Comments on: Electric-car race could strain lithium battery supply

With lithium ion batteries becoming the power pack of choice for a new wave of plug-in electric cars, more people are studying the question of worldwide supply.

[leupey]

Check out what East Penn Mfg., Inc. is working on. They have focused on alternatives to Lithium Ion. www.dekabatteries.com.

Ultrabattery technology will rival lithium ion and nickel metal hydride in the near future.

[hackingbear]

Well... some shortages of material are good; it will prevent too many cars getting on roads. The important thing is that the batteries should be recyclable, so the total demand won't grow unbound. So as long as one has clean way to recycle the minerals -- other source of clean energy (wind and solar are perfect because no need for continuous production run) to drive an environmentally clean re-processing facility.

[42istheanswer]

My prediction: We'll all still be driving gasoline based vehicles in 20 years. This electric experiment will fizzle like all the others that try to compete with oil based solutions.

You have all forgotten that it doesn't matter what's right. All that matters is that some fat cat is controlling your pitiful little lives and right now, oil is what has you under that control.

Get used to it and stop confusion each other with logic and facts.

[vminvic]

Lithium batteries are NOT the only viable option for electric vehicles. Super-Capacitor technology offers reasonable energy density with far faster charging, much longer life, and lower production cost - all with the benefit of not competing with the consumer electronics market for material supply. The best ones presently use Barium - not Lithium. Capacitors are also capable of sustained high current discharge (ie accelrating up a hill) without danger of overheating and fire/explosion. No explosive gases are generated by chemical reactions, because capacitors do not rely on reactions - just 2 conductors separated by an insulator.

[NiraliSherni]

Luckily for us lithium is quite an abundant material and by all accounts not that difficult to mine. So the problem of a lithium shortage sending up EV prices unduly does not seem an immediate danger. Meanwhile lithium continues to offer a bright future for electric cars, by tackling the issue of a limited range which is perceived as the major drawback of EVs by many.

[NiraliSherni]

Lithium itself is not scarce so there need not be any fear of a scarcity. And @Joe Real, you got it right, the EV is here to stay, how can the internal combustion engine compete with 10 cents a mile!

[akayanni]

http://lithiumabundance.blogspot.com/

<blockquote>This current estimate totals 28.4 million tonnes Li equivalent to more than 150.0 million tonnes of lithium carbonate of which nearly 14.0 million tonnes lithium (about 74.0 million tonnes of carbonate) are at active or proposed operations.

This can be compared with current demand for lithium chemicals which approximates to 84,000 tonnes as lithium carbonate equivalents (16,000 tonnes Li).

Concerns regarding lithium availability for hybrid or electric vehicle batteries or other foreseeable applications are unfounded. </blockquote>

Makes a great story and creates an excuse to raise the price of lithium but as for reality I think Martin LaMonica should check the facts. As should the rest of you before you accept any information as real.

Yani

[truera]

TRU Group Inc announces results of its updated long range Lithium supply-demand forecast - Lithium industry not immune from effects of global recession

TRU Group Inc, Toronto ON, Tucson USA, Friday, January 23, 2009 - Lithium consultants TRU Group Inc says that its updated lithium outlook for presentation Tuesday at the IM Lithium Supply & Markets Conference Santiago 2009 will conclude that the industry is not immune from the global recession and will be pushed into oversupply this year through 2013. Global use of lithium will decline sharply by at least 6% in 2009 and demand is unlikely to bounce back any time soon as consumers put off buying laptops or cell phones containing lithium batteries. This is bad news for an industry accustomed to strong sustained growth over many years.

TRU president Edward Anderson commented that ?an outlook presentation of this type is very unusual for us because all of our work is client confidential. However, Mitsubishi Corporation who commissioned the original analysis has authorized TRU to release some of the material?. The techno-economic analysis and supply-demand forecast is a major in-depth assignment conducted by the TRU Lithium Team made up of the world?s top technical experts on lithium production and extraction on the supply side, as well as our highly specialized industry analysts on the demand side. Impacts of recent advances in lithium extraction technology (for example, in selective ion adsorption, electrodialysis, and nanofiltration) are considered.

It is likely now that some expansions and new projects will be delayed or cancelled until market conditions improve. The long range however remains bright because new and large uses for lithium will start having a major impact on demand within the five year horizon: Lithium use in electric vehicle batteries and lithium alloys for aircraft. TRU forecasts that demand will be strong and sustained in these two segments over the long term 2020. The industry does need at least one of the announced pipeline production projects to come into production and also could do with another new project as the market tightens around 2015-2017. New lithium producers still will need to be cost competitive with existing salt lake brine based producers in South America and China. Emerging technology may make some of the undeveloped medium sized (brine) lithium resources quite attractive. Certainly the industry through expansion and development of new resources will have no problem meeting demand.

TRU Group Inc based in Toronto, Canada and Tucson, USA are industrial management and engineering consultants with a strong capability in lithium project development. The firm is a world leader in resource evaluation, salar exploitation, brine & mineral lithium extraction and processing technologies - those in use, prospective, and leading edge. TRU has evaluated and modeled most of the known existing lithium properties and advised a number of players on a wide variety of lithium resource, engineering, process, business and investment issues. The TRU website is trugroup.com and the presentation will be posted on the site after the conference on January 27, 2009 at the link trugroup.com/Lithium-Market-Conference.html

Contact:
Edward R. Anderson
President& CEO
TRU Group Inc
Website http://trugroup.com/
email [e-mail]
Tucson 520-575-0674
Toronto 416-935-1754
Cell 1-520-229-78336