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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?

#41

Post by syntaxing »

LatteLazy wrote: post #9

One of the core problems with environmentalists, intelligent people and anyone left wing really is that we insist on doing nothing until we have a perfect solution. Instead of trading climate change for a lithium shortage, we will fail to push these cars because there might be some imperfection for someone somewhere someday. And a massive serious issue is better than a tiny possible future issue we didn't foresee . H…

I’ll take the troll bait, if that’s true then why are “left wing” people the main driver of EVs? Criticizing a technology is one thing. Willing to adopt it is another.

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

#42

Post by HPsquared »

benaadams wrote: post #33

I feel the article violated Betteridge's law of headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

A better formulation would be "Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the null hypothesis.".

That is, instead of "no", say "it's nothing".

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

#43

Post by tuatoru »

jacknews wrote: post #5

"It’s easy to imagine that decades from now, the chemistry of batteries will have changed so much that they will use two, three, or four times less than today." It's easy to imagine, but is it even possible? My understanding is that the lithium is the charge carrier, and while there is some room to improve efficiency, less lithium means less capacity. OTOH, it's quite possible that, eg, sodium batteries become viable…

> is it even possible?

I believe so. As I understand it, in current cell designs, only a fraction of the lithium leaves the anode. This limit is deliberately imposed to preserve the integrity of the physical structure of the anode. Increasing the deintercalation fraction (the percentage of lithium that moves in the electrolyte) is being actively researched. So are other cell types where the whole problem is avoided.

And yes, lithium isn't the only possible choice.

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

#44

Post by rootusrootus »

LatteLazy wrote: post #18
rootusrootus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think most of the folks suddenly apprehensive about lithium & cobalt mining are left wing.

I don't think anyone on the right wing cares at all either way. So even if it's only a small part of the left wing, it's composed on 100% left wingers...

Anecdotally, the only people in my larger circle of family & friends who bring up cobalt mining are the right wingers. You are probably right that they don't actually care, though. It's concern trolling.

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

#46

Post by matsemann »

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?

An EV is much heavier, thus you need more energy to move it. But I think in total it should still be a net win for EVs.

But the real problem is that we move 2000+ kgs around to move a human of 80 kgs around. EVs don't fix that. EVs are mostly to save the car industry, the solution is to drive less by creating a society where people don't need to own a car and drive everywhere.

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

#47

Post by Kiro »

benaadams wrote: post #33

I feel the article violated Betteridge's law of headlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

And many people here comment like it wouldn't. I guess you're so used to Betteridge's being true that you presume the answer in the article is "no".

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

#48

Post by JKCalhoun »

Gwypaas wrote: post #32

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 feasibili…

I'm reminded of the Hunt brothers attempt to corner the silver market in 1980 [1].

> But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.

> “In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.” [2]

Price seems to be able to make material availability very elastic. If there is a huge demand for lithium and our collective resources are bent toward obtaining it (or finding a substitute) I think you can trust "The Market" to find a way.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday

[2] https://priceonomics.com/how-the-hunt-brothers-cornered-the-...

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

#49

Post by moffkalast »

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…

Those electric cars that aren't being used could theoretically be used as renewable grid load balancers, but in reality I doubt many people would degrade their battery longevity for a few bucks a month they'd likely get from it from the power company.

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

#50

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

matsemann wrote: post #36
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.

Isn't the problem that the car's that are parked 95% of the day are all moving at the same time in the last 5%? It feels like building a carless society is a lot more deliberate effort and requires a lot more public good will than electrifying what we have. That being said, it's probably the better long term goal.
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