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Comment by bs_bishop | Hacker News Reader

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bs_bishop·

Interesting to consider --- is there enough lithium in the world to support this stuff?

http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/eason2/

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USGS says there's this much available lithium:

http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs...

These guys

http://www.erb.umich.edu/Research/InstituteReports/09-10/Glo...

and these guys

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114...

think there's plenty of lithium, not a problem.

They don't actually use that much lithium -- and there is /plenty/ of lithium practically everywhere.

Cobalt is much closer to being a problem -- and it is still very far from being one.

---

Is Eric Eason a good authority on mineral reserves and resources? I don't think so:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2014/08/03/is-there-...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/28/lithium/

The amount of lithium available in known reserves that are profitable to extract at today's prices is very large. We won't be running into constraints anytime soon. And while lithium makes for a good battery anode now, it would be foolish to assume it's the preferred choice for energy storage 15 years down the road.

Can't lithium batteries be recycled?

Yes.

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mythbusters-part-3-recycling...

http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-r...

Thanks for these. The second link notes that the lithium battery recycling is profitable. Do you know of any links to more detailed economics of lithium battery recycling? I'm trying to estimate the cost of Li batteries in a fully recycling system at equilibrium, and I'm not finding any detailed cost/revenue breakdowns. Thank you.

No, sorry. I'd be interested as well.

Sounds like between using lithium in car batteries as well as for household and industrial energy storage, "peak lithium" might be a real possibility.

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