8 ms·

Massive deposit of lithium found in Wyoming could meet all U.S. demand

226 points by MikeCapone 13y ago

1053r 13y ago
Digging through the details in the original article that treehugger links to, it appears that the size of this deposit is not entirely characterized, but that it probably corresponds to approximately 9 years of global lithium production at current rates. (228K tons, with usage of 25K tons per year).
- rhizome 13y ago
  The Jevons Paradox should change those numbers considerably.
  - ignostic 13y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Jevons Paradox attempted to show that (for example) coal prices didn't go down when we learned to get more energy from the same coal. It would NOT apply to increased efficiency in coal MINING. The Jevons Paradox - in my understanding - applies to our use of a resource, not its collection. I'm sure our demand for lithium will go up, but again that's not the Jevons Paradox - that's basic supply and demand.
    - rhizome 13y ago
      JP will be in reaction to increased demand (usage).
frakkingcylons 13y ago
Does anyone know if this would affect the price of Li-on batteries? I'm curious to know if it would make Tesla's cars cheaper.
- mchannon 13y ago
  What few people realize about lithium batteries is it's not the lithium that's scarce and expensive, but the alloying elements that go in to make the electrode- most EV batteries use more Cobalt by weight than Lithium, and Cobalt is more expensive per pound. Lithium's one of the lightest metals, so a little bit goes a long way.
  - frakkingcylons 13y ago
    Good to know, thank you.
  - jrabone 13y ago
    IIRC cobalt is not only scarce, it's also mostly mainly produced in the Congo and Zambia, and anywhere referred to as the "Democratic Republic of..." is probably not as politically stable as one might hope.
- umsm 13y ago
  This made me curious too... What is the cost breakdown of a Tesla car? What part(s) do we need to improve to lower the price to that of a regular luxury car?
  - gngeal 13y ago
    What exactly is a "regular luxury car"? It sounds like an interesting designation for any article. If it's regular, is it still a luxury?
    - joevandyk 13y ago
      BMW, Lexus, etc.
      - knowaveragejoe 13y ago
        Equivalent models of which are priced about the same as the Model S variants.
morpher 13y ago
This article (and the UW press release they quote) state that the estimated 228,000 tons of lithium present at the site is "enough to meet annual U.S. demand". I'm not sure what this last statement means since it isn't qualified by "for XXX years assuming no increase in consumption". According to the USGS[1], US consumption for 2011 was estimated at ~2000 tons. So, this source is, indeed, significant. According to the article, it is also twice as large as the other known US source (in Nevada), so combined, the US has ~150 years worth of domestic Li at its current consumption rates. [1] https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs-2012-lithi.pdf https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mc...
- learc83 13y ago
  And lithium can be recycled, so if the price of mining more lithium increases too far, expect the amount of recycled lithium used to increase as well.
  - Recoil42 13y ago
    >lithium can be recycled Question, for anyone out there who might know: How much lithium (and of what quality) can be recovered from a typical modern li-on battery? How difficult is the process?
    - MrFoof 13y ago
      Looks to be around 93%. http://pubs.sciepub.com/materials/1/1/2/#.UXmcu5VcJnI http://pubs.sciepub.com/materials/1/1/2/#.UXmcu5VcJnI
      - dopamean 13y ago
        I dont know enough about these things but that seems like an incredible rate.
        Someone 13y ago
        My chemistry is very bad, but that seems to be in 3M HCl with added H2O2 at 80°C. Combining that mix with Lithium batteries, to me, sounds like a process that may be difficult to safely scale up from the lab.
dmm 13y ago
For the most part, the cost of production is what matters. If Chilean lithium costs $x and US lithium costs $3x then it doesn't matter how is in the ground in the US, the lithium will come from Chile.
- rosser 13y ago
  Until Chinese demand for Chilean a/o Bolivian lithium drives its price over $3x, at which point, having a local supply this big is a huge deal.
  - psgibbs 13y ago
    Really, only in the sense that this source pushes out the aggregate supply curve, delaying the point in time when prices get higher. Practically, once prices become 3x of current, that's what everyone will pay on average, it just means (in this thought experiment) that some miner sourcing from America is marginally profitable, while some miner from South America is very profitable.
    - rosser 13y ago
      Did the existence of shale oil or tar sands delay crude breaking $80/barrel? More expensively exploited resources typically aren't exploited until their market price makes such exploitation profitable. We've known about the vast amounts of oil under the Bakken Formation since the 1950s, for example. If this stuff is more expensive than Bolivian lithium, we won't do more than tinker with it until it's not, and consequently I wouldn't expect it to have much impact on the price curve — we'll all still be buying the same stuff until then.
billiam 13y ago
The most important implication of this discovery is that while the price of lithium could plunge, decreasing the costs of lithium vehicle batteries, unless we put a system in place that uses regulatory and market forces to guarantee that this lithium is recovered and recycled, we will have a huge environmental problem on our hands. Disposal and sequestering of lithium metal is a significant part of the overall cost of an EV-focused transport system. Global demand by 2020 is projected by USGS to be about 300,000 tons a year, so the effect of this single discovery might not be that large; the major advantage is preventing China from exercising monopoly power on Li production. But I am confident that many more discoveries are out there (I used to be a geologist and worked around Silver Peak in the past), so I think the time is now to start figuring out how to avoid taking all that Li in brine and spreading it throughout our waste stream.
steffenfrost 13y ago
Now I am depressed.
- druiid 13y ago
  I got a chuckle out of this, but really.. this is HN, not Fark.com.
hkmurakami 13y ago
Isn't the main limiting factor of lithium (and other rare earth metals) the willingness to handle the refining process within one's borders rather than the amount of the metal available in deposits? My understanding is that the reason China has such a huge fraction of lithium production is driven largely by their willingness to execute the very dirty refining process themselves.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  I think you may be thinking of rare earth metals.
ctingom 13y ago
I recall that a large reserve was also found in Afghanistan a few years ago. Link: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/why-finding-lithium-afghanistan-big-deal-even-if-it-never-leaves-ground http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/why-finding-li...
johnohara 13y ago
This discovery gives breathing room to the ongoing research into the use of graphene to improve and extend the capabilities of lithium-ion batteries. It's equally interesting that both seem recyclable as well.
salmonellaeater 13y ago
The article doesn't say who owns the mineral rights to the land containing the site. If it's a private owner then they are the ones who have hit the jackpot. If it's government-owned, then the benefit we (as a nation) get from it depends on how well it's administered.
fmihaila 13y ago
a_p 13y ago
The U.S has an enormous amount of rare earth metals. [1] But the processes of extracting the ore have such a horrendous effect on the environment that the only country willing to mine the metals in significant quantities is China, and the villages in China near the mining sites have suffered as a result [2]. The U.S is rife with abuses of the environment — mountaintop removal mining, anyone? — but so far no one has been willing to match the rare earth metal production levels of China. [1] http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2642&from=rss_home http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2642&from=rs... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare...
tripzilch 13y ago
What I'm curious about (instead of whether I can afford an electric car for cheaper or not), is how this will affect Bolivia, then. On the one hand it's a major source of income swiped away underneath them. But on the other hand, if this source of income was property in the hands of only a few (I'm not at all sure if/how this is the case), shaking things up may have very different consequences (also not necessarily good ones btw).
sproketboy 13y ago
The US will sell it to China who will sell it back as slave labour batteries at enormous profit.
thebiglebrewski 13y ago
I'm so happy, cuz today I found lithium on in here

226 points by MikeCapone 13y ago

1053r 13y ago

Digging through the details in the original article that treehugger links to, it appears that the size of this deposit is not entirely characterized, but that it probably corresponds to approximately 9 years of global lithium production at current rates. (228K tons, with usage of 25K tons per year).

rhizome 13y ago
The Jevons Paradox should change those numbers considerably.
- ignostic 13y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Jevons Paradox attempted to show that (for example) coal prices didn't go down when we learned to get more energy from the same coal. It would NOT apply to increased efficiency in coal MINING. The Jevons Paradox - in my understanding - applies to our use of a resource, not its collection. I'm sure our demand for lithium will go up, but again that's not the Jevons Paradox - that's basic supply and demand.
  - rhizome 13y ago
    JP will be in reaction to increased demand (usage).

frakkingcylons 13y ago

Does anyone know if this would affect the price of Li-on batteries? I'm curious to know if it would make Tesla's cars cheaper.

mchannon 13y ago
What few people realize about lithium batteries is it's not the lithium that's scarce and expensive, but the alloying elements that go in to make the electrode- most EV batteries use more Cobalt by weight than Lithium, and Cobalt is more expensive per pound. Lithium's one of the lightest metals, so a little bit goes a long way.
- frakkingcylons 13y ago
  Good to know, thank you.
- jrabone 13y ago
  IIRC cobalt is not only scarce, it's also mostly mainly produced in the Congo and Zambia, and anywhere referred to as the "Democratic Republic of..." is probably not as politically stable as one might hope.
umsm 13y ago
This made me curious too... What is the cost breakdown of a Tesla car? What part(s) do we need to improve to lower the price to that of a regular luxury car?
- gngeal 13y ago
  What exactly is a "regular luxury car"? It sounds like an interesting designation for any article. If it's regular, is it still a luxury?
  - joevandyk 13y ago
    BMW, Lexus, etc.
    - knowaveragejoe 13y ago
      Equivalent models of which are priced about the same as the Model S variants.

morpher 13y ago

This article (and the UW press release they quote) state that the estimated 228,000 tons of lithium present at the site is "enough to meet annual U.S. demand". I'm not sure what this last statement means since it isn't qualified by "for XXX years assuming no increase in consumption". According to the USGS[1], US consumption for 2011 was estimated at ~2000 tons. So, this source is, indeed, significant. According to the article, it is also twice as large as the other known US source (in Nevada), so combined, the US has ~150 years worth of domestic Li at its current consumption rates. [1] https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs-2012-lithi.pdf https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mc...

learc83 13y ago
And lithium can be recycled, so if the price of mining more lithium increases too far, expect the amount of recycled lithium used to increase as well.
- Recoil42 13y ago
  >lithium can be recycled Question, for anyone out there who might know: How much lithium (and of what quality) can be recovered from a typical modern li-on battery? How difficult is the process?
  - MrFoof 13y ago
    Looks to be around 93%. http://pubs.sciepub.com/materials/1/1/2/#.UXmcu5VcJnI http://pubs.sciepub.com/materials/1/1/2/#.UXmcu5VcJnI
    - dopamean 13y ago
      I dont know enough about these things but that seems like an incredible rate.
      - Someone 13y ago
        My chemistry is very bad, but that seems to be in 3M HCl with added H2O2 at 80°C. Combining that mix with Lithium batteries, to me, sounds like a process that may be difficult to safely scale up from the lab.

dmm 13y ago

For the most part, the cost of production is what matters. If Chilean lithium costs $x and US lithium costs $3x then it doesn't matter how is in the ground in the US, the lithium will come from Chile.

rosser 13y ago
Until Chinese demand for Chilean a/o Bolivian lithium drives its price over $3x, at which point, having a local supply this big is a huge deal.
- psgibbs 13y ago
  Really, only in the sense that this source pushes out the aggregate supply curve, delaying the point in time when prices get higher. Practically, once prices become 3x of current, that's what everyone will pay on average, it just means (in this thought experiment) that some miner sourcing from America is marginally profitable, while some miner from South America is very profitable.
  - rosser 13y ago
    Did the existence of shale oil or tar sands delay crude breaking $80/barrel? More expensively exploited resources typically aren't exploited until their market price makes such exploitation profitable. We've known about the vast amounts of oil under the Bakken Formation since the 1950s, for example. If this stuff is more expensive than Bolivian lithium, we won't do more than tinker with it until it's not, and consequently I wouldn't expect it to have much impact on the price curve — we'll all still be buying the same stuff until then.

billiam 13y ago

The most important implication of this discovery is that while the price of lithium could plunge, decreasing the costs of lithium vehicle batteries, unless we put a system in place that uses regulatory and market forces to guarantee that this lithium is recovered and recycled, we will have a huge environmental problem on our hands. Disposal and sequestering of lithium metal is a significant part of the overall cost of an EV-focused transport system. Global demand by 2020 is projected by USGS to be about 300,000 tons a year, so the effect of this single discovery might not be that large; the major advantage is preventing China from exercising monopoly power on Li production. But I am confident that many more discoveries are out there (I used to be a geologist and worked around Silver Peak in the past), so I think the time is now to start figuring out how to avoid taking all that Li in brine and spreading it throughout our waste stream.

steffenfrost 13y ago

Now I am depressed.

druiid 13y ago
I got a chuckle out of this, but really.. this is HN, not Fark.com.

hkmurakami 13y ago

Isn't the main limiting factor of lithium (and other rare earth metals) the willingness to handle the refining process within one's borders rather than the amount of the metal available in deposits? My understanding is that the reason China has such a huge fraction of lithium production is driven largely by their willingness to execute the very dirty refining process themselves.

maxerickson 13y ago
I think you may be thinking of rare earth metals.

ctingom 13y ago

I recall that a large reserve was also found in Afghanistan a few years ago. Link: http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/why-finding-lithium-afghanistan-big-deal-even-if-it-never-leaves-ground http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-06/why-finding-li...

johnohara 13y ago

This discovery gives breathing room to the ongoing research into the use of graphene to improve and extend the capabilities of lithium-ion batteries. It's equally interesting that both seem recyclable as well.

salmonellaeater 13y ago

The article doesn't say who owns the mineral rights to the land containing the site. If it's a private owner then they are the ones who have hit the jackpot. If it's government-owned, then the benefit we (as a nation) get from it depends on how well it's administered.

fmihaila 13y ago

a_p 13y ago

The U.S has an enormous amount of rare earth metals. [1] But the processes of extracting the ore have such a horrendous effect on the environment that the only country willing to mine the metals in significant quantities is China, and the villages in China near the mining sites have suffered as a result [2]. The U.S is rife with abuses of the environment — mountaintop removal mining, anyone? — but so far no one has been willing to match the rare earth metal production levels of China. [1] http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2642&from=rss_home http://www.usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=2642&from=rs... [2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare-earth-village-pollution http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/aug/07/china-rare...

tripzilch 13y ago

What I'm curious about (instead of whether I can afford an electric car for cheaper or not), is how this will affect Bolivia, then. On the one hand it's a major source of income swiped away underneath them. But on the other hand, if this source of income was property in the hands of only a few (I'm not at all sure if/how this is the case), shaking things up may have very different consequences (also not necessarily good ones btw).

sproketboy 13y ago

The US will sell it to China who will sell it back as slave labour batteries at enormous profit.

thebiglebrewski 13y ago

I'm so happy, cuz today I found lithium on in here