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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

#121

Post by QAPereo »

zzzzzzzza wrote: post #7
QAPereo wrote: post #2

It might cost more, but it’s certainly abundant; we’re not going to run out of it. No I would even go so far as to say that a rise in the price of terrestrial lithium would be a good thing. In the short term it will hurt, but there’s a lot of runway in that graph before we hit serious scarcity. As the price rises I could honestly see someone like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos finally astroid money off the ground. I don’t h…

mining asteroids in our lifetimes would primarily be useful for harvesting raw materials for constructing things in space, not sending the materials back down to earth.

That really depends on the assumptions you’re making about why it’s done. Large scale mining for building materials and fuel requires an existing space industry for demand. Saving on Dv only makes sense if you have something proven so out there... like mining. Either way there needs to be a truly enormous initial investment in propulsion, and so much more. Making an absolute fortune, and/or breaking foreign control over vital resources could be the key to getting that funding.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#122

Post by hackeraccount »

disnsj wrote: post #88
neolefty wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lithium ore is often < 1%. I'm no miner, but I'd bet an old battery beats that!

Concentration isn’t the whole story though. Plastic is 100% plastic, but it’s still hard and expensive to recycle. Lithium batteries need to be removed from their device. Then removed from their casing. Both these steps are for things made tamper proof to some degree. Add transportation, labor and environmental [1] costs. In general recycling of mtls used in electronic devices is dirty and expensive. Now a car with a…

[2] That's nothing. When I was kid I walked 5 miles each way to school. Needless to say - uphill both ways.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#123

Post by kpennell »

cpursley wrote: post #85
robbrown451 wrote: post #6

How sure are we that some new tech won't replace lithium ion batteries? I'd want to know that if I was investing in a mine.

> can increasing scientific knowledge and technological innovation overcome any limitations to economic growth posed by the depletion of non-renewable resources? > Stanford University economist Paul Romer has observed, "Every generation has perceived the limits to growth that finite resources and undesirable side effects would pose if no new recipes or ideas were discovered. And every generation has underestimated th…

You'd like Ramez Naam's 'infinite resource' if you like this quote.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#124

Post by tomxor »

monkeypizza wrote: post #118
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.

Numbers like 0.5% or 0.01% qualify as "Less than 1%", so this thread is invalid.

With a stat like "less than 1%" the order of magnitude is at least 1/10 of 1% otherwise it's an invalid format for a statistic, it's also most likely >= 0.5 because of rounding... 0 is also less than 1 so with your logic the statistic is meaningless.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#125

Post by Roboprog »

coldtea wrote: post #93
monort wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oil alarmism existed as early as 1919: http://papers.sae.org/190011/

You mean "oil cautionism" based on the very well established fact that reserves are limited (and it took the billions of years to be created)?

Or perhaps “only” 200 million years or so

But yah, a one time thing for us.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#126

Post by Roboprog »

totalZero wrote: post #46
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…

You are not comparing the harms in this poorly-written Daily Mail article to any alternative. Fossil fuels have disastrous harms for people, communities, and ecosystems. In order to show that cobalt mining is worth avoiding, you have to show why it is worse than the alternative it helps to replace. In this case, the cobalt (about 15 lbs per car) would replace gasoline consumption. I would be compelled to believe that…

And Norway

Most of those other places do suck, though.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#127

Post by lev99 »

“People used to think gold was worth fightin’ over, and that shit gets made by every supernova, which means pretty much every planet around a G2 star will have some. Stars burn through lithium as fast as they make it. All the available ore got made at the big bang, and we’re not doin’ another one of those. Now that’s scarcity, friend.” ― James S.A. Corey, Cibola Burn

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#128

Post by jessriedel »

disnsj wrote: post #70
keymone wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is any lithium actually lost in the lifecycle of battery? It’s not like oil that we burn and it’s gone.

True but it depends how expensive it is to recycle, a question o haven’t seen a clear answer to. I mean, technically, oil can be recycled too! Just cut some trees (I.e. sequester CO2) and make syngas.

We’ll have 1200 years to think about it.

Re: We’re Going to Need More Lithium

#129

Post by traek »

valuearb wrote: post #119
srtjstjsj wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't simply buy new inventions.

We don’t have to, we already have complements to replace any natural resources we run low on. Inventing better ones just makes the transitions easier.

Substitutes, not complements, but yes.
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