I think this is the beginnings of an economy based on perpetual growth and fossil fuel energy running headlong into geological energy constraints. Basically I see an undulatory downward path for the rest of my life. From here out, I think any rallies in our economic condition are going to be met with spiking commodity prices that knock us right back down.
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 7:51 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
Yes Please - I'll get back to the papers.
I need time to do the analysis.
Quote:
There is some degree of truth to the "peak lithium" theory, but only barely. There is enough lithium to go around. The only issue is finding enough of it concentrated in "economic" deposits, mostly in brine (salt) lakes and ponds.
You should know that this is pure bullshit. It's like saying, "there's 10 times more oil in the ground than has been pumped out."
The issue isn't how much lithium there is "to go around". There's only the actual amount you can dig out, and at what cost. You're making a tar sands argument here. And about the "finding" part - I'm not impressed with future maybes.
Quote:
Currently people do not even bother to recycle lithium and this gives you some indication of how cheap it is right now, compared with Ni-MH batteries which are mainly nickel, a metal costing an exorbitant $22,000 per metric ton
We don't recycle toilet paper either.
Has it even remotely occurred to you that we don't recycle lithium ions because it would be too difficult to pull it back out of the batteries? This isn't aluminum cans we're talking about here.
Saying that a lack of recycling means that we have plenty is horseshit.
Further, eve IF recycling is easy/possible, the only thing that matters is the cost of recycled lithium versus the cost of new stuff.
If the new stuff is cheaper, then we don't recycle.
Further, if you start putting the stuff in car batteries - several thousand times bigger than cell phones, then you radically change the amount required.
I'll get into the papers in a bit.
By the way, you're saying the main paper saying Lithium is short was written by a Li ion competitor? What's his name? _________________ Massive Human Dieoff must occur as a result of Peak Oil. Many more than half will die. It will occur everywhere, including where you live. If you fail to recognize this, then your odds of living move toward the "going to die" group.
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 8:18 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
Here is a nice cheerful analysis of why the potential exists for shortages of cheap lithium:
The Trouble With Lithium
Some highlights include:
Quote:
South America holds nearly 80% of the known Global Lithium Reserve Base.
Only Lithium from the Brine Lakes and Salt Pans will ever be useable to manufacture batteries.
The deposits in Nevada are in decline and many older Lithium deposits in the USA are now uneconomic.
Exclusive dependency on Lithium Ion batteries, where the Lithium will overwhelmingly come from South America, would be like being dependent on South America for 100% of our oil supply.
Future Lithium Carbonate Demand could exceed 2% of the Global Li2CO3 Reserve Base per annum.
The expansion of lithium mining required to support a plug-in hybrid world would be enormous relative to present day production
Towards the end of this report you see another type of battery technology offered as a solution to the impending "lithium shortage", so there is obviously some possible bias going on here.
There was an analysis of this report on The Oil Drum, and the following rough conclusions were made:
Quote:
* With the existing known reserve base of 13.4 million tonnes of lithium and less than 10 mbd of oil, we could run 4 billion cars in 2050.
* If we assume most residents of the planet are living in dense cities in the third world with degrees of public transportation comparable to dense western cities today, then 3-5 billion cars should be enough to satisfy people's aspiration for automobile transport by that time.
Last edited by tsakach on Wed May 28, 2008 8:40 pm; edited 2 times in total
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 8:25 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
Cashmere wrote:
Yes Please - I'll get back to the papers.
I need time to do the analysis.
That's cool.
Cashmere wrote:
Quote:
There is some degree of truth to the "peak lithium" theory, but only barely. There is enough lithium to go around. The only issue is finding enough of it concentrated in "economic" deposits, mostly in brine (salt) lakes and ponds.
You should know that this is pure bullshit. It's like saying, "there's 10 times more oil in the ground than has been pumped out."
The issue isn't how much lithium there is "to go around". There's only the actual amount you can dig out, and at what cost. You're making a tar sands argument here. And about the "finding" part - I'm not impressed with future maybes.
The difference being, as lowem stated, oil extraction is fairly mature as an industry, and Lithium production isn't. If you have compelling evidence that additional demand and increases in price won't increase the URR and production, then provide them, but thus far, according to the USGS, as of 1998, the inflation adjusted price per pound of Lithium has dropped since when it started being recorded in 1953, so there hasn't been much in the way of price run-ups influencing production that I can find.
The key thing about oil's peak is it's run-up in price w/ little to no additional production. If Lithium shows a similar trend, then I would be more inclined to believe that we couldn't extract much more Lithium, however, according to the USGS, the world reserves have increased by a million tons (~8%) over the last five years, so it seems that higher prices(?) (kinda hard to find recent info on Lithium prices since that depends on the application) are spurring significantly more production and discovery, unlike what's been seen w/ oil prices. _________________
Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 7:38 am Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
Cashmere wrote:
Has it even remotely occurred to you that we don't recycle lithium ions because it would be too difficult to pull it back out of the batteries? This isn't aluminum cans we're talking about here.
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 4377 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Thu May 29, 2008 1:41 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
lowem wrote:
Cashmere wrote:
Has it even remotely occurred to you that we don't recycle lithium ions because it would be too difficult to pull it back out of the batteries? This isn't aluminum cans we're talking about here.
Ni-MH batteries aren't aluminium cans either.
And I would lay off the references to organic waste.
It can be done. It's just that it's not considered a high priority right now. Lithium batteries are considered benign to the environment unlike other chemistries (like lead acid which is always recycled). So there isn't a big environmental push to recycle them, nor are the materials rare enough for it to pay off for the recyclers.
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 10:56 am Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
To see a new perspective on this subject, I would encourage everyone here to read my EV WORLD feature article "Peak Lithium or Lithium in Abundance?" published on May 22, 2008.
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 11:23 am Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
PF_
Link? _________________ Massive Human Dieoff must occur as a result of Peak Oil. Many more than half will die. It will occur everywhere, including where you live. If you fail to recognize this, then your odds of living move toward the "going to die" group.
Posted: Wed Jun 04, 2008 1:33 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
zensui wrote:
FreakOil wrote:
Lithium is a common treatment for schizophrenia. A lot of people think golem is a crazy man who's gone off his meds.
Isn't Lithium a slang term for LSD?
Negative. Lithium=Lithium carbonate. It's used in bipolar disorder not schizophrenia. It's a mood stabilizer. _________________ "So while you sit and whistle Dixie with your money and your power.
I can hear the flowers a-growin in the rubble of the towers.
I hear leaders quit their lying
I hear babies quit their crying.
I hear soldiers quit their dying, one and all." - OCMS
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 3:57 am Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
Cashmere wrote:
Yes Please - I'll get back to the papers.
I need time to do the analysis.
Quote:
There is some degree of truth to the "peak lithium" theory, but only barely. There is enough lithium to go around. The only issue is finding enough of it concentrated in "economic" deposits, mostly in brine (salt) lakes and ponds.
You should know that this is pure bullshit. It's like saying, "there's 10 times more oil in the ground than has been pumped out."
The issue isn't how much lithium there is "to go around". There's only the actual amount you can dig out, and at what cost. You're making a tar sands argument here. And about the "finding" part - I'm not impressed with future maybes.
Quote:
Currently people do not even bother to recycle lithium and this gives you some indication of how cheap it is right now, compared with Ni-MH batteries which are mainly nickel, a metal costing an exorbitant $22,000 per metric ton
We don't recycle toilet paper either.
Has it even remotely occurred to you that we don't recycle lithium ions because it would be too difficult to pull it back out of the batteries? This isn't aluminum cans we're talking about here.
Saying that a lack of recycling means that we have plenty is horseshit.
Further, eve IF recycling is easy/possible, the only thing that matters is the cost of recycled lithium versus the cost of new stuff.
If the new stuff is cheaper, then we don't recycle.
Further, if you start putting the stuff in car batteries - several thousand times bigger than cell phones, then you radically change the amount required.
I'll get into the papers in a bit.
By the way, you're saying the main paper saying Lithium is short was written by a Li ion competitor? What's his name?
I would suggest that people are failing to think laterally with electric transport. All existing electric transport is powered conductively from the grid, not using batteries.
The combined issues of cost and poor power density are likely to make fully battery-electric vehicles impractical as a mass market solution.
More likely we will adopt a hybrid solution. This will begin with ICE/battery electric hybrids, but will eventually progress to electric roadway solutions. The real solution is to look for ways of getting direct electric power to vehicles. I would suggest some sort of electrified conduit system embedded within highways, with cars extending contacts into the conduit and earthing through the road.
Joined: Sep 16, 2004 Posts: 4845 Location: Southwest WI
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 6:48 am Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
OR the country falls into depression, people have no money for food, let alone Lithium ion powered cars, so the hybrid of choice is a pair of old sneakers. _________________ Clothing should be optional.
Works on light rail only at the moment. Could this technology be applied to cars, trucks, buses. Yes you still need a small engine. Its all about energy utilisation & storage. Won't solve THE auto problem, but worth a look at.
In my opinion, the personal car will be history within 25 years.
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 11:11 am Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
Gasmon:
Don´t be so sanguine. The world is much more complex than that. There are too many stakeholders in the energy business. Even if the solution you propose were technologically correct, you would be missing a crucial point: consumers´habits and energy-producing companies´s interests.
Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2008 1:35 pm Post subject: Re: Peak Lithium?
promisingfuture wrote:
Gasmon:
Don´t be so sanguine. The world is much more complex than that. There are too many stakeholders in the energy business. Even if the solution you propose were technologically correct, you would be missing a crucial point: consumers´habits and energy-producing companies´s interests.
PF
I didn't propose a solution, just a working example of an alternative. As the ASDA (Walmart in USA) advert goes, "every little helps !!"
Every person on this planet is an energy business stakeholder.
Consumers habits, along with company interests will be changed by time, resource, cost & events.
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