Furthermore, lithium is an extremely abundant mineral. It's available pretty much everywhere, including the deserts of Nevada and Australia. The idea that we have to destroy rare ecosystems to get it is ridiculous.
It’s not that Lithium is actually going to be in short supply, it simply collects in different areas.
>the average electric vehicle battery requires around 10 kg of [lithium]. In turn, 5.3 tons of lithium carbonate ore yield one ton of lithium
This would suggest that 53kg of ore would be enough to provide one car's worth of lithium.
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mining-lithium-for...
[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-wor...
[1]: https://desertfog.org/aerial-of-silver-peak-nev-lithium-mini...]
I could see this happening for lithium also. Get the quantity in global circulation to the level we need and then live off that for the future.
Now, you can say the same thing for oil. Sure. But EVs are bad for the environment and its not obvious they're even a net good.
- You're commenting on a thread about a collapsing water table due to Li extraction.
- Li's price has risen and projected to continue to do so for quite some time.
- You post that Li extraction is cheap, clean and widely available in TX (perhaps the most covetous state of the Union?). Money is literally in a capped oil well and Texans are too lazy to pick it up.
Perhaps Li isn't as easy and clean to extract as you were led to believe?
Tesla has expressed interest in developing a lithium refinery in Texas, so we might see some hoses drinking from those old wells soon enough.
Brine has to be pumped to evap pools and then refined.
>Piedmont Lithium .. will establish a lithium hydroxide processing, refining and manufacturing facility in Southeast Tennessee
I don't think Piedmont is getting into the ore, or brine extraction. They are processing the salts into hydroxide.
Funny enough, soon after this announcement, elon announced his intention to do the same with Tesla.
>its not obvious they're even a net good.
It is extremely obvious. Even if the relevant region of the Andes is completely desertified (which I would prefer not happen) the scale of impact is a pittance next to global warming.
For the most part, Countries are currently mining/producing about 1% of their reserves per year (roughly), and that's a fraction of the resources (which is the 86 MT number).
From the data though -- Reserves seem to be climbing over time, so while there is a dramatic uptick in lithium mining, it doesn't seem like we've hit peak reserve/resources yet.
My dad comes from that region so I really appreciate that you'd rather the area not become a desert just so some SV bro can virtue signal with a Tesla.
Personally, Id rather Californians used their own water to extract their own Li to power their own Teslas.
As to the obviousness of the net good, actually it isn't. Thats why studies are done. Even if it's a net environmental benefit (comparing different types of pollution is a massive value judgement, btw) it doesn't follow its ethically a benefit for the reason outlines above - why should by father's family become environmental refugees?
You're comparing losing a small part of the Andes to half the Mediterranean basin (desertification), a third of the Amazon, the whole world's coastline below 2 meters AMSL, and we don't even know what to expect from the effects of heat stress on wildlife, but we can expect it to kill plenty of people directly. And that's just what I can fit in a sentence.
https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-what-climate-models-te...
Damage to the environment of the subtropical Andes is probably avoidable and should be avoided. There are other ways to get lithium. There are also alternatives to evaporation ponds that could let you put water back in the ground. But it's annoying when everyone thinks their pet issue is as important as the worst environmental threat humanity has faced in recorded history.
1880 AD: Furthermore, oil is an extremely abundant resource. The idea that we have to destroy rare ecosystems to get it is ridiculous.
142 years later: Look how they massacred my boy
16kg of gasoline lasts 1 "cycle" for 18-45 miles. The output requires significant energy input to capture and convert the co2 and H2O back into a fuel.