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EV World Open Access Article |
Chile's Atacama desert currently produces the largest market share of the world's lithium carbonate, which are processed into the lithium used to make advanced batteries, as well as other products including medicine. The brine lakes of this remote desert region are the lithium equivalent to the Ghawar oil fields in Saudi Arabia.
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Lithium in Abundance
R. Keith Evans sets the record straight on how much lithium there is in the world.
By
Bill Moore
Open Access Article Originally Published: April 15, 2008
In R. Keith Evans view William Tahil should stick to talking about automotive batteries and leave the forecasting of lithium reserves to him.
It was in early 2007 that I interviewed Tahil from his base of operations in France about his white paper forecasting a future shortage of lithium and the potential consequences of having just a few nations (Chile, Bolivia, Argentina and China) controlling most of the production. I titled that two-part article Peak Lithium?.
That interview elicited more requests for reprints than any we've ever published. And according to Evans -- who is Welsh -- Tahil's conclusions also caused consternation in the automotive and advanced battery industries.
I got a tip off of that concern when A123 Technologies' Ric Fulop pulled me aside during a dinner reception at last year's EVS23 in Anaheim and suggested I should look into the question further. He had and came to the conclusion that there was plenty of lithium available, more than enough to meet the needs of all the electric cars the planet could afford to build.
It was Evans' son Jonathan who recently alerted me that his father, a respected geologist who has been tracking professionally the lithium industry since the 1970s had posted a paper contradicting Tahil's reserve estimates. In a private telephone conversation with the elder Evans, I learned that it was Tahil's original paper that spurred him to offer his own educated assessment of global lithium reserves.
The question of lithium reserves long predates William Tahil's concerns, according to Evan's 17-page An Abundance of Lithium white paper, published in March 2008. In 1975, the US Geological Survey convened a symposium to discuss what was then forecast as a future shortage of lithium (from 2000 onward) to use in fusion power and future generations of energy storage batteries.
Evans was a member of the sub-panel charged with reporting on the availability of the raw material, then extracted largely from pegmatite deposits in North America. But the discovery of high concentrations of lithium carbonate in brine deposits in the high deserts of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina not only ended the debate about future reserves but produced a new and significantly cheaper source of lithium carbonate.
While discussing his paper via telephone, I asked Evans to describe these salar deposits since he had not only visited them, but negotiated with the government of Chile for the rights to extract and process them on behalf of Lithium Corporation of America. He explained that the dried up lake beds are, in fact, still somewhat liquid below the half meter of broken crust that constant thawing and freezing buckles into a jagged, surreal landscape.
Imagine, he told me, the American Great Salt Lake without any fresh water replenishment. It gradually dries up, the moisture slow evaporating to a depth of 18-19 inches, below that the salt brine concentrates more and more with each passing year, finally stabilizing at a point where no more evaporation can take place.
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20-Dec-2009
76354
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I beleive there is enough lithium reserves to meet all possible conceivable needs for electric vehicles.
But there is another essential mineral requirement. This is natural graphite, the preferred material that forms the anode into which the lithium ion intercalates. The theoretical amount of graphite needed is 10.37 times that of lithium. In actuality, due to inefficiencies, the amount is 20 - 24 times.
The main producer of natural graphite is China. There is only one producer in North America and it is near the end of its reserves. Unless natural graphite sources are developed in North America and Europe, when we switch to EVs, we will switch from dependence on Saudi Arabia to dependence on China.
Posted by: George Hawley
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16-Apr-2008
61214
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Excellent article and removes any doubt that people who attempt to raise "concerns" over lithium supply are just trying to spread FUD.
Posted by: Peter Stern
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17-Apr-2008
61229
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If the amount of usage of Lithium battery went up by a hundred fold, then the amount of Lithium consumed every hear would be 1.6 million tonnes... or less then a 20 year supply in the world....Ok...it ain't the scam that ethanol is... but it's not unlimited.
Still... I think that the recycling of lithium products will also make a huge difference...
Posted by: normanx scott
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17-Apr-2008
61236
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I agree with Norman. At CURRENT consumption we have enough to meet all our needs. When lithium becomes the only significant answer, as oil is now, as wood was then...then we are in trouble still. The rich will consolidate it and the poor suffer for lack of it if past human history serves as a reference.
Nevertheless, I confess I am somewhat relieved to know the potential is large enough to be useful for the immediate present.
Posted by: Ben Brown
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17-Apr-2008
61238
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It all now indicates that we are at the advent of the ´Lithium Era´(See my April 2008 EVWorld blog)or a new ´techno-economic paradigm´ (the sixth one since the industrial revolution - See my January 2008 EVWorld blog) with lithium a its key factor. In effect, the three conditions for a key factor (such as ´oil´ in the fourth techno-economic paradigm and ´microchips´ in the fifth) suggested by Christopher Freeman and Carlota Perez already in 1988 in a ground-breaking book on technical change and economic theory are today more likely to be fulfilled, namely: (i)clearly perceived low and rapidly falling relative cost; (ii) apparently almost unlimited availability of supply over long periods; and (iii) clear potential for the use or incorporation of the new key factor in many products and processes throughout the economic system.
Posted by: Juan Carlos Zuleta
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17-Apr-2008
61240
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In the case of Lithium we aren't restricted by the total resource base, but by recovery costs. The oceans contain a couple of hundred Billion tons of the stuff. The only question is the cost of recovery vs the value of the material. There has been progress in the extraction of Lithium from seawater using selective absorption. http://sciencelinks.jp/j-east/article/200702/000020070206A1021422.php
Posted by: Neil Packrat
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17-Apr-2008
61243
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One part of the 'is there enough Li' debate should ask the question 'what's the alternative' or 'what's the replacement' for lithium batteries. Just as there are new alternatives for the energy produced from oil discovered (or tested) everyday, there are new and different materials discovered for batteries. Yesterday it was NiMH, today it's LiFePo, tomorrow it's...who knows? If only 5% of that field [in Chile] is Li, and a much larger percent is Magnesium, who's to say that the next, best battery isn't based on magnesium? No one solution should ever be argued as the end-all to it's needs. Everyday we discover new & better ways to store energy, be it electricity, hydrogen, heat, or what-ever. I'm comfortable now knowing the we will have enough Li to meet our needs until the next 'better' battery comes along.
Posted by: Mike Brace
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18-Apr-2008
61258
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Glad to see someone in the know has clarified this issue. Thanks Keith. As far as new elements being found to improve upon lithium as an energy carrier, it's very unlikely. Lithium is as good as it gets as far as a chemical energy carrier, the next step would be nuclear which is not going to happen. Everything has it limits. We are overly optimistic about the longevity of progress because we have been subjected to constant progress and improvement for so many decades that the thought of limits seems incomprehensible, but the truth is there are limits to everything and eventually we will reach them. Moore's Law is slipping as we speak.
Posted by: R Smith
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19-May-2008
61738
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As the editor in chief of EV World I don't normally censure comments posted on EV World by our readers, but I have to make an exception for those which impugn the motives of others and cast aspersions, will not be tolerated. This forum is intended to open dialog on the issues, not the character of the author or the other contributors.
Posted by: Bill Moore
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20-May-2008
61758
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Does anyone know how much phosphate will be used in Lithium-iron-phosphate batteries, which appear to be emerging as the most viable battery chemistry for EV's. There is no way there is enough cobalt for cobalt based batteries, and even nickel is problematic. 50 million tonnes of phosphate is mined every year, so I imagine phosphate will also be the winner in terms of supply concerns. thanks.
Posted by: Jules Winfield
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21-Jun-2008
62315
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Ultra Capacitors will eventually overtake li-on batteries but will need years of development first. Check out http://www.ultracapacitors.org/
Posted by: Tim F
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15-Apr-2008
61206
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Not to mention we recycle what we will use. I agree with his answer below. It's not a problem.
How much lithium is there in the world in Evan's professional analysis? He estimates it at 28.4 million tonnes of lithium, which is equivalent to 150 million tonnes of lithium carbonate. Current world demand is 16,000 tonnes.
His conclusion is that "concerns regarding lithium availability for hybrid or electric vehicle batteries or other foreseeable applications are unfounded."
Posted by: jim stack
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15-Apr-2008
61208
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The comparison of lithium and oil is not a good one from either a production or consumption perspective.
Lithium is not a fuel - it is more like a fuel tank if anything. It is not consumed as we drive but when new vehicles are produced and, as the previous comment pointed out, it is never destroyed so can be recycled at the end of the battery life.
Oil consists of complex molecules that have formed over millions of years and once destroyed they will not be recreated so it is very much a finite resource. Lithium being a simple element (found in an ionic form) is indeed abundant it is only a matter of finding sources in economically extractable concentrations. Aside from these brines there is also a mineral spodumene which can be converted to Lithium Carbonate. Though this is a more costly process it was for a while the most common method of extraction.
Posted by: dexter bland
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15-Apr-2008
61210
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This is a relief. Thanks for the update!
Posted by: Marcus H.
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03-May-2008
61492
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Initial Observation.
I am preparing an analysis of this Upward Revision of Reserves, which seem similar to OPEC’s actions in the late 80s.
Global Lithium Carbonate production today could, if it was all appropriated, and none of it is available, produce 3.3 million GM Volt batteries per year. A twentieth of global car production.
Global Zinc Production today could produce 380 million GM Volt batteries per year, at lower weight. More than 6 times global car production.
Zinc is already available everywhere in industry at a tenth the price of Lithium Carbonate.
America buys 17 million cars every year. We could start making millions of Zinc Air GM Volt batteries tomorrow and the Zinc industry would not even notice. The same applies to Zebra batteries made from Iron and Salt.
To reach just a few million LiIon GM Volt batteries per year means doubling Lithium production over a decade while the existing demand is already 30% undersupplied and growing fast. We do not have a decade to start reducing oil consumption. Matt Simmons has just warned us the Middle East will soon enter a North Sea tailspin - 14% fall per year.
As with oil, “Resources” are not Flow Rate. They are not what we can realistically produce. Claiming 30M tonnes of Lithium is exactly the same as claiming trillions of barrels of oil in shales and tar sands. It is irrelevant.
Lithium powered cars will be an Elite Fleet while the ordinary man will find himself in the street without wheels.
There is no abundance of easily and cheaply producible Lithium.
There is an abundance of Zinc, Iron and Salt.
Posted by: William Tahil
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26-May-2008
61883
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The amount of available lithium depends somewhat on the price of lithium carbonate. At current prices world lithium demand-supply is pretty much in balance. Some of even the well known proposed developments are not economic now. But these and many of the spodumene and other mineral resources do become economic at higher prices.
TRU has undertaken long range 2020 lithium supply-demand market forecasts. The project was a major assessment employing our team of lithium supply side and demand side experts. The supply analysis was in detail for both brine and minerals [mainly spodumene]. The demand side analysis included lithium consumption in batteries, lubricants, glass / glazing / ceramics, air conditioning, pharmaceuticals, polymers, metal alloy, and other applications. The outlook included demand in electric vehicles [including a detailed examination of EV and HEV, PHEV, PEV battery technology innovation and the readiness of lithium cell technology for this application]. To our knowledge the study is the only authoritative long range lithium supply-demand analysis available. You can find more information on the website –
http://trugroup.com/Lithium-Battery.html
The Salar de Uyuni lithium brine resource is large but it is challenging to harvest and process. The lithium contained in the brine is likely to be processed into lithium carbonate. TRU cautions that a well orchestrated development program is required or the resource could be damaged - perhaps seriously and even permanently. For more information please see-
http://trugroup.com/Uyuni-lithium.html
TRU Group Inc - trugroup.com
Posted by: Edward Anderson
Posted by: Edward Anderson
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