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Why are lithium prices collapsing?

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Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#391

Post by tomp »

vel0city wrote: post #389
tomp wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Most of climate change is caused by fossil fuels. The rest are caused e.g. by factory farming (plant & animal - e.g. pesticide rundown), plastic pollution, etc. If we had boundless nuclear energy, not only would fossil fuels become price inefficient, we could devote the extra energy we generate into synthetic fossil fuels, carbon capture, reducing pollution, etc. Almost all of these are energy bound right…

According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for 10% of GHG emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... Building a nuclear reactor isn't going to make steak go away. So even if you solved.for transportation and industrial uses and everything else you're still only at 90%, not 99.99%. > If we had boundless nuclear energy, More of this "nuclear energy will be too cheap to meter" talk. Nucle…

Transportation emissions are caused by fossil fuels.

As for agriculture, check the rest of the page. Besides CO2, there's also methane and NO2 emissions, both of which are part of a cycle, so they have no long-term impact. The entirety of long-term impact of agriculture is, again, fossil fuels, which is literally digging extra C from the ground and adding that extra CO2 into the atmosphere (technically, TBH, it's also part of a cycle, but instead of 114 years as with NO2, that cycle is millions of years long).

The point is if we invest much more in nuclear, it will become too cheap to meter (e.g. we start using modular reactors that benefit from economies of scale).

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#392

Post by SoftTalker »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #203
throwaway5959 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not all three? Just stop using gas altogether. I pass enough of it myself, thanks. Edit: why am I being downvoted? Is it not a legitimate question to ask why not go all the way with converting to electric when appliances exist for all three use cases? Do my farts stink too bad?

Because gas stoves are the easiest to replace. If someone doesn't have gas lines in their house, they'll just use an electric stove. Replacing a water heater or furnace either needs heat pumps or resistive heat and it becomes potentially much more expensive. Stoves don't matter in the big picture here, they are secondary to whatever people are already doing for heat.

If you have a gas stove, you probably don't have a circuit or wiring or receptacle to plug in an electric stove. So you'll need to get a 240V circuit installed, which for most people will require hiring an electrician. Same as putting in a heat pump.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#393

Post by djbusby »

robertlagrant wrote: post #292
giantg2 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"That's FUD, my dude." Only if you explain it the way you just did. The fact is, instead of restricting water usage related to lithium mining, they'd rather let the river run dry. While the drough is a major factor, so too is how the regulations allow the continued abuse of the limited resource.

If lithium mining brings in money to buy water and other things as well, then it's not great, but it's probably the better choice.

Why don't the mining company buy+ship the water then and leave the river alone?

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#394

Post by FpUser »

ericmay wrote: post #217
FpUser wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When fixing one gives you 0.01% and fixing the other - 99.99% you go for a second one to achieve any sizeable gains. Doing it the other way is only good for fooling people to gain some points in one's political career. And you do not even have to fix second one completely to see positive results so it is not fixing everything at once.

Too simplistic. You can’t do the “99.99%” thing if you violate a population’s sense of justice. In fact you will almost surely make the problem even worse.

My sense of justice is violated just by looking what Governments do to their citizens never mind "green area". And it is all across the world save for the degree of shittiness.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#395

Post by FpUser »

vel0city wrote: post #314
FpUser wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When fixing one gives you 0.01% and fixing the other - 99.99% you go for a second one to achieve any sizeable gains. Doing it the other way is only good for fooling people to gain some points in one's political career. And you do not even have to fix second one completely to see positive results so it is not fixing everything at once.

What's the one thing that will solve 99.99% of climate change issues?

>"What's the one thing that will solve 99.99% of climate change issues?"

99.99% is a figure of speech. The idea is to start with big items. Cooking using gas is far below other "offenders". Go for those first as even if partially it will still be way more effective.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#396

Post by sanderjd »

notjes wrote: post #384
nickpinkston wrote: post #376

The quote from the article below [1] demonstrates why the doomers, degrowers, Neo-Malthusians, etc. keep getting resource scarcity wrong. They keep quoting the "proven reserves" numbers [2] that only count what is extractable with current tech at current prices, factoring out new technologies / techniques, as well as reserves not discovered yet or discovered but not yet "proven". [1] "But while demand for lithium has…

Yes, resources are infinite. That is why the carrying capacity of the earth is also infinite. Because the ingenuity of humans is infinite.

See, this is it right here, you're doing it! You're resorting to extremist hyperbole, when what matters are actual details.

Resources are not infinite, but that is not relevant. What is relevant is the (finite) amount and the rate at which they are used.

To go hyperbolic in the other direction, if there are a trillion accessible grams of something and humanity uses a kilogram a year, then we won't run out for a billion years.

But both your hyperbole and mine are pointless. The question can't be answered without the actual details. Your argument is just "resources aren't infinite so we shouldn't use any of them!" That's not a good argument.

Another thing people often seem to miss when comparing lithium for batteries to oil for combustion, is that lithium is not a fuel in a battery, it's a vessel. It doesn't get burned up. Whether we can recycle it efficiently enough is a big open question, but it's not gone the way fossil fuels are.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#397

Post by thephyber »

notjes wrote: post #384
nickpinkston wrote: post #376

The quote from the article below [1] demonstrates why the doomers, degrowers, Neo-Malthusians, etc. keep getting resource scarcity wrong. They keep quoting the "proven reserves" numbers [2] that only count what is extractable with current tech at current prices, factoring out new technologies / techniques, as well as reserves not discovered yet or discovered but not yet "proven". [1] "But while demand for lithium has…

Yes, resources are infinite. That is why the carrying capacity of the earth is also infinite. Because the ingenuity of humans is infinite.

Straw man fallacy. Your parent comment didn’t make that argument, only that resources are relatively more plentiful than the assumptions that many people make. I would argue the GP is correct.

Technological advances in the 1970s in agriculture (incl. genetic engineering of more nutritious yellow rice, artificial fertilizer from petrol products, improved planting density) allowed us to increase food staple yields. These improvements have expanded world food yields to double the amount of population that can be sustained by the current number of farm operations.

Fracking and horizontal drilling have made US oil/gas drilling (not just pumping of existing wells) profitable again. The explosion of cheap oil in the 2010s (and the cratering of oil prices in Trump’s term) was created by this technology. Fracking isn’t as cheap as the cheapest pumping in the world (probably Saudi light oil), so assumptions must be made about prices and when this technology can add to the world supply. But re-pressurizing existing wells (which is what fracking is) had been tried for 50+ years and only around 2005+/- did the technology work to make it become profitable.

Both of these are examples of modern technology that has bent the supply curve by breaking the simple, fixed assumptions of some economists. And no, no one thinks the supply curve bends infinitely.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#398

Post by tim333 »

nickpinkston wrote: post #376

The quote from the article below [1] demonstrates why the doomers, degrowers, Neo-Malthusians, etc. keep getting resource scarcity wrong. They keep quoting the "proven reserves" numbers [2] that only count what is extractable with current tech at current prices, factoring out new technologies / techniques, as well as reserves not discovered yet or discovered but not yet "proven". [1] "But while demand for lithium has…

Even with no changes in tech the 'proven reserves' are way less than the amount of minable stuff out there as turning an area of land with say gold in into proven reserves involves drilling a load of holes in it and sending the drill cores off to be analyzed which is expensive and so only done on the bit you are about to mine.

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#399

Post by varelse »

le-mark wrote: post #357
akira2501 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Over 85% of lithium is produced by just 2 international corporations If I search google for this string, your post is the only one that comes up. How did you arrive at this figure? In the history of industry, when has it ever been a positive indication that only two players control the majority of the supply? Do these companies directly own the mines or are there partnerships and subsidiaries involved? What countri…

Google has noticeably deteriorated in recent weeks. Does anyone have insight into that? Like more or too much gpt? The first link here is an article from 2021: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Over+85%25+of+lithium+is+produced+...

[dead]

Re: Why are lithium prices collapsing?

#400

Post by newswasboring »

kortilla wrote: post #322
newswasboring wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So you go to the futures market and take a bet that the input prices will increase. If you’re right, you win $, which makes your widget manufacturing profitable and you’re still in business. This isn't remotely how manufacturing works. Manufacturers are focused on making the widget, for them the most important thing is that material is available, not a paper contract.

Futures offer physical delivery. At least try to understand how the market works before you claim it’s pointless.

Yes, but finance bros are not buying it for physical delivery. We are talking about speculation here after all.
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