Lithium surge lacks staying power (in car industry)

http://www.thestar.com/article/175800

"...One big reason: there's simply not enough lithium available in the Earth's crust to stick a lithium-ion battery in the world's 900 million cars, and at the same time expect the auto market to grow. It's just not sustainable...."

(2nd submission; server too busy; :thumbsdow)

The biggest source of lithium – either as a carbonate or chloride – is the limited number of salt pans and salt lake deposits around the world


Why don't they just make more salt? All you need is a sunny flat spot by the ocean.

It's not just ordinary table salt that's needed, it's obviously some type of lithium metal salt. Due to its rarity (low concentration) in the natural environment, it likely takes thousands or millions of years to slowly concentrate in thin layers in coastal salt flats.

I'm off to do a little Google searching now. I'll be back if and when I dredge up more info.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium

"...On Earth, lithium is widely distributed, but because of its reactivity does not occur in its free form. In keeping with the origin of its name, lithium forms a minor part of almost all igneous rocks and is also found in many natural brines. Lithium is the thirty-first most abundant element, contained particularly in the minerals spodumene, lepidolite, petalite, and amblygonite. On average, Earth's crust contains 65 parts per million (ppm) lithium.

Since the end of World War II, lithium metal production has greatly increased. The metal is separated from other elements in igneous mineral such as those above, and is also extracted from the water of mineral springs.

The metal is produced electrolytically from a mixture of fused lithium and potassium chloride. In 1998 it was about US$ 43 per pound ($95 per kg).[1].

Chile is currently the leading lithium metal producer in the world, with Argentina next. Both countries recover the lithium from brine pools. In the United States lithium is similarly recovered from brine pools in Nevada.[2]

See also Lithium minerals...."

Can't lithium also be recovered in the recycling process?

In theory, you can extract any element or compound via recycling refuse, old batteries and junk, but can it can be done either economically or in sufficient amounts? If you're looking for iron or aluminum, I'd say: no problem; lithium: highly improbable.

The more reactive an element is, the harder it is to isloate/recycle/etc. Harder can also mean more energy intensive.

Lithium's atomic # is 3. It's in the group 1A... where the bad boys hang out.

It's a paradox. The very thing that makes it attractive for battery chemisty makes it hard to obtain.

But back to the original post... what this is saying is that obviously we can't all use electric cars with lithium batteries if there's not enough lithium anyway.

This same problem applies to hydrogen fuel cells. They use platinum (or is it palladium). In either case, there's not enough of THAT element either. And since fuel cells deliver energy slowly, you still need a battery. You get hit twice!

I'm holding out for a supercapacitor, instant charging, millions of cycles.

AndyTiedye said:

Can't lithium also be recovered in the recycling process?

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Interesting idea. I've always thought Lithium Ion might not work out well in automobiles due to its expense -- it's great as it has a good power to weight ratio, but based on what this article is saying, Lithium Ion may continue to get more expensive as demand outstrips the (limited) supply. I do believe though that the ideal vehicle is a plug-in hybrid design -- it will be impossible to beat diesel fuel for energy density, and you can have an array of cheap batteries, and ultracapacitors to drive electric motors, and constantly recharge that from an efficient fixed-speed electric motor. I think having ~20 mile range on batteries alone would cut the vast majority of fuel consumption, but if longer range is needed (requiriing a lot more batteries, and therefore more weight and more expense) you have the generator. The generator is also good if you need to heat the car up -- resistance heating would waste your battery power, whereas an engine produces a lot of waste heat as a necessary byproduct of operating, so that would essentially be "free".

In theory, you can extract any element or compound via recycling refuse, old batteries and junk, but can it can be done either economically or in sufficient amounts? If you're looking for iron or aluminum, I'd say: no problem; lithium: highly improbable.

Click to expand...

If you're talking about recycling CR123s, I'd say no way. However, if we were dealing with Lithium battery packs on a scale needed for hybrid cars, those would almost all get recycled as those big packs contain a lot of recoverable metal in one place.