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Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

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Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#131

Post by iteria »

throwitaway222 wrote: post #62

Worlds largest lithium deposit found in NV, a state which is 90% government owned, and we're having trouble deciding what to do. Other countries are probably going like - wow, they just found a Lithium mine and they're just going to sit on it... and they are asking us to ramp up production???

IIRC, they aren't sitting on it. They're investigating the environmental impact. Lithium is the worst because it needs a lot of water to mine, but it's only found in arid places. NV rightly asked for an investigation to see what thr impact on the water supplu would be

Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#132

Post by epistasis »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #129
epistasis wrote: post #37

Even with recent price spikes on various component prices, the price of the overall good sold continues its march downwards. BNEF's annual survey showed a 14% decrease in prices (other price surveys will show different results). https://about.bnef.com/blog/lithium-ion-battery-pack-prices-... The single component price, even of the component namesake of the battery, does not cause huge fluctuations in the overall cost…

Thought of mine from 20 years ago is the power available from fossil fuels has been limited since around 1970. Which is it's very price inelastic. And there will never be enough to pull the remaining 2/3rds of humanity out of poverty. The Chinese managed what they did by burning 2/3rd of their total coal reserves in the last 40 years. But what we're now seeing is the vastly larger availability and price elastic suppl…

Good points. One thing about raising most of the world out of poverty, however, is that even with the current energy mix, it would not take much more fossil fuels, and only raise emissions by 5%. A very recent paper with this (somewhat surprising) modeling:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03627-w

Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#133

Post by Beijinger »

gumby wrote: post #35

As famously predicted by Julian Simon back in the 70s and 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager

"The Simon–Ehrlich wager was a 1980 scientific wager between business professor Julian L. Simon and biologist Paul Ehrlich, betting on a mutually agreed-upon measure of resource scarcity over the decade leading up to 1990."

Interesting. But the club of Rome predicted in the 70ies problems for the first half of the 21st century. And I think they are going to win the bet. Two blogs I can recommend:

1. https://senecaeffect.substack.com/

2. https://ourfiniteworld.com/

Both bloggers I consider extremely smart.

Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#134

Post by 93po »

RobRivera wrote: post #96
throwitaway222 wrote: post #62

Worlds largest lithium deposit found in NV, a state which is 90% government owned, and we're having trouble deciding what to do. Other countries are probably going like - wow, they just found a Lithium mine and they're just going to sit on it... and they are asking us to ramp up production???

Wouldnt you want to have a motherlode hoarded when supplies dry up 100 years from now, a commodity that fuels advanced avionics?

There is virtually no way we will ever run out of lithium. It is massively abundant. It's just a matter of how much it costs to extract it. And we'll surely have fusion energy/abundant energy in 100 years and it will make the cost of extraction very close to zero.

Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#135

Post by jdeibele »

masto wrote: post #73

I guess nobody told Energizer. https://camelcamelcamel.com/product/B01C4PP8FK?cpf=amazon-ne... My Nest smoke detectors demand these specific batteries. They were all installed around the same time, so they all come due at once, at a cost of ~$200.

$200/$65.89 = 3 packs of 24 AA batteries

Nest smoke detectors take 6 batteries each https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9297548?hl=en#:....

72 batteries / 6 batteries/device = approximately 12 smoke detectors (could be 9, 10, or 11)

We have 6 First Alert smoke detectors that are connected together but don't use WiFi. There's 1 in each bedroom and a couple left over for key places.

Using 12 smoke detectors is being very careful to cover every space or a big house. Or both.

Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#138

Post by cgb223 »

pixl97 wrote: post #111
Hayvok wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I'm curious about — everybody went up significantly in 2022, but if China was paying double for imports, then why wasn't everybody else having to pay double as well? China procures most of their lithium through trade, so they're tapping the same global markets as everybody else.

Where is lithium made versus where is it used. For example if there was not enough shipping routes to China from where it's made then that could be an issue. Or if their demand was up, and there wasn't enough unloading capacity for lithium (not sure how this is being shipped over there) then there can be price spikes.

I’m not a shipping expert by any means but if any country in the world would have a shipping route to it, surely it would be China no?

They manufacture basically everything and export a ton

Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#139

Post by kjkjadksj »

gumby wrote: post #35

As famously predicted by Julian Simon back in the 70s and 80s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager

Its kind of interesting how england as they knew it then really doesn’t exist anymore today thanks to things like hong kong and brexit.

Re: Lithium “shortage” bubble implodes again

#140

Post by jandrese »

hwillis wrote: post #65
TomK32 wrote: post #14

Clickbaiting heading. The price is still 300% compared to the low in August 2020.

In that time, global EV sales have increased by over 450%: https://www.iea.org/energy-system/transport/electric-vehicle... The prevailing opinion was that lithium would stay expensive or go up even more. The price also has not stabilized and may well continue to drop; this is an in-progress update.

Prevailing opinion from whom? Certainly nobody who understands how commodity markets work.

This is all econ 101 level effects, and yet there have been so many articles in the past few years where writers are shocked at what is happening to the prices this week. Or even dumber ones where they project out battery production to 2030 and then compare that to the lithium market today and come to the conclusion that we will never be able to electrify because the lithium market isn't big enough.

I'm personally excited for the point a few years from now when all of the battery plants are online and they overshoot demand and the prices crater. It will be a short but glorious golden age for grid storage, EV startups, and so on until some of the companies go under and others consolidate and the prices come back up to a more sustainable level.

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