3y ago
I was referring his claims about electrification of glo al car fleet. Now that you mention, he had also some claims about lithium needs for replacing all fossil production with lithium batteries, baut also there the assumptions were not so realistic if I recall correctly. If you want to quote him, I would recommend going through his assumptions very carefully.
- beefield 3y ago
  Oh yeah, and even then: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/kaust-spinout-will-extract-lithium-from-seawater/ https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/kaust-spinout-wil... We have not run out of any mineral ever and I don't believe we ever will.
  - SinParadise 3y ago
    > We have not run out of any mineral ever and I don't believe we ever will. Is mineral not a finite resource? I don't understand your source of optimism here.
    - beefield 3y ago
      We very rarely need specific minerals. We need energy, nutrition, conducting materials etc. Most of these needs we can fulfil with many different minerals. And the amlunt of all [1] minerals in earths crust is staggering compared to any foreseeable futre, so we are just going to flip to whatever is easiest/cheapest to dig. None will "run out" as in there is no more available, only that the remaining ones are too expensive to extract at the moment. [1] Helium may be one of the exceptions here, but I would guess even that is produceable with some future nucleaf technology given enough money.
      - SinParadise 3y ago
        > We very rarely need specific minerals. Because historically we do not have technology complex enough to need specific minerals. Now we do. > Most of these needs we can fulfill with many different minerals. And the amount of all [1] minerals in earths crust is staggering compared to any foreseeable futre, so we are just going to flip to whatever is easiest/cheapest to dig. There is another factor at play though: energy required to extract the minerals. Ones deeper in the earth's crust are likely more energy intensive to extract and perhaps even purify. At some point it won't be worth it.
      - walleeee 3y ago
        > None will "run out" as in there is no more available, only that the remaining ones are too expensive to extract at the moment. Right, the issue is cost of extraction (in materials, energy, and externalities, the only real currencies), not exhaustion of the reserves. I think Simon would argue 1) that the degree to which the current economy depends on fossil resources (e.g. for metal-working; how do we reach the required temperatures without melting an electrically-powered heating element?) has not been grasped by policy-makers or the public, and 2) that we are already in energy decline, exacerbated by ongoing failure of ecosystem services. In other words, he thinks we have bled too much momentum and triggered too many blowbacks to "level off" at current living standards, if that were even a viable path forward (given the rate at which we are destroying the biological basis for human life, it is not).
burkaman 3y ago
95M tons is nickel, he says there's 22M tons of lithium. That's actually the 2021 number, 2022 is 26M tons, which is double the known reserves in 2010: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves-worldwide/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1253739/lithium-reserves.... Of course this can't go on forever, but there's no reason to think growth will suddenly stop in the next few years. The very recent explosion in demand for lithium incentivizes search for more reserves. If we really can't find any more, then billions or trillions of dollars will be redirected to bring lithium extraction from seawater to commercial scale.
- SinParadise 3y ago
  >If we really can't find any more, then billions or trillions of dollars will be redirected to bring lithium extraction from seawater to commercial scale. And we are probably going to burn fossil fuel to obtain the energy for this?
  - burkaman 3y ago
    No probably not, since solar is already the cheapest option for new generation and lithium extraction is an ideal application for intermittent power, I would expect these operations to be primarily powered by renewables. That's just thinking about the economics, but obviously there will also be very strong cultural and legal pressure to minimize emissions as well. You can look at recently-proposed remote green hydrogen facilities as inspiration. Similar to hydrogen, since you don't need to worry about connecting to the grid, you can build solar and wind generators pretty much anywhere that has a ton of sun and wind, extract the lithium onsite, and then ship it to where it's needed.

glogla 3y ago

This is a common issue with any material reserves. You will hear people say that we don't have enough uranium reserves to have more nuclear power, or more lithium reserves for batteries, etc. People also used to say that about oil (remember "peak oil"?) but not anymore. The thing is, there's always only certain amount of known reserves. When there's not enough known reserves of something, the price will go up, and it is pretty lucrative to look for more, or even come up with new ways of getting that thing (see fracking). When there's too much known reserves, the price will go down, and it might not be worth it to look for more, because not only you won't get as much money, but the people who currently own reserves will lose money as the price goes further down (for similar example, see landlords being NIMBYS because new housing lowers their property). So yes, we do have 50 years of known reserves of Uranium on current consumption. But we also had 50 years or known reservers of it thirty years ago. Known reserves of stuff tend to keep around that number. That of course does not mean that there is literally unlimited amount of minerals in Earth's crust - but we do have enough of stuff for quite a while, Earth is a pretty big planet. Edit: that said I'm myself not convinced by "solar + grid scale batteries" strategy, I would rather see nuclear power and keep the batteries for cars.

pfdietz 3y ago
The uranium argument is about resources, not proven reserves. Power the world with LWRs and the estimated uranium resource runs out in about five years.
tomatocracy 3y ago
With peak oil, there was also misunderstanding by a lot of people on the difference between reserves (and what proven/probable/possible actually mean) and resource.