Those maths don't actually make me feel too great.
Considering the number of devices (cars, tablets, phones, laptops, heated clothes, robots, etc) in development or production that depend on lithium for batteries, not to mention any other pharmaceutical and scientific uses, it seems like only 1 billion Teslas worth isn't gonna cut it if we're planning to keep up with the pace of technology acceleration, penetration and turnover.
Oh, and I just remembered that Tesla is planning to make EV long-haul trucks... what's the math work out to for how many of those can be made? I think I saw a video that said the battery would need to be tremendous in order to carry feasible loads.
What about if we did the math on how much lithium the average western consumer is expected to use over the next 10 years given current device turnover and expected increase of lithium-based device ownership?
Of course this wouldn't even factor in working government and business use cases and the consumption based on new startups making destined-to-fail products.
Lithium in batteries is highly recyclable, which helps quite a lot. It’s not a pure consumable like oil. And none of this takes into account the possibility of novel chemistry taking over at some point.
Since lithium is one of the lightest elements, it doesn't seem possible to create batteries that will have the same power:weight ratio. MinutePhysics explains it better than I ever could, basically all the options require lithium:
Regarding recycling, you're right, lithium-ion batteries are 100% recyclable. However, the economics don't make it feasible, so it's not going to be done until the that equation changes:
> Recycled lithium is as much as five times the cost of lithium produced from the least costly brine based process. It is not competitive for recycling companies to extract lithium from slag, or competitive for the OEMs to buy at higher price points from recycling companies. Though lithium is 100% recyclable, currently, recycled lithium reports to the slag and is currently used for non-automotive purposes, such as construction, or sold in the open-markets. However, with the increasing number of EVs entering the market in the future and with a significant supply crunch, recycling is expected to be an important factor for consideration in effective material supply for battery production.
So once the price of lithium increases 500%, recycling will become feasible.
All I'm saying is that my intuition on the numbers isn't as optimistic as others. There are diminishing returns on all our natural resources once we pass the peak price for extraction. Lithium is just one of those resources that I feel we're being relatively careless about.
In a world where economics favored long-term sustainability over short-term profits we would be increasing the price ahead of time to slow extraction and increase incentives for recycling the invention of lithium-sulfur or lithium-air batteries now, while there is still easily accessible lithium in the ground.
7 billion people don’t need 7 billion cars. Many dense cities don’t require cars, and many households don’t need one car per person. Our multitude of battery devices use far less lithium than a single car. Yes the math sucks but it’s not as bad as it looks.
I grew up in Europe. This is an exaggeration. Heck, even when I lived in London the location of my house vs my office made it pretty much impossible to commute except by car.
I don’t know if London is the best example. It wasn’t really designed at all over the last 2000 years, it just grew and grew and infrastructure had to grow around it.
Personally I found Italian cities like Rome and Ravenna to be cozy and walkable. Polish cities too were also quite accessible without cars.
Considering the number of devices (cars, tablets, phones, laptops, heated clothes, robots, etc) in development or production that depend on lithium for batteries, not to mention any other pharmaceutical and scientific uses, it seems like only 1 billion Teslas worth isn't gonna cut it if we're planning to keep up with the pace of technology acceleration, penetration and turnover.
Oh, and I just remembered that Tesla is planning to make EV long-haul trucks... what's the math work out to for how many of those can be made? I think I saw a video that said the battery would need to be tremendous in order to carry feasible loads.
What about if we did the math on how much lithium the average western consumer is expected to use over the next 10 years given current device turnover and expected increase of lithium-based device ownership?
Of course this wouldn't even factor in working government and business use cases and the consumption based on new startups making destined-to-fail products.