Not Enough Lithium to Go Around?!
Ok so here we are getting all excited about the GM Volt and the new era or paradigm of electric cars running on Li-ion batteries recharges by whatever fuel is avaiable. We love the concpet, embrace the idea and GM is winning big public relation support. All we need is the cheaper, safer, more durable Li-ion battery. And we have billions of reasearch dollars pouring in. All is great right?
Well some people are beginning to say there might not be enough lithium on the planet to create batteries for all 1 billion cars on the planet! Hows that for a curve ball?
Lithium like oil or coal, is extracted from mines or salt fileds. These are limited in number and supply. And many of them are in South AMerica..Oh No not Chavez again!
Perhaps instead of Peak Oil, perhaps we’ll soon be worrying about Peak Lithium.
To read more about this check out this article.
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5 Responses to “Not Enough Lithium to Go Around?!”
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February 6th, 2007 at 10:23 am
The Li used in batteries is not consumed. Once a battery becomes non-functional the Li in it can be recovered to make a new battery. Old Li batteries will not be sent to a landfill as they will still have considerable value for recycling. If I understand the article right, we should have plenty of Li from known resources to make batteries for our cars provided we recycle the batteries as needed. It should be noted that the demand for Li has not yet stimulated a search for other Li reserves on the planet.
February 6th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I am down with Papiscott, at present useage rates we have centuries of supply. If we start building Li batteries at a huge rate there will be a temporary spike in value, more sources will come online and a few years later the price will come down as supplies exceed demand. Between Nimh and Li-Ion variants, if the price can come down as the economies of scale begin to factor in…
http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/lithimcs07.pdf
February 12th, 2007 at 9:25 am
Lithium is not a rare element at all. If demand increases, more sources will become economically viable to extract it from. Also, as Papiscott noted, lithium can be recycled.
I would be more worried about global copper supplies. They are already becoming tight. Where I live people are stealing old copper lines and copper gutters from houses.
March 10th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Caterpillar has spunoff a company called Firefly to produce new technology lead-acid batteries that are revolutionary.
“Firefly Energy has developed two significant technologies that will deliver advanced battery performance for an entire spectrum of uses served by lead acid, nickel, and lithium based chemistries. The two technologies, 3D and 3D2, involve the use of a porous three dimensional material in either flooded or VRLA (valve-regulated lead acid) battery designs. Implementation of this technology successively does away with the corrodible lead grids found in conventional lead acid battery design, and allows delivery of the full power potential of lead acid chemistry for energy storage. This breakthrough delivers a formidable jump in specific power, energy, and cycle life. The resulting products possess performance parameters comparable to advanced materials (Lithium and Nickel-based) batteries, but at costs far below these high performance batteries.”
GM put some of these batteries in a Volt prototype.
http://www.fireflyenergy.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=204&Itemid=89
The military has awarded Firefly a $5 million contract.
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20070305005030&newsLang=en
November 21st, 2007 at 11:19 am
you suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!