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We’re Going to Need More Lithium

bloomberg.com

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Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#101

Post by mikeokner »

sametmax wrote: post #52
jeffdavis wrote: post #25

This seems like a simple case of "demand increases, price increases in the short term, production increases, things balance out" -- a textbook example of how a market is supposed to work. Did I miss something?

Yes. You missed that it's an ad disguised as an article. Maybe someone need people to invest in lithium, or to make lithium based companies look good, or to divert attention to lithium from other things... All in all, someone from an entity with a lot of money involved sent a PR guy with a story to tell to journalists. And the journalists were happy to write it down because it's interesting enough, serious enough, an…

AKA every Bloomberg article.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#102

Post by Manglano »

GordonS wrote: post #38
MrBorough wrote: post #36

This is why the imperialists countries like USA, Britain, France etc are going to foment war in countries like Congo where people live like animals and work for peanuts to dig out cobalt: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4764208/Child-miners... Let's make a million dollars no matter who dies. It aggravates me that I don't see any comments here relating to what is happening in Congo and all the multinationals s…

Do you have a more... reputable source than the daily mail?

I actually don't doubt the Daily Mail about this particular story. Mining abuses in Africa include some of the worst crimes committed by Western civilization (vide: the concept of "Western Civilization" may be outdated), over things some of us in technology would consider essentially valueless today.

Chocolate is almost as serious a concern as cobalt and diamond. The legacy of colonialism created a food and infrastructure vacuum in Africa which is typically filled by mineral extraction and labor exploitation.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#103

Post by api »

tomxor wrote: post #61

> The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground That's actually an extremely large portion for such a short length of time (this is the entire planet we are talking about). That projection doesn't paint a very sustainable future compared to oil (yes I hate oil), I hope it's efficiently recycled or replaced with better tech.

Reserves means currently known. There has been little serious exploration until recently. Lithium is more common in the crust than lead, and we currently mine more lead. I'm not concerned.

I'm totally blown away by how much oil and gas we have found and those are not recyclable.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#104

Post by thomasahle »

tomxor wrote: post #61

> The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground That's actually an extremely large portion for such a short length of time (this is the entire planet we are talking about). That projection doesn't paint a very sustainable future compared to oil (yes I hate oil), I hope it's efficiently recycled or replaced with better tech.

1 percent for a dozen years, that's 120 years left. That's more than double of oil: https://www.seeker.com/how-much-oil-is-left-on-earth-1792718...

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#105

Post by valuearb »

coldtea wrote: post #96
mtgx wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike oil, lithium can be recycled in extremely high percentage. By the time this will be a problem in 100 years, we'll have long moved to something else, like graphene or whatever. I don't know why people are freaking out about it so much. My guess is it has to do something with oil propaganda. After all, the best myths are those that have a "seed of truth" in them. So once the oil industry started its anti-lithium…

> By the time this will be a problem in 100 years, we'll have long moved to something else, like graphene or whatever. You know, that's not inevitable, it's more of a religious viewpoint. There's no contract humanity signed to guarantee timely delivery of scientific breakthroughs.

No, there is a thing called the market price which does that for us.

When oil reaches $300 per barrel, demand will drop substantially. When it reaches $1,000 a barrel, demand will be drop to only a tiny fraction.

As prices rise, complements get more attractive. Other sources of energy, from solar, wind, to nuclear become far more attractive.

And that’s without inventing new complements. Which will happen, and likely be as cheap or cheaper than oil ever was.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#108

Post by srtjstjsj »

thomasahle wrote: post #104
tomxor wrote: post #61

> The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground That's actually an extremely large portion for such a short length of time (this is the entire planet we are talking about). That projection doesn't paint a very sustainable future compared to oil (yes I hate oil), I hope it's efficiently recycled or replaced with better tech.

1 percent for a dozen years, that's 120 years left. That's more than double of oil: https://www.seeker.com/how-much-oil-is-left-on-earth-1792718...

1200 years

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#109

Post by WJW »

thomasahle wrote: post #104
tomxor wrote: post #61

> The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground That's actually an extremely large portion for such a short length of time (this is the entire planet we are talking about). That projection doesn't paint a very sustainable future compared to oil (yes I hate oil), I hope it's efficiently recycled or replaced with better tech.

1 percent for a dozen years, that's 120 years left. That's more than double of oil: https://www.seeker.com/how-much-oil-is-left-on-earth-1792718...

100 * 12 is actually 1200? :)

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#110

Post by srtjstjsj »

thecabinet wrote: post #64
tomxor wrote: post #61

> The next dozen years will drain less than 1 percent of the reserves in the ground That's actually an extremely large portion for such a short length of time (this is the entire planet we are talking about). That projection doesn't paint a very sustainable future compared to oil (yes I hate oil), I hope it's efficiently recycled or replaced with better tech.

Assuming lithium reserves work anything like oil reserves, the quantity of reserves depends on market process. When oil sells for $20/bb, oil that costs more than that to extract doesn't count towards the reserves. As the price goes up, the reserves increase, because you can extract oil from more challenging circumstances. This is why we've had 20-30 years of oil reserves for the last 50 years.

That means that "oil reserves" is a short-term financial concept that has no bearing on long-term planning discussions.
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