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Comment by aerovistae | Hacker News Reader

Whenever I see people asking this, or worse suggesting outright with great self-assurance that the lithium supply will soon run out, here is my thought process:

1. Musk is a seasoned business leader with 12+ years' experience running SpaceX and Tesla simultaneously, overseeing every aspect of the businesses, so far very successfully.

2. Clearly Musk knows he will need a large lithium supply, since Musk is not literally an idiot, which you would have to be in order to start the largest lithium battery factory in the world without thinking about lithium supply.

3. Clearly Musk investigated this matter.

4. Musk is moving forward as if lithium supply is not a problem.

5. QED, either lithium supply is not a problem, or Musk is investing billions into something that he has no plan for how to make work.

6. One of these seems more likely than the other.

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Well, I'm not literally an idiot either. Your fallacy is that I'm worried about Musk's business encountering a shortage of lithium. I'm not. I'm only wondering if a massive worldwide transition to lithium-based batteries triggered by his move might cause or otherwise encounter a lithium shortage in the foreseeable future (say, 40 years from now). This is not a worry about him or his business, this is a worry about the longer-term effects quite beyond that.

At current consumption there are ~430yrs of known reserves, with factoring in projected growth, they will last ~200yrs. I suspect people don't search for lithium deposits with much vigor right now as there isn't much demand for it and the known deposits will last for quite a while (why look for something we run out of in 200yrs, when there are things at 60yrs). At ~250mg/kwh (15-25kg per Tesla car) the current reserves of lithium could make enough batteries for nearly a billion cars without recycling any of them.

Since the packs will be large, uniform and contain expensive metals like cobalt, they will be recycled so I would suspect demand for lithium would go down when the market becomes saturated (probably not in our lifetimes), just like how lead-acid car batteries don't need much new lead as quite a bit of it comes from old batteries.

Between these two points, I don't think lithium is worth worrying about.

I think it's interesting that people have this perspective. Mankind has been around for what - 40,000 years or so?

The industrial era has been around less than 200 years and we have multiple non-renewables that we have or are exhausting the entire planet's supply, and our approach is "well, we probably have 200 years of it, it's not really an issue when there's other stuff running out in 60 years or so".

We are amazingly blind (or wilfully ignorant) to the future beyond our grandchildren.

Mankind has been around for what - 40,000 years or so?

The figure piqued my interest. I doubt your argument weighs much on it (nor am I taking a position on it), but when are you measuring from? Some possibilities I thought of:

- 3 million years ago - Stone Age begins

- 1.8–0.2 million years ago - Homo sapiens sapiens emerges

- 13,000 BCE - Animal domestication (pigs)

- 11,500 BCE - Agriculture (rice domestication)

I think I was going from "earliest signs of civilization" (i.e. French or Australian cave art, and similarities).

I admit to being surprised by the number for Homo sapiens. I'd have to think it was closer to the 0.2 than the 1.8.

But even then, that'd make it worse.

Even at 13,000 BCE, we're still not doing so well. It can be argued that primitive man didn't have the ability to extract many resources, so it's not comparable, but I don't think that's the case. We shouldn't get a free pass because we have no history of "mass pillage of earthly resources" with which to compare.

The 40,000 years probably refers to "behaviorally-modern humans", which according to one theory appeared suddenly 50,000 - 60,000 years ago, and according to another theory developed slowly starting 2 million years ago and ended 50,000 years ago. The 50,000 year mark is generally accepted as the latest time when speech and language were developed, though that could have in fact happened earlier.

Thanks for this. Interesting concept. For reference to others, there's a Wikipedia page on the topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity

In order to classify what traits should be included in modern human behavior, it is necessary to define behaviors that are universal among living human groups. Some examples of these human universals are abstract thought, planning, trade, cooperative labor, body decoration, control and use of fire. Along with these traits, humans possess a heavy reliance on social learning.

...

Archaeological evidence of behavioral modernity are:

- burial

- fishing

- figurative art (cave paintings, petroglyphs, dendroglyphs, figurines)

- systematic use of pigment (such as ochre) and jewelry for decoration or self-ornamentation

- Using bone material for tools

- Transport of resources over long distances

- Blade technology

- Diversity, standardization, and regionally distinct artifacts

- Hearths

- Composite tools

Of particular interesting is how they show criteria like abstract thought and planning, which at first blush don't seem very amenable to leaving direct archeological evidence.

I don't think its blind/ignorant to think that way for some things.

For things that we are tossing away when we are done with them, as long as we mark where all our dumps are, the future generations should be fine as when they run out of an element, they will be able to mine our dumps. Its not like we are destroying the elements to build things out of them.

We could be nice and somewhat sort/record the trash in our dumps so future generations know where to dig when they need something and be able to get it in reasonable concentrations.

> At current consumption there are ~430yrs of known reserves, with factoring in projected growth, they will last ~200yrs.

So, a doubling every 5? 10? years, if the gigafactory is a start of a trend, rather than the last great battery factory?

Those 200 years would then be cut quite drastically!

[ed: whops, misread "projected growth" for "project growth" (ie: growth due to the gigafactory alone. Still, I think the point stands that accelerating demand could change the sustainability of resources.]

Those 200 years supply refers to currently known reserves, which is to say, lithium whose location is known, has been proven to be present at a certain level, and is economically feasible to extract with current technology. There's lots more lithium out there, there's just not much point looking for or proving its presence yet. That "200 years' reserve" is a small fraction of all the lithium available.

It's reasonable to want to know the answer rather than to be content that Elon Musk must know the answer. Asking the question isn't an attack. I found a few reports online.

That is all valid for "is there enough lithium for Musk to make a big profit on this factory?" but is not the same for "is there enough lithium for the foreseeable future?".

There isn't enough oil to power our civilisation for the foreseeable future, but people are still building wells and selling their contents.

There might easily be enough, or it might be easily recyclable but those are perfectly sensible questions to ask that aren't answered by your thought process.

Peak oil has been "foreseen" for decades now, except it hasn't happened yet...

Space X rockets and asteroid mining are next!

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