351–360 of 400 posts
US could impose the upper limit to buy lithium from Iran, as they did with Russian oil.
There is plenty of lithium in the ground in the US if that is what you are interested in. Or Australia, or many other places.
And anyway, there is basically zero battery materials production in the US anyway, that is all in China, Korea and Japan.
A strong argument for the existence of a diety is hilarious-if-true outcomes like the Ayatollah getting to have both oil & lithium to remain fully hedged through the EV transition. Too improbable for a fictional movie, but here we are. Life, as always, is stranger than fiction.
> Life, as always, is stranger than fiction.
No it isn't. Lithium is very, very common. Pretty much every large country will find plenty of lithium if they go look for it. There is plenty in the US, plenty in China, plenty in Australia and so on and so on.
A strong argument for the existence of a diety is hilarious-if-true outcomes like the Ayatollah getting to have both oil & lithium to remain fully hedged through the EV transition. Too improbable for a fictional movie, but here we are. Life, as always, is stranger than fiction.
The degree to which we’ve been blessed with resources and opportunity to do the right thing (and have consistently chosen to do the dumb thing) never fails to amaze me. Infinite power from the sky that’s cheaper than fossil fuels; vast reserves of lithium to help oil-producing nations smoothly transition us away from oil; huge and unusually-enriched Uranium deposits we could use to build power (but instead used to bu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Afghanistan has trillions in mineral wealth. And yet you still have to extract it somehow and sell it. Unlikely that happens any time soon if ever.
Apparently chinese are try to extract it.[0] They also just got this oil deal recently.[1] I think the mineral extracting is actually good, regardless of who does it. It's increasing total GDP in any event. [0] https://www.wsj.com/articles/china-pursues-afghanistans-mine... [1] https://thegeopolitics.com/chinas-540-million-energy-deal-wi...
China will find Afghanistan just as useless as the US and literally every other empire for 5000 years.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thanks for the emphasis, but production isn't defined the way you want it wishfully to be defined. Lithium ore is not very useful at all. It's refined lithium everyone cares about and China is responsible for ~60-70% of the world's lithium production: https://themeghalayan.com/china-controls-70-of-global-lithiu...
Factories can be relocated, mines cannot.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually Norway did not break the curse. Their economy is pretty much exclusively oil-based, very few other industries. If you run the numbers their fund will fund current expenses for only a decade or so if oil stopped completely. Which isn't really enough time to start other industries for their citizens to have jobs. So they're basically completely dependent on oil, with maybe a short runway for afterwards. They d…
you argue that the curse is to have majority of your economy oil/resource extraction related businesses. But my point is that the curse is that there is a stimulus to stop doing any other businesses. And it seems that Norway has largely avoided that by forcing as much oil money as possible out of the economy(oil fund)
But they are still locked into the curse - the basically is no other economy.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
IIRC China is the worlds largest refiner , but they are not the largest producer . The largest producers are Australia and Chile.
Thanks for the emphasis, but production isn't defined the way you want it wishfully to be defined. Lithium ore is not very useful at all. It's refined lithium everyone cares about and China is responsible for ~60-70% of the world's lithium production: https://themeghalayan.com/china-controls-70-of-global-lithiu...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1,370 watts per square meter isn't what I'd call diffuse. We're just not good at harvesting it.
A typical nuclear station genrates 1 Gw. You'd need 1000000 square meters (=1000 sq km) to generate the same thing. Oh and we can only capture 20-30 % of the energy of the total light. We're going to need solar power, and fossile fuel is madness. But to deny that solar power is not 'dense' seems irrational.
Then include that any solar panels feeding variable load can go wherever (like roofs and parking lots) and take no land but instead enhance the other use.
Then include tilting agrivoltaics (which increases yield for heat sensitive crops and makes animals healthier).
Dedicated utility PV in a good area has a higher area energy density than any scalable power source except gas. Include dual use and it has the lowest land impact worldwide. Specific power is pretty damn good too, about 20W/kg (or 5-8W/kg net, so slightly better than nuclear).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Factories can be relocated, mines cannot.
If it were so simple then oil refineries would exist everywhere, yet they don't. This suggests that major investments in refining infrastructure pays huge dividends for the nation.
Just because it’s called “refining” doesn’t mean that lithium refining is anywhere near as complex as oil refining.
The component of the oil analogy that does correlate is the fact that oil refineries are generally situated close to where the end products are consumed. Which in the case of lithium is batteries, the production of which is indeed largely sited in China as well.
That is to say, China doesn’t control the supply of lithium, rather they control the supply chain of lithium based goods.
That may seem like a minor difference, but the resolution to that is categorically different.
Of note: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/tesla-lith...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably not. The US has huge and readily accessible lithium reserves in the Salton Sea in California, the issues with extracting it are the availability of water and the cost of environmental management around the site. We don't need other countries' lithium, as such.
“We can't extract it because of availability of water in a region that doesn't have enough water for existing needs” certainly sounds a lot like we need to get it from elsewhere.
Extracting it isn't really the problem, it's literally bubbling up to the surface in the form of mud. The water is just needed for dilution as part of separation.