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Does the UK have lots of lithium in their borders? France? Germany? Im sympathetic to the point that its fairly common but cant we overstate it’s abundance? As

Does the UK have lots of lithium in their borders? France? Germany? Im sympathetic to the point that its fairly common but cant we overstate it’s abundance? As far as I know its not very evenly distributed and not everyone has good access to it.

__s 3y ago
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-lithium-resource-availability-and-geostrategic-impacts-own-works-on-a-base-map-by_fig8_241756900 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-lithium-resource-... Europe may've gotten the short end of the stick, but there's plenty
- panick21_ 3y ago
  There are more locations in Europe then that. Britain used to get Lithium from Cornwall and there are companies trying to revive that. But Europe simply hasn't put much effort into finding them. If need be plenty more could found in Europe.
  - b112 3y ago
    When I read that something is being shipped to China for processing, it makes me mentally add "Where there are no environmental laws, and processing in a very polluting way is OK". If you process many things in the West, you can't leave toxic chemicals in pools any more, to leak into ground water and cause cancer and other problems for people. So processing costs are going to be way more expensive than in a place where it's still OK to process+pollute and therefore kill and maim your citizens to make money. The West cannot compete with that.
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      I think people are to quick to just talk away any success China has as 'don't care for the environment' and 'don't care for people'. This might be sometimes true bit also more often isn't. Do you have actual evidence that lithium refining is a massively dirty industrial process that would cost multiple times more the West? Or are you speculating? Tesla is building a lithium refining plant in Texas right now, they didn't seem to have massive environmental problems and delays so far. In reality, the lead china has in these fields is more because of state investment policy and their drive to have an export car market. They saw the EV revolution as being able to make that happen, and it did.
    - wonderwonder 3y ago
      That's the thing with people promoting communism, they always see themselves assigned to do something similar to what they do now. No one ever expects to be the person sent to the lithium smelting plant.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - redeeman 3y ago
        its also funny how the most committed communists are those who wants others to fund it. Their exact level of "take home money" to spend on what they want, is the EXACT amount that "should be allowed". Similar to how bernie sanders were giving his "millionaires and billionaires" spiel, when he then became a millionaire himself, the tune changed, and his speeches became "billionaires!". And suddenly "you too can become a millionaire if you write a book"
- nonethewiser 3y ago
  That shows none in the vast majority of European countries. Im sure there is more than that diagram shows but its not what the diagram shows.
rgmerk 3y ago
I know it wasn't exactly your point, but the UK imports 46% of its food.[1] If one was going to be paranoid about import dependence, I think that ranks a tad higher up the list. Not every country is going to be self-sufficient in every natural resource, or be efficient producers of every product or service. [1] https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/united-kingdom-agricultural-sectors https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/united-kingd...
- simondotau 3y ago
  I'm sure the UK is reliant on imports in order to enjoy a full breadth of non-essential discretionary choices, and to sustain current levels of food waste. I think it could be misleading to describe that as "import dependent". If the UK lost all access to international trade, people would have to change their diets. Diets would contain more meat, fish, cheese, root vegetables and wheat. They'd contain less rice, processed food, sugar, and a narrower selection of fruits. I've no doubt that a sudden cataclysmic change to international trade would spike food prices and increase poverty-derived food insecurity. But I doubt there would be physical calorie shortages.
  - eru 3y ago
    > I've no doubt that a sudden cataclysmic change to international trade would spike food prices and increase poverty-derived food insecurity. But I doubt there would be physical calorie shortages. If there was a sudden change, there might be calorie shortages. However, I agree that if importing become more expensive over the longer run, or even if there was a quick change, but one that could be predicted years in advance, there would be no calorie shortages. However, the same is true for lithium: the UK could mine its own lithium, if importing become infeasible. I am not sure though, if it would make commercial sense even then: you can make batteries (and other gadgets) without lithium, and for many applications you can make do without batteries at all. Eg instead of solely driving electric cars with home-grown lithium batteries, on the margin I would expect more people to take the train.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    There was already a preview of this a year or two ago, when there was a shortage of salad vegetables in the UK (Brexit + Covid + weather, I think). The government minister recommended eating turnips instead, as they were in surplus.

__s 3y ago

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-lithium-resource-availability-and-geostrategic-impacts-own-works-on-a-base-map-by_fig8_241756900 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Map-of-lithium-resource-... Europe may've gotten the short end of the stick, but there's plenty

panick21_ 3y ago
There are more locations in Europe then that. Britain used to get Lithium from Cornwall and there are companies trying to revive that. But Europe simply hasn't put much effort into finding them. If need be plenty more could found in Europe.
- b112 3y ago
  When I read that something is being shipped to China for processing, it makes me mentally add "Where there are no environmental laws, and processing in a very polluting way is OK". If you process many things in the West, you can't leave toxic chemicals in pools any more, to leak into ground water and cause cancer and other problems for people. So processing costs are going to be way more expensive than in a place where it's still OK to process+pollute and therefore kill and maim your citizens to make money. The West cannot compete with that.
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    I think people are to quick to just talk away any success China has as 'don't care for the environment' and 'don't care for people'. This might be sometimes true bit also more often isn't. Do you have actual evidence that lithium refining is a massively dirty industrial process that would cost multiple times more the West? Or are you speculating? Tesla is building a lithium refining plant in Texas right now, they didn't seem to have massive environmental problems and delays so far. In reality, the lead china has in these fields is more because of state investment policy and their drive to have an export car market. They saw the EV revolution as being able to make that happen, and it did.
  - wonderwonder 3y ago
    That's the thing with people promoting communism, they always see themselves assigned to do something similar to what they do now. No one ever expects to be the person sent to the lithium smelting plant.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - redeeman 3y ago
      its also funny how the most committed communists are those who wants others to fund it. Their exact level of "take home money" to spend on what they want, is the EXACT amount that "should be allowed". Similar to how bernie sanders were giving his "millionaires and billionaires" spiel, when he then became a millionaire himself, the tune changed, and his speeches became "billionaires!". And suddenly "you too can become a millionaire if you write a book"
nonethewiser 3y ago
That shows none in the vast majority of European countries. Im sure there is more than that diagram shows but its not what the diagram shows.

rgmerk 3y ago

I know it wasn't exactly your point, but the UK imports 46% of its food.[1] If one was going to be paranoid about import dependence, I think that ranks a tad higher up the list. Not every country is going to be self-sufficient in every natural resource, or be efficient producers of every product or service. [1] https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/united-kingdom-agricultural-sectors https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/united-kingd...

simondotau 3y ago
I'm sure the UK is reliant on imports in order to enjoy a full breadth of non-essential discretionary choices, and to sustain current levels of food waste. I think it could be misleading to describe that as "import dependent". If the UK lost all access to international trade, people would have to change their diets. Diets would contain more meat, fish, cheese, root vegetables and wheat. They'd contain less rice, processed food, sugar, and a narrower selection of fruits. I've no doubt that a sudden cataclysmic change to international trade would spike food prices and increase poverty-derived food insecurity. But I doubt there would be physical calorie shortages.
- eru 3y ago
  > I've no doubt that a sudden cataclysmic change to international trade would spike food prices and increase poverty-derived food insecurity. But I doubt there would be physical calorie shortages. If there was a sudden change, there might be calorie shortages. However, I agree that if importing become more expensive over the longer run, or even if there was a quick change, but one that could be predicted years in advance, there would be no calorie shortages. However, the same is true for lithium: the UK could mine its own lithium, if importing become infeasible. I am not sure though, if it would make commercial sense even then: you can make batteries (and other gadgets) without lithium, and for many applications you can make do without batteries at all. Eg instead of solely driving electric cars with home-grown lithium batteries, on the margin I would expect more people to take the train.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  There was already a preview of this a year or two ago, when there was a shortage of salad vegetables in the UK (Brexit + Covid + weather, I think). The government minister recommended eating turnips instead, as they were in surplus.