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Please don't project lithium shortages as a compelling story. Firstly, unmined resources are large. Secondly battery technology is changing. Thirdly, you need t

by ggm 1y ago

Please don't project lithium shortages as a compelling story. Firstly, unmined resources are large. Secondly battery technology is changing. Thirdly, you need to cite sources if you want to assert we can't make enough. You ignore pumped hydro as well. Battery stacks are not the only storage. I'm not a power engineer or any kind of engineer but I think you are repeating fright memes not actual information. I read widely and nothing I read suggests we face any lack of capacity to install battery storage, or pumped hydro.

avhception 1y ago
I'm fascinated with seasonal heat storage using large underground water tanks. Apparently one drains the heat in winter, and dumps heat during the summer?
- blahlabs 1y ago
  Sand batteries are a similar concept, with the advantage of being able to store at over 100°C. I believe they can store heat for months. https://polarnightenergy.com/news/worlds-largest-sand-battery-now-in-operation/ https://polarnightenergy.com/news/worlds-largest-sand-batter...
- defrost 1y ago
  As @blahlabs notes in peer comment sand batteries / heating buried dirt works better than heating water for seasonal power storage and smoothing. In simple terms there's better efficiency and ease of use from having a higher delta (temperature difference) and dirt / sand / salts heated to 600C are significantly hotter than water at 100C. Once water turns to steam drama and expenses climb.
  - avhception 1y ago
    Makes perfect sense. Now I wonder why these big water batteries were built in the first place.
defrost 1y ago
> or pumped hydro You might like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45332157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45332157 $8 million AU for a small town pumped hydro 'battery' for smoothing out edge of electrical grid brownouts. It's operational now, the Western Power web pages haven't fully caught up with the present.
lm28469 1y ago
> Firstly, unmined resources are large Mining at scale is a very dirty business, we're just displacing the problem, the root cause is our unlimited quest for "more", electric or fossil it doesn't end well
- ggm 1y ago
  You're changing the subject, nobody disputes mines are messy. The point made was we lack capacity and materials.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
ziotom78 1y ago
Interesting! I wasn’t aware of pumped hydro. I checked one of the links in the thread, and it does look like a promising technology. Has it been proven at the scale and reliability needed to balance a fully solar-dominated grid year-round?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- avhception 1y ago
  The problem with pumped hydro seems to be that the places with the topography needed to create artificial lakes that lend themselves to hydro storage are rather limited. Other than that, it seems to be doing well!
  - defrost 1y ago
    Walpole has gentle hills, not mountains, and a farm dam full of water was sufficient for 30 MW hours of storage. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-01/australian-first-mini-pumped-hydro-scheme-wa-walpole/104655498 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-01/australian-first-mini... Very few places are flat without hills ( Much of Mali is really flat, for example ).
znpy 1y ago
> Firstly, unmined resources are large. But where are those resources? Because we have relatively cheap lithium batteries mostly because we exploit third-world countries (often including child-labor) and conveniently ignore that part. Had lithium to be extracted paying regular wages i doubt it would be as cheap as it is today.
- defrost 1y ago
  > But where are those resources? There's a service for that, sold to S&P a decade or so back now: https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/industries/metals-mining https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/industries/m... > we have relatively cheap lithium batteries mostly because we exploit third-world countries (often including child-labor) Citation needed, there's no child labour at Greenbushes and other large global production sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_mining_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_mining_in_Australia Children are less effective at mining than massive excavators and 100 tonne HaulPaks. > Had lithium to be extracted paying regular wages i doubt it would be as cheap as it is today. Pay and conditions at largest hard rock lithium mine globally: https://calculate.fairwork.gov.au/payguides/fairwork/ma000011/pdf https://calculate.fairwork.gov.au/payguides/fairwork/ma00001... https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/awards/awards-summary/ma000011-summary https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/awards/awa... Basic weekly pay rates ~ $1,000 (AU) .. plus public holiday and Sunday loading, increases for specialized skills, Night shift rates, trade skills, more paid vacation time than in the US, long service leave, etc. -- Currently a good many lithium mines are shuttered, closed down until the market demand rises, after many of them were opened in anticipation of much greater demand. Moreover, lithium batteries are not essential to the problem of large scale grid storage; they are energy per kilogram of weight efficient and ideal for cars and battery power on the go; for grid storage there are much heavier batteries that deliver less energy per kilogram .. and that doesn't matter as the battery farms don't move.

by ggm 1y ago

avhception 1y ago

I'm fascinated with seasonal heat storage using large underground water tanks. Apparently one drains the heat in winter, and dumps heat during the summer?

blahlabs 1y ago
Sand batteries are a similar concept, with the advantage of being able to store at over 100°C. I believe they can store heat for months. https://polarnightenergy.com/news/worlds-largest-sand-battery-now-in-operation/ https://polarnightenergy.com/news/worlds-largest-sand-batter...
defrost 1y ago
As @blahlabs notes in peer comment sand batteries / heating buried dirt works better than heating water for seasonal power storage and smoothing. In simple terms there's better efficiency and ease of use from having a higher delta (temperature difference) and dirt / sand / salts heated to 600C are significantly hotter than water at 100C. Once water turns to steam drama and expenses climb.
- avhception 1y ago
  Makes perfect sense. Now I wonder why these big water batteries were built in the first place.

defrost 1y ago

> or pumped hydro You might like: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45332157 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45332157 $8 million AU for a small town pumped hydro 'battery' for smoothing out edge of electrical grid brownouts. It's operational now, the Western Power web pages haven't fully caught up with the present.

lm28469 1y ago

> Firstly, unmined resources are large Mining at scale is a very dirty business, we're just displacing the problem, the root cause is our unlimited quest for "more", electric or fossil it doesn't end well

ggm 1y ago
You're changing the subject, nobody disputes mines are messy. The point made was we lack capacity and materials.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

ziotom78 1y ago

Interesting! I wasn’t aware of pumped hydro. I checked one of the links in the thread, and it does look like a promising technology. Has it been proven at the scale and reliability needed to balance a fully solar-dominated grid year-round?

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
avhception 1y ago
The problem with pumped hydro seems to be that the places with the topography needed to create artificial lakes that lend themselves to hydro storage are rather limited. Other than that, it seems to be doing well!
- defrost 1y ago
  Walpole has gentle hills, not mountains, and a farm dam full of water was sufficient for 30 MW hours of storage. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-01/australian-first-mini-pumped-hydro-scheme-wa-walpole/104655498 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-12-01/australian-first-mini... Very few places are flat without hills ( Much of Mali is really flat, for example ).

znpy 1y ago

> Firstly, unmined resources are large. But where are those resources? Because we have relatively cheap lithium batteries mostly because we exploit third-world countries (often including child-labor) and conveniently ignore that part. Had lithium to be extracted paying regular wages i doubt it would be as cheap as it is today.

defrost 1y ago
> But where are those resources? There's a service for that, sold to S&P a decade or so back now: https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/industries/metals-mining https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/industries/m... > we have relatively cheap lithium batteries mostly because we exploit third-world countries (often including child-labor) Citation needed, there's no child labour at Greenbushes and other large global production sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_mining_in_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_mining_in_Australia Children are less effective at mining than massive excavators and 100 tonne HaulPaks. > Had lithium to be extracted paying regular wages i doubt it would be as cheap as it is today. Pay and conditions at largest hard rock lithium mine globally: https://calculate.fairwork.gov.au/payguides/fairwork/ma000011/pdf https://calculate.fairwork.gov.au/payguides/fairwork/ma00001... https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/awards/awards-summary/ma000011-summary https://www.fairwork.gov.au/employment-conditions/awards/awa... Basic weekly pay rates ~ $1,000 (AU) .. plus public holiday and Sunday loading, increases for specialized skills, Night shift rates, trade skills, more paid vacation time than in the US, long service leave, etc. -- Currently a good many lithium mines are shuttered, closed down until the market demand rises, after many of them were opened in anticipation of much greater demand. Moreover, lithium batteries are not essential to the problem of large scale grid storage; they are energy per kilogram of weight efficient and ideal for cars and battery power on the go; for grid storage there are much heavier batteries that deliver less energy per kilogram .. and that doesn't matter as the battery farms don't move.