How long ‘til the lefties are decrying, “big lithium”?
IIRC, China pretty much has a monopoly on the stuff.
Yawn. Ping me when they start using dilithium.
The greenies will love it when they start strip mining whole regions for lithium to power their “green” cars!
No more cheap lithium? What a vicious cycle!!
That depresses me, and I need, really need lithium for my depression.
And here I thought it was the socialists, democrats and other GibsMeDats that caused the rush on Lithium medication.
Don’t worry, to go the way of the buggy whips and kerosene lamps. Filthy technology.
Elon Musk may very well be on life support instead of subsidy support with this news.
Even more hilarious now that oil is so cheap.
Everything else is tanking in commodities. Had to find something else to run up to bubble proportions.
The U.S. Geological Survey produced a reserves estimate of lithium in early 2015, concluding that the world has enough known reserves for about 365 years of current global production of about 37,000 tons per year (Figure 1). Current production goes to a little over one-third for ceramics, almost one-third for batteries, and miscellaneous uses for the last one-third. The same report finds about 39.5 million metric tons of “resources,†which is a less firm category than “reserves.†“Resources” include supplies that could feasibly be extracted economically at some point in the future, whereas reserves estimates refer to current economic viability.
Even though 365 years of reserve supply sounds very comforting, the point of the EV and stationary storage revolutions is that current demand will shoot up, way up, if these revolutions do happen. The 100 Gigafactories scenario could come true. And if that happens, the 365-year supply would be less than a 17-year supply (13.5 million tons of reserves divided by 800,000 = 16.9 years
“Lithium is no longer available on credit.”
Strange, I just saw hobby LIPO batteries for half the price they were two years ago.
I got news for you. If you dream that electric cars will EVER be substantially cheaper to operate than dinosaur-powered, you’re smoking crack. Because no government EVER will willingly give up a tax resource. As soon as electric cars put a noticeable dent in fuel tax levies, BADA-BING, wheel tax, which Oregon already has drawn the roadmap to.
Sounds to me that Lithium Ion batteries were a GREAT IDEA...until people started actually using them in large quantities.
Why does this feel like the Chinese are involved?