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Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

wsj.com

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Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#51

Post by acchow »

sqeaky wrote: post #43
no1youknowz wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are we with the next-gen battery tech? It's like every 5 years we see some research lab announce a breakthrough but as if yet no real progress. You would have thought it would be a priority for Musk to research next-gen batteries in a really serious way.

> no real progress My cell phone consumes more power and stays on longer than my first phone is that not progress? I think it comes in slow increments and noticing a 5% year on year increase in battery life is lost in the noise of devices that can consume half or double the amount of energy. As for how easy it is to lose the battery gains in noise. Many stock cell phones can have their battery life extended by half a…

> My cell phone consumes more power and stays on longer than my first phone is that not progress?

Why do you think your cell phone consumes more power now? I remember my iPhone 3G getting really physically hot while web browsing.

We measure battery tech progress in energy density, not how long your device will last (since a ton of other tech goes into your device using less power, like transistor shrinking for example. Or a javascript jit).

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#52

Post by JshWright »

jcbeard wrote: post #33
epicmellon wrote: post #2

Musk further said, "This is totally not related to why we want to mine asteroids."

But why not...it could be.

It could be a lot of things... there is no compelling motivation for SpaceX to get involved in asteroid mining (aside from providing rides).

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#53

Post by chrisatumd »

no1youknowz wrote: post #9
ck2 wrote: post #3

There is no shortage of lithium, even the USA has lots of it (owned by Canadian companies). It's just they don't want to mine it until the price is much higher. Kind of like oil vs gas prices. But I am curious to see what the next level beyond lithium is for compact power storage. Lithium can't be the end of the line.

Where are we with the next-gen battery tech? It's like every 5 years we see some research lab announce a breakthrough but as if yet no real progress. You would have thought it would be a priority for Musk to research next-gen batteries in a really serious way.

Musk video talking about batteries - says they are tracking 60 different battery improvement efforts.

https://youtu.be/sTIH6ncIXYc?t=1563

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#54

Post by coredog64 »

Robin_Message wrote: post #48

In shocking other news: car, utility companies currently absorbing entire global fossil fuel production, a state of affairs which is set to continue

car makers, utility companies, plastic makers, paint makers, etc. You underestimate the utility of petrochemicals.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#55

Post by triplesec »

mchannon wrote: post #14

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article…

To be more accurate, there's not a very small amount of lithium in Lithium Carbonate, but about 1 part Lithium to 5 parts carbonate, so in a tonne of Li2CO3 there's about 170Kg Lithium

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#56

Post by busyant »

hinkley wrote: post #25
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #20

“that some call ‘white petroleum’” stop trying to make “fetch” happen

Utah Tea. Well the next thing you know Elan's a billionaire. The kinfolk said "hey move away from there!" They said Californi' is the place you oughta be So he loaded up the truck and he moved to Beverly

Last line should be "built a gigafactory"

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#57

Post by aerovistae »

JshWright wrote: post #49
aerovistae wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've found a way Good luck! (Genuine) Hope it makes it to reality and scales well. If lithium can be generated at scale in the US, the cost of electric cars domestically would drop like a rock, while keeping the money in the country. For the US, the benefits would be immense. That would be so great. (Not that trading abroad is a bad thing, but we need all the "Made in America" we can get these days, where everythin…

Assuming 50 kg of lithium carbonate per car (most sources I can find are somewhere in the 500-700g/kWh for lithium carbonate), and a price of $5/kg, you're looking at $250 in lithium per car. Even if you take the high end estimates I found (1.3kg LCE/kWh and $6/kg for LCE), you're still well under $1,000 in lithium costs. I'm sure a reduction in lithium costs would be welcomed by everyone involved, but it certainly w…

Hmm. Nice work doing the math out. My statement was evidently erroneous. Which component makes the battery so expensive, then? Do you know? I am not really familiar with its make-up past the lithium.

One thing to consider, though, is that lithium coming from Chile is going to have a significant mark-up owing to transportation and tariff costs. Do your numbers take that into account, or were you looking at the raw material value?

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#58

Post by astrodust »

coredog64 wrote: post #54
Robin_Message wrote: post #48

In shocking other news: car, utility companies currently absorbing entire global fossil fuel production, a state of affairs which is set to continue

car makers, utility companies, plastic makers, paint makers, etc. You underestimate the utility of petrochemicals.

Transportation uses absolutely dwarf others, and many of the non-gasoline byproducts are only cheap because the gasoline itself is so in demand.

Gasoline itself was once seen as a useless byproduct of kerosene production.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#59

Post by codingdave »

mchannon wrote: post #14

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article…

I'm a little perplexed by you just dropping the statement: "I've found a way." It seems to me that you should either discuss your findings and intentions, or not mention it until you want a public discussion of it.

I'm surely not alone in a desire to escape the life of sitting behind a desk, and would love to help such a project, in particular to get in early at the prospecting stage. But it is hard to tell from a generic statement like that if you are really working towards something or not.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#60

Post by seltzered_ »

I don't have wsj access to read the article, but for those looking for some help in doing the math Danielle Fong has an interesting collection of notes on calculating lithium ion storage growth (page 19) : http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/refs/DanielleFong-Growth...

(found via the energy storage section in http://worrydream.com/ClimateChange/ )

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