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If these non-lithium battery chemistries had any chance, it would be in grid storage. As time goes on LFPs keep getting cheaper and better, and there will be li

If these non-lithium battery chemistries had any chance, it would be in grid storage. As time goes on LFPs keep getting cheaper and better, and there will be little market left for alt-chemistries.

ajross 2y ago
Lithium is rare enough to always be a cost barrier vs. something like Al/Cl chemistries that are literally made of dirt and brine. It's true that grid storage looks like the biggest market, but there's a lot of space in non-mobile/less-mobile energy storage that would like cheap batteries.
- hedora 2y ago
  Lithium is not rare. It is also extracted from dirt and brine. Compare copper, lithium and nitrogen on this chart (abundance and annual production): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Ear... The cost difference (which is only 4x vs aluminum, apparently) is due to a combination of increased demand (not enough production capacity) and probably the amount of energy/environmental impact of the two processes (you have to go through a lot less ore/brine to get the aluminum). Also, aluminum benefits from a robust recycling infrastructure that hasn’t come online for lithium yet.
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    Aluminum's recycling infrastructure is based entirely on reusing essentially raw aluminum, and only exists because bauxite is so expensive to smelt without access to dedicated hydroelectric dams. Recycling lithium in the form of extracting from batteries produces a significant amount of chemical waste, meaning that the cost savings of recycling is significantly less when compared with the difference between smelting and recycling aluminum.
  - adrian_b 2y ago
    Lithium is enriched in the upper crust of the Earth about 10 times over its average abundance, which makes it appear more abundant. Even so, despite the enrichment it remains about 500 times less abundant than aluminum (in atom numbers, which matter for batteries; in weight the lighter lithium would appear even less abundant). Moreover, the lower concentration of lithium in typical lithium ores means that for mining equal amounts of lithium and aluminum the environmental effects of mining lithium would be much worse, because more rocks are disturbed and more waste is produced. So there is no doubt that replacing lithium with aluminum for large-scale energy storage is a more sustainable option.
    - dangrossman 2y ago
      About 40% of lithium is "mined" from brine rather than hard rock sources, at least. Much less destructive and less carbon intensive.
- jeffbee 2y ago
  Lithium was $61/kg 2 years ago and now it's $14/kg. It is neither rare nor expensive.
  - pfdietz 2y ago
    You're giving the price of lithium carbonate, not lithium. Li is only 18.7% of LiCO3.
    - jeffbee 2y ago
      I am giving a direct comparison between the same commodity at two points in time. Whatever people thought was true about the preciousness of lithium between 2021-2023 when the price rose 8x obviously needs reconsideration in 2025 after the price went right back down to where it had been. https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ILAM25/overview https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ILAM25/overview
      - don_esteban 2y ago
        Lithium is not super precious, but its price is still a non-trivial multiply of aluminium's price. Your graphs show it. They also show that there has not been a substantial reduction in its price over the years. This means there is market potential for other (al/sodium) chemistries, mainly for grid-level storage.
        jeffbee 2y ago
        If we're just racing to the cheapest available reactants, iron flow batteries are going to win that race. And, unlike these others, there are already iron flow batteries on the grid.
        burnerthrow008 2y ago
        This seems to ignore the entire supply/demand context of both metals. Demand for Al is basically flat, and the supply/demand relationship has reached an equilibrium. Electric cars (by far the biggest consumer of lithium) have been experiencing a an average compounded growth of something like 50% per year for the past 10 years. Li production is still catching up. The earth has plenty of Li deposits but there is a lead time to purchase the heavy machines needed to turn those deposits into productive mines. Once electric car growth hits the inflection point on the adoption curve, and growth becomes sub-exponential, we'll start to see major downward pressure on Li prices.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

If these non-lithium battery chemistries had any chance, it would be in grid storage. As time goes on LFPs keep getting cheaper and better, and there will be little market left for alt-chemistries.

ajross 2y ago

Lithium is rare enough to always be a cost barrier vs. something like Al/Cl chemistries that are literally made of dirt and brine. It's true that grid storage looks like the biggest market, but there's a lot of space in non-mobile/less-mobile energy storage that would like cheap batteries.

hedora 2y ago
Lithium is not rare. It is also extracted from dirt and brine. Compare copper, lithium and nitrogen on this chart (abundance and annual production): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Ear... The cost difference (which is only 4x vs aluminum, apparently) is due to a combination of increased demand (not enough production capacity) and probably the amount of energy/environmental impact of the two processes (you have to go through a lot less ore/brine to get the aluminum). Also, aluminum benefits from a robust recycling infrastructure that hasn’t come online for lithium yet.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  Aluminum's recycling infrastructure is based entirely on reusing essentially raw aluminum, and only exists because bauxite is so expensive to smelt without access to dedicated hydroelectric dams. Recycling lithium in the form of extracting from batteries produces a significant amount of chemical waste, meaning that the cost savings of recycling is significantly less when compared with the difference between smelting and recycling aluminum.
- adrian_b 2y ago
  Lithium is enriched in the upper crust of the Earth about 10 times over its average abundance, which makes it appear more abundant. Even so, despite the enrichment it remains about 500 times less abundant than aluminum (in atom numbers, which matter for batteries; in weight the lighter lithium would appear even less abundant). Moreover, the lower concentration of lithium in typical lithium ores means that for mining equal amounts of lithium and aluminum the environmental effects of mining lithium would be much worse, because more rocks are disturbed and more waste is produced. So there is no doubt that replacing lithium with aluminum for large-scale energy storage is a more sustainable option.
  - dangrossman 2y ago
    About 40% of lithium is "mined" from brine rather than hard rock sources, at least. Much less destructive and less carbon intensive.
jeffbee 2y ago
Lithium was $61/kg 2 years ago and now it's $14/kg. It is neither rare nor expensive.
- pfdietz 2y ago
  You're giving the price of lithium carbonate, not lithium. Li is only 18.7% of LiCO3.
  - jeffbee 2y ago
    I am giving a direct comparison between the same commodity at two points in time. Whatever people thought was true about the preciousness of lithium between 2021-2023 when the price rose 8x obviously needs reconsideration in 2025 after the price went right back down to where it had been. https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ILAM25/overview https://www.barchart.com/futures/quotes/ILAM25/overview
    - don_esteban 2y ago
      Lithium is not super precious, but its price is still a non-trivial multiply of aluminium's price. Your graphs show it. They also show that there has not been a substantial reduction in its price over the years. This means there is market potential for other (al/sodium) chemistries, mainly for grid-level storage.
      - jeffbee 2y ago
        If we're just racing to the cheapest available reactants, iron flow batteries are going to win that race. And, unlike these others, there are already iron flow batteries on the grid.
      - burnerthrow008 2y ago
        This seems to ignore the entire supply/demand context of both metals. Demand for Al is basically flat, and the supply/demand relationship has reached an equilibrium. Electric cars (by far the biggest consumer of lithium) have been experiencing a an average compounded growth of something like 50% per year for the past 10 years. Li production is still catching up. The earth has plenty of Li deposits but there is a lead time to purchase the heavy machines needed to turn those deposits into productive mines. Once electric car growth hits the inflection point on the adoption curve, and growth becomes sub-exponential, we'll start to see major downward pressure on Li prices.

deleted 2y ago

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