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Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

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Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#31

Post by Retric »

mchannon wrote: post #14

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article…

ED: Sounds interesting, I hope the economics work out.

Current production of lithium is low because demand for lithium is low. Lithium @ 17 ppm is actually more common than Lead @ 10ppm in the earths crust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth...

PS: 37,000 tonns of Lithium are produced in 2012 vs 5,200,000 of lead.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#32

Post by creeble »

no1youknowz wrote: post #9
ck2 wrote: post #3

There is no shortage of lithium, even the USA has lots of it (owned by Canadian companies). It's just they don't want to mine it until the price is much higher. Kind of like oil vs gas prices. But I am curious to see what the next level beyond lithium is for compact power storage. Lithium can't be the end of the line.

Where are we with the next-gen battery tech? It's like every 5 years we see some research lab announce a breakthrough but as if yet no real progress. You would have thought it would be a priority for Musk to research next-gen batteries in a really serious way.

I think the recent breakthrough in lithium-air could be next-gen if they can solve a few problems in mfg: http://theconversation.com/lithium-air-a-battery-breakthroug...

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#34

Post by yathern »

Retric wrote: post #31
mchannon wrote: post #14

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article…

ED: Sounds interesting, I hope the economics work out. Current production of lithium is low because demand for lithium is low. Lithium @ 17 ppm is actually more common than Lead @ 10ppm in the earths crust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... PS: 37,000 tonns of Lithium are produced in 2012 vs 5,200,000 of lead.

Is ppm by volume? Because lead weighs significantly more than lithium as the GP said.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#35

Post by taneq »

mchannon wrote: post #14

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article…

> I've found a way.

So how you doin'?

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#36

Post by maxerickson »

no1youknowz wrote: post #9
ck2 wrote: post #3

There is no shortage of lithium, even the USA has lots of it (owned by Canadian companies). It's just they don't want to mine it until the price is much higher. Kind of like oil vs gas prices. But I am curious to see what the next level beyond lithium is for compact power storage. Lithium can't be the end of the line.

Where are we with the next-gen battery tech? It's like every 5 years we see some research lab announce a breakthrough but as if yet no real progress. You would have thought it would be a priority for Musk to research next-gen batteries in a really serious way.

If you take the last 10-15 years of incremental improvements in storage density and decreases in price, it sort of looks like a whole different generation of batteries.

Coupled with more efficient electronics and what is cheap hardware today would have been difficult/impossible to even build in 2002.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#37

Post by Retric »

yathern wrote: post #34
Retric wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ED: Sounds interesting, I hope the economics work out. Current production of lithium is low because demand for lithium is low. Lithium @ 17 ppm is actually more common than Lead @ 10ppm in the earths crust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... PS: 37,000 tonns of Lithium are produced in 2012 vs 5,200,000 of lead.

Is ppm by volume? Because lead weighs significantly more than lithium as the GP said.

In terms of Moles / chemistry which is != weight or volume. Lead is more common by weight and as OP said Lithium is light.

However, even when adjusting for heaver Lead atoms we produce far more Lead.

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#38

Post by aerovistae »

mchannon wrote: post #14

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article…

> I've found a way

Good luck! (Genuine) Hope it makes it to reality and scales well. If lithium can be generated at scale in the US, the cost of electric cars domestically would drop like a rock, while keeping the money in the country. For the US, the benefits would be immense. That would be so great.

(Not that trading abroad is a bad thing, but we need all the "Made in America" we can get these days, where everything is Made in China.)

Re: Tesla Shakes Up Market for Lithium, Other Metals

#40

Post by maxerickson »

Retric wrote: post #31
mchannon wrote: post #14

Lithium doesn't weigh much of anything (even compared to oil), so a ton of Lithium is a LOT of lithium. Since as a commodity it's never traded in metallic form (too hazardous and energy-intensive to get it there, and not much market for straight metal, even as an input to battery production). It tends to be traded as carbonate, so a ton of lithium carbonate still has a very small amount of lithium in it. The article…

ED: Sounds interesting, I hope the economics work out. Current production of lithium is low because demand for lithium is low. Lithium @ 17 ppm is actually more common than Lead @ 10ppm in the earths crust. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth... PS: 37,000 tonns of Lithium are produced in 2012 vs 5,200,000 of lead.

I'm not real worried about resource availability limiting production of batteries, but the lead comparison doesn't seem to provide much information about how much lithium can be produced over short to medium terms.

I know next to nothing about geology, but a little browsing suggests that it is easy to find galena and that it is a much more productive ore than the typical lithium ores.

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