I just started thinking about this right now and slowly started to do some research.

How much lithium is there in the earth and how much can be produced? How much is needed to produce one sizeable automotive battery? How many batteries could be made and when would lithium reserves be depleted? What are the environmental affects of mining and producing lithium?

Everyone talks about wanting to switch to battery power because it provides a clean, renewable source of energy. However, how clean is lithium to begin with? Lithium itself is not renewable so what happens if and when we run out?

In my brief search I found this article first. http://www.evworld.com/library/lithium_shortage.pdf
I don't know how much of it is true as I haven't really dove into the topic too much yet. It sounds like most of the lithium supplies are in South America (80% or so.) Basically with this movement from oil to batteries (especially lithium) the US would basically be "switching dealers" from the Middle East to South America. Albeit, the relationship between most of South America and the US is a little more stable than the Middle East what sorts of problems might arise in the future.

Would this push for batteries as a fuel source being leading us down another slippery slope? Is it better to just cut our loses now and stick with using petroleum?

I, personally, need to look into this more and try to understand how much lithium is needed per battery and what the cost of lithium extraction actually is in terms of environmental risk and other things.

I don't have all the answers but here is some info on this subject.

It has been widely writen that the supply of lithium is limited and will quickly be consumed if we use it in cars. But then I read an article that showed how those reports were poorly researched and just plain way off, claiming there is plenty of lithium, being really quite common. Can't remember all of the places that it is available but China is another big supplier of lithium.

As far as staying hooked on oil instead of lithium the answer here is a no brainer. I think lithium can be recycled. So once it is here... it is here.

Another point is that if all foriegn countrys cut us off from oil tomorrow it will only take until next week (very quickly anyway) before the you are out of energy for your car.

If on the other hand all countrys cut us off from lithium your car will still get you around 20 years later and beyond.

Another point is that if all foriegn countrys cut us off from oil tomorrow it will only take until next week (very quickly anyway) before the you are out of energy for your car.

If on the other hand all countrys cut us off from lithium your car will still get you around 20 years later and beyond.


That is a great point! I did not make that connection. So true! Also:

1) There is a lot of lithium.
2) There will be a full recycle program.
3) New battery chemistries are being developed.
4) New electrical storage technologies are being developed.

Many folks had said that there is lots of petroleum as well. Many folks are still saying that now so why should we worry about the supply.

I agree that there are other battery technologies potentially available and being researched which could use minerals that are more abundant.

When it comes to recycling the lithium battery cells I don't think that there is enough capacity to start recycling a large number of automotive cells. I know that most recycling programs won't necessarily be needed for another 15 or 20 years but I also don't know what is involved with setting up a program and what actually needs to be done in order to recycle a lithium battery as such.

I read an article by Isidor Buchmann that said the average cost of recycling batteries is $1000 to $2000 per ton and that the price could easily double based on transportation requirements for moving the batteries to facilities. I'd assume that at the point of sale car prices would have to include taxes or levies on battery recycling and/or a refundable deposit on the battery that would be returned when the old battery is returned for recycling.

My concern about a limited supply of lithium also could have implications on battery cost. It is logical to assume that as production increases and technology increases that lithium battery prices will decrease but if the price of the raw lithium input increases that could negate any sort of price decrease wrt to scale factors. Depending on lithium reserves and the rate at which it might be consumed in the coming future lithium prices could sky-rocket worse than oil prices have recently.

There is a study available from ESU (a research consulting company based in Germany) called "Life Cycle Assessment for Lithium and Lithium Compounds" that could be an interesting read but at 500 Euro's it's unattainable for me. In the abstract though they mention that over 700MJ equivalent of difference energy resources are used to produce one kilogram of lithium.