How many years would it take to mine enough lithium to make enough batteries to replace all of the internal combustion engines in the world?

[ding]

The current rate of mining lithium is 100,000 metric tons. The amount of lithium needed to replace all internal combustion engines is 17,712,640 metric tons. So the number of years to mine enough lithium to replace all internal combustion engines is 177 years (17,712,640 metric tons divided by 100,000 metric tons per year).

Annual Lithium Mining Production

Global lithium production 2024 | Statista

How much lithium is mined each year? Mine production of lithium reached a new record high in 2023, having increased by 34,000 tons from the previous year.

www.statista.com

The amount of lithium needed to replace all internal combustion engines in the world




Any questions?

 

[miketx]

6 weeks.

 

[petro]

The current rate of mining lithium is 100,000 metric tons. The amount of lithium needed to replace all internal combustion engines is 17,712,640 metric tons. So the number of years to mine enough lithium to replace all internal combustion engines is 177 years (17,712,640 metric tons divided by 100,000 metric tons per year).

Annual Lithium Mining Production

Global lithium production 2024 | Statista

How much lithium is mined each year? Mine production of lithium reached a new record high in 2023, having increased by 34,000 tons from the previous year.

www.statista.com

The amount of lithium needed to replace all internal combustion engines in the world




Any questions?

Multiply that by the amount of water to produce one ton of lithium...
Roughly 500,000 gallons of water goes into extracting 1 ton of lithium. To put that into perspective, it takes around 1 tablespoon of lithium to produce 1 cell phone, meaning, 500,000 gallons of water would make 190,000 cell phones. Mining takes up 65% of the province's water in Salar de Atacama, Chile.

It adds up to an environmental disaster in the making in arid regions that cannot afford to see an exponential rise in water use

 

[odanny]

Multiply that by the amount of water to produce one ton of lithium...
Roughly 500,000 gallons of water goes into extracting 1 ton of lithium. To put that into perspective, it takes around 1 tablespoon of lithium to produce 1 cell phone, meaning, 500,000 gallons of water would make 190,000 cell phones. Mining takes up 65% of the province's water in Salar de Atacama, Chile.

It adds up to an environmental disaster in the making in arid regions that cannot afford to see an exponential rise in water use

Much of that water is recycled, in fact, new facilities, like Lithium Americas in Nevada, plan on recycling/reusing all their water, or as much as possible

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

The current rate of mining lithium is 100,000 metric tons. The amount of lithium needed to replace all internal combustion engines is 17,712,640 metric tons. So the number of years to mine enough lithium to replace all internal combustion engines is 177 years (17,712,640 metric tons divided by 100,000 metric tons per year).

Annual Lithium Mining Production

Global lithium production 2024 | Statista

How much lithium is mined each year? Mine production of lithium reached a new record high in 2023, having increased by 34,000 tons from the previous year.

www.statista.com

The amount of lithium needed to replace all internal combustion engines in the world




Any questions?

For someone who spent time in petroleum exploration you seem to not understand that when a resource becomes more valuable more effort is involved in finding and extracting that resource.

Do you HONESTLY believe that no more Lithium ores will ever be found on earth?

What about that giant salt diapir seismic shot you showed the other day on another thread? You think maybe there might be a few more of those out there that might contain Li salts? How about Li ores in hard rock mining? (I love spodumene, it was one of my faves in mineralogy, but there's also lepidolite which is really pretty neat).

And the other point to remember is: once mined the Li in the batteries has a rather longer lifespan than, say, the oil you drilled for. When gasoline is put in a car it tends to be burned up really quickly and can never really be recycled.

Even if your Li recycling approaches are still rather weak, why couldn't we develop that technology as well?

I'm truly fascinated at people who have technical backgrounds but leave them all at the door when it comes to finding ways to demonize green initiatives.

 

[Stryder50]

Does the Earth have that much lithium?
Given the short lifespan of lithium batteries, what is the replacement factor while doing the "full transition"?

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Multiply that by the amount of water to produce one ton of lithium...
Roughly 500,000 gallons of water goes into extracting 1 ton of lithium. To put that into perspective, it takes around 1 tablespoon of lithium to produce 1 cell phone, meaning, 500,000 gallons of water would make 190,000 cell phones. Mining takes up 65% of the province's water in Salar de Atacama, Chile.

It adds up to an environmental disaster in the making in arid regions that cannot afford to see an exponential rise in water use

You think THAT'S an environmental disaster...you should read about the water issues related to the Alberta Tar Sands!

 

[ding]

Multiply that by the amount of water to produce one ton of lithium...
Roughly 500,000 gallons of water goes into extracting 1 ton of lithium. To put that into perspective, it takes around 1 tablespoon of lithium to produce 1 cell phone, meaning, 500,000 gallons of water would make 190,000 cell phones. Mining takes up 65% of the province's water in Salar de Atacama, Chile.

It adds up to an environmental disaster in the making in arid regions that cannot afford to see an exponential rise in water use

Great. So that would be 500,000 gallons of water per metric ton of lithium times 17,712,640 metric tons of lithium for 8,856,300,000,000 gallons of water.

8,856,300,000,000 gallons divided by 42 gallons per barrel = 210,860,000,000 barrels of water
210,860,000,000 barrels divided by 7,758.4 barrels per acre-ft = 27,178,898 acre-ft of water
27,178,898 acre-ft of water divided by 3,379,000 acre-ft per cubic mile = 8.0 cubic miles of water

It's just math!!!!!

 

[ding]

Does the Earth have that much lithium?
Given the short lifespan of lithium batteries, what is the replacement factor while doing the "full transition"?

I believe so. It's mining it fast enough that is the problem for meeting the Utopian vision.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Does the Earth have that much lithium?
Given the short lifespan of lithium batteries, what is the replacement factor while doing the "full transition"?

You can read about it here. This is the USGS global Li paper for 2022:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-lithium.pdf

 

[ding]

You think THAT'S an environmental disaster...you should read about the water issues related to the Alberta Tar Sands!

Make a thread because this ain't that thread.

 

[johngaltshrugged]

You think THAT'S an environmental disaster...you should read about the water issues related to the Alberta Tar Sands!

EV delusions are pipe dreams for low info people who buy into the climate change BS.
They want to phase out fossil fuels now with no feasible plan to replace the energy capacity they remove from the grid.
Mining for the rare earths necessary for this conversion would do more damage than continued oil production

Oil sands projects recycle 80% to 95% of the water they use. They also use saline water where possible.
Alberta Environment and Parks imposes strict limits on water usage

Oil sands facts and statistics

These indicators highlight trends across economic, environmental and social topics in Alberta’s oil sands and are subject to change.

www.alberta.ca

in the case of mining and processing rare earths, that cost is environmental devastation. Most of us in the Western world aren’t aware of the destruction because most rare earths are mined elsewhere.

Rare Earths: The Hidden Cost to Their Magic

Rare earth elements are essential to modern life. Luckily the world has plenty of them; unfortunately, getting them out of the ground leaves behind massive environmental damage.

www.sciencehistory.org

 

[Stryder50]

You can read about it here. This is the USGS global Li paper for 2022:

https://pubs.usgs.gov/periodicals/mcs2022/mcs2022-lithium.pdf

So maybe somewhere between 22-89 million tons.
With a current replacement demand of about 18 million tons, looks like the supply of lithium would be exhausted sooner than the supplies of petroleum and coal.
Makes lithium batteries a short lived and stop-gap measure it would seem.

 

[odanny]

EV delusions are pipe dreams for low info people who buy into the climate change BS.

Without a hint of satire, he says "low info people", immediately followed by "climate change BS"

Here's your sign ———————> STOOPID

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

EV delusions are pipe dreams for low info people who buy into the climate change BS.

If you say so. I haven't bought gasoline in about 3 years, I charge for free on my solar unit at home, so I've been driving for free for several years now. I guess I'm an idiot.

They want to phase out fossil fuels now with no feasible plan to replace the energy capacity they remove from the grid.

When folks like me put a solar PV system on our house and generate power BACK TO THE GRID we are often told that the utility company is being cheated somehow by getting energy from us. They want to get it for FREE from us.

But more to your point: the whole point of our efforts is to help DEVELOP the replacement for fossil fuels. There are green energy systems out there. They need to scale.

Mining for the rare earths

Li is NOT a rare earth mineral. You are thinking of Ce, La, Nd and Yt.

necessary for this conversion would do more damage than continued oil production

You don't think there's any exotic metals in your ICE vehicle? LOL. You would be VERY wrong. The rhodium in your catalytic convertor is a great example. But there's also a ton of electronics in your car which also use a variety of interesting metals.

Oil sands projects recycle 80% to 95% of the water they use. They also use saline water where possible.

If you destroy the groundwater, no amount of recycling will help you.

in the case of mining and processing rare earths,

Again, Li is NOT a rare earth mineral.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

Without a hint of satire, he says "low info people", immediately followed by "climate change BS"

Here's your sign ———————> STOOPID

Also ironic for someone to call people "low info people" and then talk as if Li is a "rare earth" element. LOL.

 

[daveman]

Pffft. Obviously, we need more children to mine lithium. Problem solved!

 

[miketx]

Pffft. Obviously, we need more children to mine lithium. Problem solved!

We'd have plenty if they'd stop murdering them.

 

[Cardinal Carminative]

So maybe somewhere between 22-89 million tons.
With a current replacement demand of about 18 million tons, looks like the supply of lithium would be exhausted sooner than the supplies of petroleum and coal.
Makes lithium batteries a short lived and stop-gap measure it would seem.

Also noted in the citation was the idea of recycling which has been happening at one company since the early 1990's.

Sounds to me like an area of development.

I'm genuinely curious why so many folks on here seem to understand technology exists but have no clue that technology has to be DEVELOPED. Maybe you think all the tech you use today has always existed and was always as cheap as it is today.

You should really read more history of technology.

 

[johngaltshrugged]

Without a hint of satire, he says "low info people", immediately followed by "climate change BS"

Here's your sign ———————> STOOPID

Back at ya proggy.
The coming ice age turned to global warming & repeated that pattern since at least the late 1800's.
They finally clued in and morphed to the new climate change hysteria so any weather event could be politicized.
You low info rubes eat any slop they put in front of you, no matter how often they change it or how bad it smells.
Good luck with that