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Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

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Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#31

Post by samwillis »

Something that I think needs to be considered more is the now dominant thought that Electric Vehicles = Lithium BEVs. We should not be putting all eggs in that one basket.

Obviously they are the most widely developed, and hydrogen fuel cell technology isn't anywhere near the point where it is ready. But we shouldn't stop developing it. Then there's the fascinating "aluminium air" battery [0] concept which could work so well for people away from traditional infrastructure, or even in small city cars where you can't easily charge at the side of the road in a parking bay.

I want to see a future where there are 10s of different types of electric and zero carbon vehicles on the roads. Each tailored to a different market and vehicle type.

0: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium–air_battery

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#32

Post by Gwypaas »

Always liked the USGS take on mineral reserves.

> Reserves data are dynamic. They may be reduced as ore is mined and (or) the feasibility of extraction diminishes, or more commonly, they may continue to increase as additional deposits (known or recently discovered) are developed, or currently exploited deposits are more thoroughly explored and (or) new technology or economic variables improve their economic feasibility. Reserves may be considered a working inventory of mining companies’ supplies of an economically extractable mineral commodity. As such, the magnitude of that inventory is necessarily limited by many considerations, including cost of drilling, taxes, price of the mineral commodity being mined, and the demand for it. Reserves will be developed to the point of business needs and geologic limitations of economic ore grade and tonnage. For example, in 1970, identified and undiscovered world copper resources were estimated to contain 1.6 billion metric tons of copper, with reserves of about 280 million tons of copper. Since then, about 600 million tons of copper have been produced worldwide, but world copper reserves in 2021 were estimated to be 880 million tons of copper, more than triple those in 1970, despite the depletion by mining of much more than the 1970 estimated reserves.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-appendixes...

Appendix C to 2022 Lithium Statistics and Information.

https://www.usgs.gov/centers/national-minerals-information-c...

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#34

Post by apocalyptic0n3 »

malfist wrote: post #25
bertil wrote: post #10

This article and the IEA sources that they rely on assumes that an EV is a car. That’s not a good assumption: electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport. At that size, you can rely on smaller batteries and solar panels for many journeys (it isn’t fully sufficient for an Aptera but an e-bicycle with a small roof can ride as long as the Sun shine…

Aptera is a thing again? I remember reading about it when I was in high school over a decade ago. I thought they smashed their prototypes and went bankrupt?

Their homepage is claiming up to "40 miles of solar powered driving per day" and "1,000 miles on a single charge". Even given the size and layout of the vehicle, that seems impressive as heck if true. It's in reservation stages for ~$26k, which is also not bad.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#35

Post by dagw »

malfist wrote: post #25
bertil wrote: post #10

This article and the IEA sources that they rely on assumes that an EV is a car. That’s not a good assumption: electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport. At that size, you can rely on smaller batteries and solar panels for many journeys (it isn’t fully sufficient for an Aptera but an e-bicycle with a small roof can ride as long as the Sun shine…

Aptera is a thing again? I remember reading about it when I was in high school over a decade ago. I thought they smashed their prototypes and went bankrupt?

The original Aptera went bankrupt a decade ago. However couple of the original cofounders managed to get some funding to buy back the name and some of the original IP and restarted the company a couple of years ago.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#36

Post by matsemann »

dumbfounder wrote: post #30

Can batteries be created to make the process of reclaiming the lithium orders of magnitude easier? A completely different topic: Politics tends to focus on forcing consumer vehicles to go electric, is this really the right move? Most cars are not driven a lot in a day. But cars that are used for work (fleet, uber/deliveries) are used much more, so the benefit to them being electric is far greater. Trucks too most lik…

Most people shouldn't need to own a car. I don't mean that in a "self driving will save us" way. But that a personal car is parked 95% of the day. In a city huge areas are used for storing these blocks of metal not in use. More accessible car sharing could make less people feel the need to own a car.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#37

Post by rootusrootus »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #16
rootusrootus wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an interview with Siddharth Kara that suggests all lithium batteries contain cobalt and thusly depend on child slave labor That is demonstrably not true. AFAIK the majority of EVs use LFP batteries that have no cobalt. The current RWD Model 3 in the US also uses LFP. That's the direction most EVs will probably head over the next few years.

It's not just LFP batteries that don't use cobalt. Tesla's medium density batteries use a "high nickel" cathode rather than a nickel-manganese-cobalt cathode.

I'd like to learn more about that but I am coming up blank. Everything I've found suggests even the new Tesla 4680 continues to rely on some amount of cobalt.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#38

Post by Communitivity »

snarfy wrote: post #8

Sodium ion batteries work just as well and should be arriving this year [1]. [1] - https://www.reuters.com/technology/chinas-top-ev-battery-mak...

Sodium ion batteries are even better in one respect, they are not as easy to catch on fire, they do not produce the kind of fires lithium batteries do, or give off the same poisonous (and sometimes explosive) gases. It can take over 3000 gallons of water to put out a Li ion car fire (and that fire can re-ignite weeks after due to the chemicals and stored energy) [1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-Mq1Uqpw

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#39

Post by bombcar »

YPCrumble wrote: post #19
dwheeler wrote: post #14

Even if we have more electric vehicles, that doesn't decarbonize anything unless the source of the energy doesn't generate carbon dioxide. In many places you're just moving the source of carbon dioxide (often with a total increase). I think that part is often overlooked.

I find it hard to believe that pulling electricity from the grid would increase carbon emissions vs. a vehicle burning gas in its own engine. How is that possible?

And even if it were (I suppose a very clean natural gas car vs the worst coal plant ever made) the electric still has the advantage of regenerating braking.

Re: Does the world have enough lithium to move to electric vehicles?

#40

Post by bertil »

trabant00 wrote: post #29
bertil wrote: post #10

This article and the IEA sources that they rely on assumes that an EV is a car. That’s not a good assumption: electric bicycles and trikes like the Aptera are much better direction for the vast majority of individual transport. At that size, you can rely on smaller batteries and solar panels for many journeys (it isn’t fully sufficient for an Aptera but an e-bicycle with a small roof can ride as long as the Sun shine…

> Using three tons vehicles for long-distance journeys or for the transport of goods isn’t efficient: trains (and last-mile delivery on cargo bikes) are a lot more economical That sounds intuitive to me but the fact that train tickets are so expensive on long distances (more than twice than if you travel alone in a car) makes me think it's not the case.

The price difference is because the vast majority of costs for car transport (direct, like road maintenance and indirect, like millions of people dying because of pollution) are handled by the state. Trains can easily be much cheaper as most costs are fixed and they can handle orders of magnitude more traffic without congestion.
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