USA lacks workers in those fields. So the problem is really "how to discover new twchnical expertise labor" to extract those lithium. It is same thing with solar and now silicon chips in USA.
That seems like a silly conclusion. It might still be vital for your country's future to subsidise renewables, but it doesn't follow from the observation.
If China wants to spend taxpayer money to give foreigners cheaper renewables (or cheaper anything), that's nice of them, but doesn't mean anyone should imitate them.
If you have insufficient local workers for a task, and you are the US, you can always open the floodgates of (skilled) migration.
Also you don't need to subsidize renewables. That's a sore game of trying to pick winners and introducing extra bureaucracy. Instead you can hit the same policy goals simpler by taxing fossil fuels (or carbon emissions). Distribute the proceeds amongst all voters, if you want it to be revenue neutral.
With a tax, someone can react by just driving less (eg by moving closer to work) and benefiting from that choice. With a subsidy, you'd actively have to go and buy eg a subsidised electric car to benefit.
And just 'subsidizing' things isn't a replacement for actually playing your energy grid and energy production.
The entire oil supply chain has no chance of ever becoming sustainable.
When you include the very low tank to wheels efficiency of an ICE vehicle, the overall efficiency is even worse.
Self-correction: I meant electrolysis, not hydrolysis
Step 1: grow trees (or any other plants, in fact)
Step 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator
Not the most clean or efficient technology, to be sure, but has been around for almost 100 years now (the second part, the first part a bit longer).
Using solar to power a process to make a fuel before burning a fuel that at best (way less in reality) uses 2x more energy than just powering an electric motor directly is not sensical.
But we demonstrably get more energy out of the useful life of a solar panel than we have to put in to manufacture it.
But it might be necessary for 'green' planes, if the energy density of electric batteries does not improve enough.
Energy density is steadily increasing. Hydrogen will be a short-term solution for medium/long haul flights, but will eventually be replaced by batteries.
Either go with an electric battery, or go with a hydrocarbon like kerosene or methane or so.
I made the original comment contemporary batteries ain't good for electric planes. And I would not bet on batteries becoming good enough anytime soon.
But I don't think physics prohibits anything here?
Things that involve metal-air reactions are basically fuel cells and don't count. If you go down that route, you'll quickly find yourself working with some kind of chemical fuel. They will suddenly look a lot like existing airplanes in terms of basic concept.
Ok, that definition works.
I would have gone with 'whatever people (in the future or now) use for powering their phones, laptops and electric cars' is by definition 'conventional' at that point in time.
Use biological solar panels AKA plants.
So I don't think this analogy holds up.
Since I'm being down voted, I'm adding a reference:
5% of lithium batteries are currently recycled https://www.cas.org/resources/cas-insights/sustainability/li....
So, not renewable
This also ignores the large number of those batteries that will be re-used in grid storage after being removed from a car, and eventually recycled.
>5% of lithium batteries are currently recycled
Whether something is currently recycled and whether it can be recycled are two different questions. For a long time, copper wasn't recycled very often. Then the price went up, and now it's very valuable trash.
Lithium is absolutely renewable. It may not be renewed, but it is renewable.
Let's put more effort into getting that 5% up to 100%, that's where the real effort and headlines should focus.
75% of all aluminum ever produced is still in use today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_recycling#:~:text=....
We need to get lithium to that level
75% of all aluminum every smelted is still in use today: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aluminium_recycling#:~:text=....
We need to get lithium to that level before we make any more big, environmentally hazardous mines.
The lifecycle of the lithium that will come from this hypothetical mine is probably 20 years from now until the first time the material will be recycled.
The highly profitable recycling logistics will have been fully worked out a decade before it’s needed for a new mine’s output.
I'm proposing we put equal effort into both. My expectation is that we don't currently.
75% of all aluminum ever made is still in use. We should be able to do that with lithium too.
The recycling effort is highly profitable, there’s little need to subsidize it. It will simply grow and consume all available supply.
Large scale lithium battery storage is still truly just getting started. We need to be super smart with lining up supply for essential inputs for growth.
Neither are photons [1] nor individual gusts of wind. Lithium has a theoretically closeable cycle in batteries in a way fossil fuels do not.
[1] If you want to be pedantic, the useful energy in a particular photon.
We are still early in the development cycle of recycling technology, which means we'll be closer to 99.x% in a decade when the first large wave of EV batteries (from the last decade) could start getting close to End of Life.
Battery recycling is really just a logistics problem.
There are people who "throw away" the coupon by not returning the old battery, but hey that's on them.
It’s also one of scale. We don’t yet have enough EV batteries being retired to merit the recycling infrastructure. China is just reaching the point where it does.
Sure there is a theoretical closable cycle in batteries, but guess what, the same can be said for fossil fuels. Just use energy to turn air and water back into fuel, boom cycle closed.
What matters is not if something is 'renewable' but if its a strategically correct thing to do in regards to climate and energy security.
Calling lithium 'renwable' is ridiculous. Its literally just a fixed resource on our plant like iron or copper or whatever.
On geological time scales involving massive deposition of organic material.
In contrast, lithium can be recovered from batteries with an industrial shredder and chemical processing.
Fossil fuels are non-renewable in a trivial sense but are grossly different in a practical sense; treating them as equivalent is a borderline specious argument.
Sure, if you want to be painfully pedantic. If you want to have a real conversation, lithium batteries are absolutely "renewable" in the sense they can be recycled, and some studies have shown that they actually perform better after being recycled.
https://www.redwoodmaterials.com/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/recycled-lithium-...
The issue is that much of the work ends up being overseas or all over the world. If you go to any mine site in the world, I guarantee you will find American trained Mining/Geophysics/etc engineers
Source - I went to the Colorado School of Mines and most of my friends and acquaintances from school work in those 2 industries.
The Canadian TSX is the global centre for listed public mining, Anglo-Australian mining companies dominate there.
No one is going to deny the Colorado School of mines their little corner of the pie but they haven't hit "much of" in a clear majority sense by a long shot.
People are not fungible resources. You can’t simply turn a programmer from Google into a Lithium miner by paying more.
20 yrs is a very long time.