Lithium Supply for Batteries
Discussions center on the availability, abundance, mining challenges, and sufficiency of lithium reserves for electric vehicle batteries and energy storage, often contrasting it with cobalt and other materials.
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This is an interesting topic - I've read some good articles on it. It turns out that lithium ion batteries contains only quite little lithium. 1-2% of the weight _and_ value of the battery only. And there are multiple alternative sources of lithium. So actually world battery production will not be constrained by lithium.
It's more coz digging new lithium is still cheaper.
Lithium is quite common. Problem is minign it without totally destroying local environment!
What happens when we run out of Lithium?
Lithium is absurdly abundant. It can be recycled. Lithium concentrations in electrolytes are constantly being lowered. Finally it is possible to manufacture batteries without cobalt. Cobalt is a bigger problem than lithium because most production facilities extract cobalt as a byproduct of other mining activities. Dedicated cobalt mines are possible but it would result in higher costs.
Is there enough lithium on the planet to move everyone entirely over to electric cars, and still keep up with the demand for phones, tablets, drones, etc?
My understanding is that Lithium is not a big problem. Cobalt is more rare.
Don't forget lithium mining, processing, and battery creation/disposal.
Apparently lithium gets mined. Who knew.
Is there even enough lithium on earth for global grid storage, nevermind electric vehicles?