To Wayne Brown: Thanks for your excellent response using real world examples. I find some people here get bogged down too much with theory.

But one other thing to consider as well... Even if Mr. Tahil is totally right (and I don't believe he is), it means that we would have to produce 400 million PHEV vehicles before there is a Lithium supply problem.

And how many years would that take? Well, according to this link: http://people.hofstra.edu/geotrans/eng/ch1en/conc1en/carproduction96.html about 60 million cars were produced in 2003. So lets pick a high number and say the average going forward will be 70 million vehicles made annually. So we would use up all the Lithium in 5.71 years IF:

1. all car production was converted to PHEVs

2. All PHEVs were *required* to use Lithium.

3. No lower end models using cheaper or alternatives like NiMH would be allowed

4. No additional sources Lithium would be found and/or exploration for sources of Lithium would remain at Zero

5. There is no improvement in the recycling of Lithium batteries

Looks pretty unrealistic to me.

A realistic situation would be PHEVs would only make up part of the market... and with the PHEV market, some would use Lithium, others would use NiMH, and others might use other chemistries... maybe even lead-acid on the low end (recently read about some light weight Lead-Acid batteries being developed that are supposed to be a huge improvement over traditional lead-acid, while still being low cost)

If there is ever a lithium supply problem, it will be something think about 20-25 years from now. And if there is a big shortage of Lithium, so what? By the time that happens, there will be at least as many alternative battery chemistries as we have today - and I'm willing to bet that at least some of them will have improved in some way. And I don't believe for a second that it would be a big deal to swap from one battery type to another.

As an IT person, I see a lot of FUD like "You'll never get fired by choosing IBM", "Using Linux will cause you to get sued for copyright infringement" and "Linux is more expensive than Windows"

In the IT industry, I've seen many "independent" studies from research orgs like Gartner with surprising conclusions... like the studies that "find" that Linux is more expensive. And when you dig a little, you find that the study was funded by Microsoft - or funded by an organization indirectly controlled by Microsoft (SCO).

From what I see, as an IT person, Mr. Tahil's study looks suspiciously like FUD... and I'm tempted to start querying about who is really paying for this study.

Put away the ceremonial sword john; Saft, one of best known, most respected & oldest Lithium Ion battery manufacturers in the world publishes the ‘lithium content’ of their Li-Ion batteries.

Let’s take a look at some Saft Li-Ion rechargeable batteries that use lithium carbonate in their makeup. One can open the following Link & navigate down to their ‘Lithium – ion batteries’ to confirm the figures I post below:

http://www.saftbatteries.com//140-general/80-20_download.asp

If you click on the ‘MP 176065’ as provided in the following link:

http://www.saftbatteries.com//130-Catalogue/PDF/mp_176065.pdf

You will see that this Li-ion battery is rated as follows:

Nominal voltage: 3.75 Volts

Capacity: 6.8 Ah

Lithium equivalent content: 2.0 g

Nominal energy: 26 Wh

Now let’s do the math for everyone to see:

1kWh or 1,000Wh / 26Wh = 38.46 of these batteries to make 1kWh

38.46 Saft MP 176065 batteries X 2.0g Lithium equivalent each = 76.92g of lithium equivalent

Lithium % in lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) is 18.8% or .188

76.92 / .188 = 409.15g of Lithium Carbonate in 1kWh of this Saft Li-ion battery.

This is only 0.409kg/kWh --- NOT 1.4kg/kWh, Mr. Tahil’s basis for this article.

0.409kg/kWh is extremely close to the figure (0.431) that the UN & the US-DOT & several Li-Ion battery companies tell us we need to use when determining the lithium content of a Li-ion battery. Again they are having us figure a little high for transportation safety reasons.

Go ahead and open the other data sheets for the other Saft Li-ion batteries & do the analysis on each battery displaying the Lithium contents. They all fall in at around 0.409kg to 0.426kg per kWh which is extremely close to the 0.431kg/kWh as stated in an above commentary.

One more time; this means that we can build in excess of 1.5 Billion PHEV20 (more than 2 X all the world’s current vehicles) & use only 5,799,918 tonnes …. HOWEVER, Lithium can be & is being recycled from Li-Ion batteries. See TOXCO @ http://www.toxco.com/processes.html

As can be seen, lithium is quite recyclable so, in reality we won’t even begin to approach using up half the world’s reserves by the time we have gotten around to building 1.5 billion PHEV vehicles; if we EVER make that many. It is estimated that the whole world only has 0.6 billion vehicles today.

Mr. Tahil, your article is in error. Your company does some very nice research & your paper well done but, it is in error, especially on page 12 where it states; “Existing LiIon/LiMP “Energy Batteries” for EVs require about 0.3kg of Lithium metal equivalent per kWh, in the form of Lithium Carbonate.” I show you very clearly above where Saft states that it only takes 76.92g or 0.07692kg of Lithium metal equivalent per kWh. Many, many other entities agree with Saft on this quantity Willam.

Do your company a favor & actually talk to Saft or some other Li-Ion battery manufacturer & find out why they don’t agree with you & correct your work accordingly.

Wayne Brown --- http://privatenrg.com

Posted by: Wayne Brown

Peter... 'minor planning issue'? That's precisely the point... who's doing the planning? The whole point of Mr. Tahil's paper, which I trust you've read, is to encourage exactly what you're suggesting: that we as a world start planning ahead. We haven't done that with peak oil, so what's to say we'll do it with lithium. And there are other chemistries we need to also investigate more closely, as we discussed in part two of the interview.

I hardly consider the issue 'splitting hairs'.
Posted by: Bill Moore

A bureaucrat's job is to take solutions and create problems for them.

As an economist, I see the whole lithium control/supply scare as a red herring, but it does give me job security.
Posted by: Simple Answer

The answer apparently is with Zinc-Air chemistry. At 4 times the energy density of Lithium ion as Mr. Tahil points out, and perhaps just as many times lower in cost if not more, then you can pack as many as 4 times the 35kwh capacity of nanotech A123 Li-phosphate, or ~140kwh of capacity for equivalent weight and cost, and with 500 full DOD charging cycles, you will equal the 2000 full DOD charging cycles of A123 Lithium at 1/4 the capacity, providing that calendar life of Zinc-Air is not an issue. At this much capacity, range is no longer an issue for BEV using Zinc-Air chemistry.

Or, you can have a 10-15 kwh Zinc-air pack for a PHEV to be charged daily and have it replaced every ~2 years. The cost will work out to be equivalent or less than nanotech Lithium, and the much higher energy density of Zinc-Air will reduce car weight and increase efficiency.

If so, how come no major company is working with Zinc-Air battery right now? Could there be a problem somewhere not so obvious?
Posted by: Roger Pham

As we have large scales of actual produced vehicles in use that start to penetrate transportation markets (it'll take a while, hybrids are less than 10% of U.S. market, 10 years on) and more than one cycle of use/trade/recycle (15-20 years), we'll start to have enough data to make good predictions for long term price and supply effects. Until then, we can produce all we want to meet the pent up demand.

Mr. Tamil is preemptively worried about a choke point for no good reason. Economics is concerned with real world and business - few disciplines more so. While Mr. Tamil's arguments do not present an economic barrier to inevitable increased electric vehicle use, they may provide a savvy speculator some joy or a stupid one some quaking knees.
Posted by: Bored Economist

While 300 degrees might be an issue for Arizona, it would be much appreciated here in Nebraska this time of year, assuming we could tap it for cabin heating purposes.

As for the Zinc Air... it is recyclable and if I recall, it just takes an electrical plating process to do that.

Posted by: Bill Moore

Man... talk about splitting hairs over a minor issue. Okay... so we have at worst 30+ years of Lithium... and that assumes that a wholesale conversion to Lithium battery EVs occurs tomorrow and everyone and their kid has to have a laptop that must have a Lithium battery. So let me ask you all this:

1. Do you all believe that NO additional sources of Lithium will be found over the next 30 years?

2. Do you all believe that Lithium Batteries can NOT be substituted with another battery chemistry that is as good or better over the next 30 years?

C'mon people... look at the big picture. This 'Peak Lithium' scare is, at best, a minor planning issue.

There’s hardly a single university or research establishment in the world now working on anything but Lithium based batteries. The small amount of non Lithium based research still left is minuscule in comparison, at a few companies. Everything in the USA from Argonne, NREL, DoE, Berkeley, Sandia is LiIon. The commercial world and the Investment Community are firmly hooked on LiIon.

The eggs are already firmly in one basket.

The comments from other posters above ignore Business and Commercial reality. On the Lithium utilisation figures I’ve used - for an Energy Battery, which is what a PHEV 20-30 will be in effect - an insignificant 1 Million PHEV20s will use 14,000 tonnes of Lithium Carbonate - as much as the entire battery industry uses today.

Even if you halve the Li utilisation to - well you get 2M PHEVs. Another 15M a year to go in the US alone.

Next time gasoline goes above $3 / USG, now everyone’s heard of PHEVs, who will want to buy ordinary cars anymore?

It takes 5 years from decision to implement new production of Li2CO3, similar to oil or any such large infrastructure project.

So US car demand will want 9 (very optimistic) to 18 times as much Li2CO3 as the world supplies for batteries today.

You’re not going to get it from the other industries that already use it. In 4 years, Lithium Carbonate demand from laptops etc will have doubled.

The demand from cars is going to far outstrip any possible supply.

We don’t have 10-15 years. Cantarell fell 25% from peak during 2006 - 1.99Mb/d to 1.44Mb/d and falling. Gone from US imports. North Sea down over a third since 1999 and falling 14% p.a. Saudi Arabia down 1Mb/d since 2005, whatever the reason they give. Don't you reaad the Oil Drum?

And consider the heavy commercial vehicles on which our transport infrastructure depends. They will want batteries at least 10 times as large, for the largest trucks. There are 14 Million Commercial Vehicles in the USA. “Go figure” as you say.

The LiIon based PHEV is an industrial non starter before we’ve even got to the starting line.

Posted by: William Tahil

Wow, I was really hoping a representative from a bona fide Li-Ion battery research group or company would speak up here but, they haven’t so, round 3:

This ‘Peak Lithium’ 2 series article is based wholly upon an idea that there are 1.4 kilograms of Li2CO3 per kilowatt hour in Li-Ion secondary batteries & therefore we will run out of Li2CO3 or Lithium Carbonate very promptly. The numbers being presented here are not correct & we don’t need to have anywhere near the concern that this article is stirring up all over the ‘world. ‘

I say ‘world’ because Bill Moore’s EV World has quite the following with media ‘energy’ pickups. This particular 2 part series has been picked up by many, many different media sources & has stirred up a fair bit of concern all over the world, causing many to falsely believe that Li-Ion energy storage is going to be another ‘Peak Oil.’ Try Googling ‘Peak Lithium’ or ‘Lithium Shortage’ & watch how many responses show this EV World article as the source for their story or blog.

This 1.4kg of Li2CO3 being used up for every kilowatt hour of Lithium-Ion battery is far from the truth; we are only averaging 0.431 kilograms per kWh.

First, let me present a table on the ‘Theoretical Electrochemical Equivalence’ of several different metals used in Secondary (rechargeable) batteries:

Li ------ 3.86 Ah/g ----- 3.4 Volts ----- 13.0 kWh/kg

Ca ----- 1.34 Ah/g ----- 3.4 Volts ----- 4.6 kWh/kg

Mg ----- 2.20 Ah/g ----- 3.1 Volts ----- 6.8 kWh/kg

Al ----- 2.98 Ah/g ----- 2.7 Volts ----- 8.1 kWh/kg

Zn ----- 0.82 Ah/g ----- 1.6 Volts ----- 1.3 kWh/kg

Fe ----- 0.96 Ah/g ----- 1.3 Volts ----- 1.2 kWh/kg

Please note the first item, Lithium, is rated at 13kWh/kg. Almost any Li-Ion secondary battery manufacturer will tell you that the CE or Coulombic Efficiency of the lithium metal equivalent in a Li-Ion battery falls somewhere between 95-99.9%. Yes, that is the metallic ‘equivalent’ of lithium not lithium carbonate (Li2CO3) which does not exist in a metallic state so; how many grams of Li2CO3 are needed to match the value for lithium in the above table.

In an earlier commentary, I show where many scientists & battery experts have helped the United Nations & the US Department of Transportation know how to figure out how much metallic or ELC (equivalent lithium content) is in a Li-Ion secondary battery for transportation safety reasons. This data was much more in harmony with the USGS data than the article’s 1.4kg/kWh evidence provides for ‘Peak Lithium’ concern. In fact, the USGS data shows that it should be 0.276kg/kWh & the UN – DOT data shows that it should be 0.432kg/kWh; both of these are a long way from Mr. Tahil’s 1.4kg/kWh.

Mr. Tahil refutes this second attempt by stating: “It has nothing to do with the Real Total Lithium Content of a battery, in its Anode, Cathode and Electrolyte nor the amount of Li2CO3 needed to manufacture said battery. “ I will only state that I can hardly believe that the scientists & industry experts that helped the UN & the US Dept of Transportation put this information together forgot to include these key items in their analysis.

That said; I felt I or someone needed to take one more stab at trying to establish some truth here at EV World by approaching it this time from the ‘Chemistry’ end of things.

Fact; as shown in the table above, Lithium has an electrochemical equivalence of 3,860Ah/kg or 3.86 amp hours per gram.

Now, no matter where the Lithium is residing, whether it is the anode, cathode, electrolyte or elsewhere, we should be able to check, the USGS, the UN, Electrovaya, Panasonic, the DOT & Mr. Tahil’s figures for accuracy via electrochemical analysis.

First, we run the numbers for Mr. Tahil’s statement that we are using of 1.4kg of Li2CO3 for each kilowatt hour of a Li-Ion battery.

Let’s use an EV (electric vehicle) with a 35kWh Li-Ion battery as a baseline vehicle.

Mr. Tahil believes that our baseline vehicle should be carrying 35 X 1.4kg or 49 kilograms of Lithium Carbonate. That really is a lot of lithium carbonate.

In another commentary here I showed that the metallic or ELC (equivalent lithium content) of Lithium Carbonate is 18.8% of Li2C03; I won’t go through this again but, any chemist can confirm it.

Using Mr. Tahil’s figures we are to understand that there is 49kg X .188 = 9.212kg or 9,212g of ELC or metallic lithium in our baseline EV.

Now we need to remember the above fact that Lithium has an ‘electrochemical equivalence’ of 3,860Ah/kg or 3.86 amp hours per gram.

This means that Mr. Tahil’s baseline EV should have 9,212g X 3.86Ah = 35,558Ah of potential energy storage. Take this times the voltage of a Li-Ion cell which is 3.7 V for a modern Li-Ion battery but, Mr. Tahil would prefer I use 3.6 Volts & that will be fine. So, 3.6Volts X 35,558Ah = 128kWh!

WHAT? I thought we were working with a 35kWh baseline EV, not a 128kWh EV; that is way too much Li2CO3!

OK, let’s take the United Nations & US-DOT figure of 0.431kg/kWh that Mr. Tahil flatly states is an incorrect application for figuring out the lithium content of a Li-Ion battery.

35kWh X 0.431kg = 15.1kg per EV

15.1kg X .188 = 2.84kg or 2,840g of metallic or ELC lithium

2,840g X 3.86Ah = 10,962Ah

10,962Ah X 3.6VDC = a 39,463Wh or 39.5kWh EV… Wow the UN-DOT guys are only off by 4.5 kWh (5-10% of theoretical). Well, that is certainly better than being off by 93kWh.

It is very likely that the UN-DOT numbers are purposely off by 5-10% rather than the theoretical 1-5% in order to ensure a safety margin for the transportation arenas concerned. This makes sense, as the full potential energy of relatively unstable Lithium should be considered in transportation safety; especially air travel.

Mr. Tahil would have us believe that the practical values are 73% below theoretical & that manufacturers are using 128kWh of theoretical equivalence in lithium to make today’s 35kWh lithium ion batteries rather than the 36-40kWh that are actually using. This goes squarely in the face of what almost every Li-Ion battery manufacturer claims as Lithium’s strong point; the Coulombic Efficiency of the lithium in Li-Ion Secondary batteries being 95-99.9%.

Mr. Tahil would have us believe that the Coulombic Efficiency of lithium in a typical Li-Ion battery is only 27%. No wonder he thinks we will run out Lithium Carbonate so soon. He thinks we use 300-324% more Li2CO3 than we really do!

We do not use 1.4kg/kWh…. we are averaging 0.431kg/kWh.

Now as for 1,000,000 PHEV-20; generally speaking a PHEV-20 will have a 10kWh Li-Ion battery. I know that 9kWh was mentioned by someone earlier but, let’s stick with 10kWh. 1,000,000 PHEV-20 batteries operating with a lithium CE (Coulombic Efficiency) even as low as 95% would only use 4,296 tonnes, not 14,000 tonnes.

This means that we can build in excess of 1.5 Billion PHEV20 (more than 2 X all the world’s current vehicles) & use only 5,799,918 tonnes; less than half the world’s Li2CO3 reserves & we can do that without recycling even a single kilogram. As you know, lithium is quite recyclable so, in reality we will not even come close to using up half the world’s reserves by the time we have gotten around to building 1.5 billion PHEV vehicles, if we EVER make that many.

There is simply nothing to fear here William; let all the Universities, National Laboratories & Companies that are trying to solve a serious world-wide problem get their jobs done without worrying that they may lose public support for their research & products because of your quite successful but equivocal efforts at swaying public opinion. There is plenty of Lithium to get to the starting line & go for many, many years on our way to the next energy nirvana.

Posted by: Wayne Brown

Yes the theoretical charge density of Lithium is circa 3800mAh/g.

BUT the practical achievable charge density with a Lithium metal anode in a real battery is 960mAh/g - a quarter of that theoretical figure. And yes you can check that with 'any battery expert'. I did.

Multiply your 0.432 kgs/kWh by 4 and you get about 1.6kgs - in the ball park I quoted, from Argonne Nat Labs remember.

Multiply your 128kWh by 0.25 and you get 32kWh - yes, that’s about right with your 35kWh battery.

960mAh/g is what you actually get in the real world - not the theoretical 3860mAh/g.
Posted by: William Tahil

Polyplus Battery Corp’s Lithium Air fuel cell quotes 11,600 Wh/kg theoretical energy density, with Li against air.

What do they actually get? 1,500 Wh/kg. About 10% of that theoretical figure.

This is the real world. You don’t get 95-99% overall battery system efficiency. You get 25% at best in an Energy battery. It’s about overall Lithium utilisation and battery system efficiency, not Coulombic efficiency.
Posted by: William Tahil

Lets at least have new clean problems instead of old dirty issues. Even the shortage of silicon has helped improve and increase solar cell output. Technology can adapt if only we can start to change.
Posted by: jim stack

Jim.. the 'shortage' of silicon is in no way comparable to the limited amount of lithium carbonate that is available. Polysilicon, from which silicon wafers are fabricated, is refined from metallurgical grade silicon, which is itself created from silica quartz, one of the most abundant minerals on the planet. The problem with polysilicon was a lack of refining capacity to keep up with demand.

We need all the solutions and not just become fixated on lithium alone. I'd be more than happy with an EV powered by a ZEBRA battery I can buy now that I know has a 10 year life cycle and plenty of range for daily travel around my town.

Posted by: Bill Moore

100% Coulombic Efficiency in a battery is not approachable. Maybe on a planet with different Laws of Physics.

Where does this theoretical figure of 3,860mAh/g of Li come from?

Let me explain.

Electrical charge is measured in units called Coulombs, denoted by C.

Faraday’s First Law of Electrolysis can be stated as saying that 96,487 Coulombs of charge liberate 1 mol of monovalent ions of a metal at the cathode during electrolysis.

Electrical current in Amps = Coulombs per second

So 96,487 / 60 seconds / 60 minutes will tell us how many Amp hours to liberate 1 mol of Lithium

Which is 26.80194444 Ah

1 mol of Lithium weighs 6.9 grams, so the charge to liberate 1 gram will be a seventh of the above, i.e. 3.85972 Ah to an excessive number of decimal places.

Whence comes 3,860mAh/g.

Anyone can see that is a completely theoretical figure. We have just calculated it from theoretical first principles. It does not take into account the Real World internal resistance of the cell, imperfections in the crystal structure of the Lithium metal lattice, transport and diffusion disorder within the metal, transport number between electrodes, heat losses, losses in the electrolyte, build up of contaminants and an oxide layer on the metal surface, Helmholtz double layers, cell polarisation - in short, the whole myriad of real world effects that make the difference between Theoretical Physics and Applied Engineering.

At the National Physical Laboratory you might get over 90% of the theoretical “coulombic efficiency” for measurement of standards and Physical Constants, in a particular carefully controlled optimised test set-up. Not in a real world battery that has to do a job of engineering.

What happens when you use a battery? It gets hot. What does that mean? Internal losses in the cells. To use 3,860mAh/g is to say a battery cell is 100% efficient. We all know they get hot so we know just from that that they are far from 100% internally efficient.

960mAh/g practical discharge capacity in the real world from Lithium is the general figure used. So you are getting about 25% effective utilisation of that theoretical Lithium capacity, when all the real internal factors in the cell have their say.
Posted by: W Tahil

It looks as if we have dropped from 1.4kg/kWh to around 0.337kg/kWh in our analysis now. I think this is good. There was so much confusion about how much Li2CO3 a typical Lithium Ion battery had that I did a lot of research & came up with the following.

The link below is from Panasonic Industrial Company, manufacturers of Lithium Ion Rechargeable Batteries where they describe very plainly what is meant by ELC or Equivalent Lithium Content:

http://www.panasonic.com/industrial/bsgoem/DOT-TranspRequ-Lithium.pdf

I copied & pasted the following paragraph from the document:

“Equivalent Lithium Content (ELC) – means the mass of lithium in the anode of the lithium metal or lithium alloy cell, which for a PRIMARY cell is measured when the cell is in an undischarged state and for a RECHARGEABLE cell is measured when the cell is fully charged, except that in the case of a lithium ion cell the lithium content is measured in terms of equivalent lithium content, which in grams is calculated to be 0.3 times the rated capacity in ampere-hours.”

Another manufacturer that agrees with Panasonic is in the next link:

http://www.rosebatteries.com/pdfs/DOTshipping.pdf

Another can be found at:

http://www.prba.org/lithium_ion_faq.html

All three organizations agree so; I can reliably extrapolate the following:

A modern 18650 Lithium Ion Secondary (rechargeable) Battery has the following specifications:

Voltage: 3.7 VDC Nominal

Amp hours: 2.2 Ah

Watt hours: 8.14 Wh (3.7 VDC X 2.2 Ah)

Now we apply what we learned from the 3 separate links above:

2.2Ah X 0.3 ELC = 0.66g of ELC (Equivalent Lithium Content) – see Panasonic reference above

.66 g / 8.14 Wh = 0.081 g / Wh – This means that we have 0.081g of ELC per Wh (Watt hour)

0.081 g X 1000 = 81g/kWh – This means we have 81g of ELC per kWh (kilowatt hour)

Lithium Carbonate is Li2CO3

Lithium = 6.941 g/mol X 2 = 13.882

Carbon = 12.011 g/mol X 1 = 12.011

0xygen = 15.9994 g/mol X 3 = 47.9982

This means that Lithium Carbonate = 73.8912 g/mol

So, 13.882 / 73.8912 = 0.188% or that the ELC of Li2CO3 is 18.8%

Now we take the 81g/kWh of ELC & divide it by the 18.8% or .188 = 430.85… let’s just say 431g/kWh of Li2CO3. Hey, it may not be 1.4kg/kWh but, it is more than 337g/kWh!

We now know, with very little doubt, that Panasonic, the US DOT, the UN & several other Li-Ion battery manufacturers all agree that there are an average of 431g (grams) of Li2CO3 (Lithium Carbonate) per kilowatt hour (kWh) in a Lithium Ion Battery or more simply put 431g/kWh so, let’s apply this number to the EVs & PHEVs mentioned in the article & see how quickly the world’s supply of LiCO3 it will deplete.

17,000,000 EV per year in the US

35kWh Li-Ion Battery per EV (35 kWh was referenced in the first ‘Peak Lithium’ article)

17,000,000EV X 35kWh X .431kg = 256,445,000kg / 1000kg = 256,445 Tonnes

60,000,000 PHEV world-wide per year

9kWh Li-Ion Battery per PHEV (9kWh was referenced in the first ‘Peak Lithium’ article commentary)

60,000,000 X 9kWh X .431kg = 232,740,000kg / 1000kg = 232,740 Tonnes

I think it is a very serious long-shot that we will be making 17 million EV & 60 million PHEV a year any time soon but, if we do it will take 489,185 Tonnes a year.

Let’s say that we are only able to recycle 50% of this Li2CO3 & that we are experiencing a 9% growth rate in vehicle production per annum & that these vehicles are being replaced every 8 years.

In 30 years we will have a world-wide mix of 1.5 Billion HEV & PHEV vehicles on the roads carrying about 3,475,219 Tonnes of Li2CO3 in their batteries. We will have lost 102,000 Tonnes to non-recoverable means leaving us with 8,422,781 tonnes of the 12,000,000 tonnes available world-wide today.

Yes, William, the ‘Lithium Peak’ has the potential of arriving even sooner than has the Oil Peak especially if Hugo convinces Senor Morales that Hugo needs to run Chile which means he will have already worked his way through Columbia, Ecuador & Peru. By then Hugo will be calling himself el presidente socialista de Sur America & he’ll being using Chile’s Lithium to make Tritium to mix with seawater deuterium so, he can really threaten the US!

Wayne – http://privatenrg.com

Posted by: Wayne Brown

The IATA regulations (from Moltech and now Panasonic) you put up on transport of Lithium metal and Lithium Ion batteries:

'As used above and elsewhere in these regulations, 'lithium content' means the mass of lithium in the anode of a lithium metal or lithium metal alloy cell, except in the case of a lithium ion cell the 'lithium-equivalent' in grams is calculated to be 0.3 times the rated capacity in Ampere-hours (Ah).'

This is a regulatory accounting system - a way for shippers and inspectors to quickly process batteries and say whether they can be shipped or not.

It has nothing to do with the Real Total Lithium Content of a battery, in its Anode, Cathode and Electrolyte nor the amount of Li2CO3 needed to manufacture said battery.
Posted by: William Tahil

On Lithium Cobaltite,Nickelate and Manganate cathode systems, only ~50% of the Li atoms in the cathode are transported back to the anode on charge. Otherwise the cathode collapses. So half the Lithium in the cathode stays there. Therefore when fully charged as considered in above transport regulations - the total Li content in the cell is approximately double the anode content, not counting the electrolyte.

LiFePO4 claims higher Li transport efficiency - but discharge capacity is lower per unit weight so more material is required per unit energy - theoretically LiFePO4 and Manganate Spinel for that matter should be more efficient in Lithium use, yes, than the existing technology SAFT/Sony Nickelate sytem used by Argonne Nat Labs to calculate 1.56 kgs of Lithium Carbonate per kWh. But that's only the cathode - also remember the anode has to be pre-lithiated and a high percentage of the Li is not recoverable - it then plays no part in the electrochemical activity of the cell.

Also, you need to take into account - is it an Energy Cell or Power Cell? Nominally, the specific energy might be the same - Ah x V, e.g 2.2Ah x 3.6V. 3.6V is the average discharge voltage used by the way. But Energy Cells, on which I based my figures, use much more cathode active material than nominally equivalent Power Cells - double. As we go to significant All Electric Range (AER) PHEVs, away from pure power assist HEVs, lithium demand per battery for Energy Batteries will increase.

So there are many factors to take into account. You can’t use some general transport regulations which arbitrarily fix “lithium content” at 0.3 times Ah capacity - this is meaningless. It’s for shippers and airport security to have a way of handling battery transport , that’s all.
Posted by: William Tahil

Mr. Tahil, you said yourself in part one of your blog reply that you checked with Avestor and found they use 300 g / kWhr of lithium in their lithium metal anode cells.

“Independently, I found that the Avestor Lithium Metal Polymer battery uses 300g of Lithium per kWh – an identical amount.”

Lithium-ion cells use a fraction of this amount (1/6th) in the new phosphate based cathode materials that can be delithiated 100% safely and are suitable for large scale electric vehicle applications.

R Smith
Posted by: Dick Cheney

The lithium supply-demand issue is much more complicated than portrayed in this article by William Tahil – Problem with Lithium. The lithium industry is controlled by very few players and is quite secretive. In addition it needs real experts to estimate lithium reserves and whether it is economic to extract them. On the lithium demand side many of the numbers published in the industry come from very doubtful sources and have been proven to be inaccurate. Some of the forecasts that have been put out and then widely circulated have no foundation. And regretfully many forecasts for the electric vehicles and the lithium battery for those vehicles fall into this category.

We at TRU have and are continuing to analyse the outlook for lithium on both the supply and demand side of the equation. However, our team includes lithium brine & mineral resource geologists, lithium processing specialists, battery & electric vehicle experts, lithium lubricants veterans, and the like. Our conclusions needless to say are very different from those presented in the paper.

For more information please view http://trugroup.com/Lithium-Battery.html

TRU Group Inc – Lithium Consultants
Posted by: Edward R Anderson