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It doesn't seem like lithium is actually scarce. Does this help with the more tricky issues developing at the moment? For example, graphite?

by _ea1k 3y ago

paiute 3y ago
This is a decent nerd video that talks about lithium mining. I enjoyed it. Skip to 13 min for the answer . https://www.youtube.com/live/inq_ypJeiZk?si=o34J3qJVNoDJ2FBy https://www.youtube.com/live/inq_ypJeiZk?si=o34J3qJVNoDJ2FBy
- bee_rider 3y ago
  I did, but I think the answer was kind of jargony or, at least, I didn’t get it. It sounds like she was saying that it exists all over the place in small amounts because it doesn’t like to be a solid? I think it is an interesting lecture if you are interested in a sort of geographical answer of where they might look for it, but at least after skipping around a bit and watching some stretches at double speed, she hasn’t gotten to the sort of economic answer of, like, do there exist sources that can turned into batteries easily (since we are mostly programmers who mostly care about whether or not the batteries will exist to power the devices we want to program).
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    Afaik, > do there exist sources that can turned into batteries easily Yes, but only a few. There aren't many high-concentration lithium deposits. (There are many more low-concentration) Which is essentially the mining industry in a nutshell: concentration of raw mined feedstock -> economically efficient processing -> finished product (bought by consumers who don't care where it came from, and so has a single market price) See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_carbonate#Production https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_carbonate#Production
opencl 3y ago
Lithium isn't scarce relative to current demand levels but if the automotive industry wants to transition to 100% EVs that's an enormous increase in demand.
- jandrese 3y ago
  Isn't that just how markets work? They are sized to the demand today, so if you were to increase demand by 10x overnight of course they would be distorted. If however demand increases slowly over time then the markets react normally--suppliers increase production, new suppliers enter the market--and the price remains fairly stable.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    That's assuming availability at quantity of base resources. Which has generally been a fair assumption: as demand increases and price increases, exploration is incentivized and new sources are found, and capital is invested to increase production at existing / new sources. But... there are also other ways it can go. Copper? Cobalt? Uranium-circa-1940s? Sometimes, more just isn't found.
    - jandrese 3y ago
      In cases where supply is externally constrained the markets still work. The price of that component starts to go up so people search for alternatives. This is already happening in the battery market (as per TFA) and is natural.
      - ethbr1 3y ago
        It's not always possible though. Look at titanium. The US had to buy it (through shell companies) from the Soviets for their spy planes, because there were no alternatives.
        lazide 3y ago
        There is no shortage of titanium ore. Titanium is the 9th most abundant element in the earths crust, at roughly .5%. There was at the time a severe shortage of usable titanium refined metal. Refining Titanium is much more difficult than aluminum. The soviets had over invested in the ability to produce it, so it was more economic to get it from them than try to produce the capacity here.
marcosdumay 3y ago
Lithium is plentiful enough for grid storage, but it's so at a higher price than it has today. It's also cheap enough for mobile batteries, but not negligible, and cost is the most important metric for grid storage. Thus, lithium looks like one of the fundamental bottlenecks for grid storage. It can kinda work on high-cost small-size pilot projects, but we probably won't be able to use it for real. Sodium on the other hand has all of the same desirable chemistry properties, but scales much better. And iron has all the cost benefits, but undesirable chemical properties. (And there are, of course, people working on C-H vs. C-OH bonds that are completely out of the box.)
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Flow batteries always seemed like the ideal solution for grid-scale storage. You decouple the transformation (charge/discharge) from the capacity (liquid volume), with the goal of making the latter "a standard pressure, watertight tank." But I believe last time they came up here, people said the charge/discharge still needed some work.
  - marcosdumay 3y ago
    Yes, it looks like that to me too. Also, they make the lifetime of the active element independent from the one of the reagents, and recycling and maintenance very standard. It's just not really related to the chemistry. Also, long-term storage will very likely use some different chemistry from short-term. High-temperature batteries have some very interesting trade-offs that I have no idea how will pan-out in practice. Things are mostly not settled on that area, it looks like a very interesting thing to work on.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      I wonder if we (as a species) will ever get to reverse nuclear fission. I.e. putting energy into nuclear reactors so that we can produce U-235. Although I guess technically breeder reactors, although like-to-like is less fun fantasy than solar -> fissile.
  - Baeocystin 3y ago
jtriangle 3y ago
Nothing is really scarce, but, costs associated with accessing it effectively make it 'scarce'. In that regard, sodium is far more abundant.
Gibbon1 3y ago
My understanding is for batteries lithium is the less tricky one because it doesn't change size during redox reactions. Sodium does and that damages the anode or cathode (can't remember which, don't care). Yeah and the low production of lithium is due minimal demand historically. It's not like other metals with a large historic demand. Like copper.
tooltalk 3y ago
Well, graphite is not all that scarce either. The problem is that China has almost complete dominance in the anode material production (ie, graphite) with 90+% market share in EV battery supply-chain.
HappyDaoDude 3y ago
It seems like Lithium isn't so much quality limited by supply speed. At least for the moment. There is some concerns in terms of total materials for stuff like Cobalt/Nickel but even then, my gut feeling is that those issues are more fear mongering rather than a real issue.

It doesn't seem like lithium is actually scarce. Does this help with the more tricky issues developing at the moment? For example, graphite?

by _ea1k 3y ago

It doesn't seem like lithium is actually scarce. Does this help with the more tricky issues developing at the moment? For example, graphite?

paiute 3y ago

This is a decent nerd video that talks about lithium mining. I enjoyed it. Skip to 13 min for the answer . https://www.youtube.com/live/inq_ypJeiZk?si=o34J3qJVNoDJ2FBy https://www.youtube.com/live/inq_ypJeiZk?si=o34J3qJVNoDJ2FBy

bee_rider 3y ago
I did, but I think the answer was kind of jargony or, at least, I didn’t get it. It sounds like she was saying that it exists all over the place in small amounts because it doesn’t like to be a solid? I think it is an interesting lecture if you are interested in a sort of geographical answer of where they might look for it, but at least after skipping around a bit and watching some stretches at double speed, she hasn’t gotten to the sort of economic answer of, like, do there exist sources that can turned into batteries easily (since we are mostly programmers who mostly care about whether or not the batteries will exist to power the devices we want to program).
- ethbr1 3y ago
  Afaik, > do there exist sources that can turned into batteries easily Yes, but only a few. There aren't many high-concentration lithium deposits. (There are many more low-concentration) Which is essentially the mining industry in a nutshell: concentration of raw mined feedstock -> economically efficient processing -> finished product (bought by consumers who don't care where it came from, and so has a single market price) See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_carbonate#Production https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_carbonate#Production

opencl 3y ago

Lithium isn't scarce relative to current demand levels but if the automotive industry wants to transition to 100% EVs that's an enormous increase in demand.

jandrese 3y ago
Isn't that just how markets work? They are sized to the demand today, so if you were to increase demand by 10x overnight of course they would be distorted. If however demand increases slowly over time then the markets react normally--suppliers increase production, new suppliers enter the market--and the price remains fairly stable.
- ethbr1 3y ago
  That's assuming availability at quantity of base resources. Which has generally been a fair assumption: as demand increases and price increases, exploration is incentivized and new sources are found, and capital is invested to increase production at existing / new sources. But... there are also other ways it can go. Copper? Cobalt? Uranium-circa-1940s? Sometimes, more just isn't found.
  - jandrese 3y ago
    In cases where supply is externally constrained the markets still work. The price of that component starts to go up so people search for alternatives. This is already happening in the battery market (as per TFA) and is natural.
    - ethbr1 3y ago
      It's not always possible though. Look at titanium. The US had to buy it (through shell companies) from the Soviets for their spy planes, because there were no alternatives.
      - lazide 3y ago
        There is no shortage of titanium ore. Titanium is the 9th most abundant element in the earths crust, at roughly .5%. There was at the time a severe shortage of usable titanium refined metal. Refining Titanium is much more difficult than aluminum. The soviets had over invested in the ability to produce it, so it was more economic to get it from them than try to produce the capacity here.

marcosdumay 3y ago

Lithium is plentiful enough for grid storage, but it's so at a higher price than it has today. It's also cheap enough for mobile batteries, but not negligible, and cost is the most important metric for grid storage. Thus, lithium looks like one of the fundamental bottlenecks for grid storage. It can kinda work on high-cost small-size pilot projects, but we probably won't be able to use it for real. Sodium on the other hand has all of the same desirable chemistry properties, but scales much better. And iron has all the cost benefits, but undesirable chemical properties. (And there are, of course, people working on C-H vs. C-OH bonds that are completely out of the box.)

ethbr1 3y ago
Flow batteries always seemed like the ideal solution for grid-scale storage. You decouple the transformation (charge/discharge) from the capacity (liquid volume), with the goal of making the latter "a standard pressure, watertight tank." But I believe last time they came up here, people said the charge/discharge still needed some work.
- marcosdumay 3y ago
  Yes, it looks like that to me too. Also, they make the lifetime of the active element independent from the one of the reagents, and recycling and maintenance very standard. It's just not really related to the chemistry. Also, long-term storage will very likely use some different chemistry from short-term. High-temperature batteries have some very interesting trade-offs that I have no idea how will pan-out in practice. Things are mostly not settled on that area, it looks like a very interesting thing to work on.
  - ethbr1 3y ago
    I wonder if we (as a species) will ever get to reverse nuclear fission. I.e. putting energy into nuclear reactors so that we can produce U-235. Although I guess technically breeder reactors, although like-to-like is less fun fantasy than solar -> fissile.
- Baeocystin 3y ago

jtriangle 3y ago

Nothing is really scarce, but, costs associated with accessing it effectively make it 'scarce'. In that regard, sodium is far more abundant.

Gibbon1 3y ago

My understanding is for batteries lithium is the less tricky one because it doesn't change size during redox reactions. Sodium does and that damages the anode or cathode (can't remember which, don't care). Yeah and the low production of lithium is due minimal demand historically. It's not like other metals with a large historic demand. Like copper.

tooltalk 3y ago

Well, graphite is not all that scarce either. The problem is that China has almost complete dominance in the anode material production (ie, graphite) with 90+% market share in EV battery supply-chain.

HappyDaoDude 3y ago

It seems like Lithium isn't so much quality limited by supply speed. At least for the moment. There is some concerns in terms of total materials for stuff like Cobalt/Nickel but even then, my gut feeling is that those issues are more fear mongering rather than a real issue.