Lithium

  1. Discovery trends indicate reserves are still increasing
  2. Twice what we need for 1.4 billion cars
  3. Filtration mining is about to speed up mining and halve costs
  4. September 2023 Update: America now the “Saudi Arabia” of lithium?
  5. Battery recycling is getting better
  6. A million years of lithium?
  7. Future battery chemistries

You have to discover reserves before you can mine them. And as we know from our peak oil graphs, if the discovery rate starts to peak and decline, then we know the mining rate will eventually peak and decline sometime after. So how’s the discovery rate going? Volkswagen reported that in January 2018 the USGS estimated the world to have only 14 million tons of lithium. But then just 4 years later the USGS estimates the world reserves at 22 million tons – (and 89 million tons of resource – which is not yet economically extractable but with changes in pumping and filtration technologies – who knows?)

We’re still finding more than we can mine. Discovery rates do not seem to have peaked yet. We shall see in a decade or so what discovery looks like.

Twice what we need for 1.4 billion cars

”Nature reports that your average car likely takes up about 8 kilograms of lithium (another number that’ll likely decrease over time). After some number crunching, courtesy of Ritchie, you get 2.8 billion EVs from that 22 million tonnes of lithium. With 1.4 billion cars on the road now, that might seem like a tight margin, but one likely improved with growing innovations in mining and battery technology—not to mention this is only Earth’s reserves of lithium. When extrapolated out to 88 million tonnes, that adds up to around 11 billion EVs.”
Popular Mechanicss January 2023

Reserves are the resources we know how to economically extrapolate with today’s technology. Resources are the stuff in the ground that is not quite economical – yet. But watch this next video – as all that could be about to change!

Filtration mining is about to speed up mining and halve costs

September 2023 Update: America now the “Saudi Arabia” of lithium?

Nevada just discovered another 20 to 40 million tons in an extinct volcano. USGS will have to raise their total again.
Cleantechnica – Sept 2023

Battery recycling is getting better

Please see Recycling Batteries

A million years of lithium?

But will we run out? Answers with Rosie said we used 300,000 tonnes of lithium in 2020. The market in 2030 could be between 1.5 to 2.5 million tonnes per year. But the oceans have a trillion tonnes of lithium in them – a million times the estimated 2030 global demand. And a June 2021 article about an electrochemical cell seems to indicate that they may be close to a breakthrough that would make even lithium from seawater economical.

Future battery chemistries

But I just wonder what new chemistry some kid or AI is going to cook up? Will we ever need to extract lithium from the oceans because if some new super-battery emerges from nano-tech and something abundant like aluminium? As Pocket-Lint asks (March 2021) will the battery be a super-micro-capacitor, sodium ion, foam, nano-yolk triple capacity, aluminium air or something else?

Or watch the Undecided battery and Just Have a Think battery playlists. There are just too many cool new options to pick the long term winner. But if lithium is still the standard in a few centuries, the ocean has abundant lithium to top up our then mostly recycled lithium supplies forever.