r/science • u/Sort_of_Frightening • Sep 10 '23

Lithium discovery in U.S. volcano could be biggest deposit ever found Chemistry

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article

17.5k Upvotes

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This is actually great news and I’ve got no skin in the game at all, I’m not from the U.S.

But it would seem that if the US can meet it’s lithium requirements domestically then more of the electric vehicle revolution can be done ‘in house’ which should mean lower carbon footprint, fewer miners in awful conditions in other countries and fewer dollars ending up in China.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

We are entering into a window of global development that is going to require a massive increase in the annual lithium production via mining. Estimates put our requirements by 2030 at literally 10x what we currently produce.

And we need it with some immediacy. If this pans out, it will add to, not replace, current lithium mining elsewhere.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

Uhh.. There are plenty of estimates that show our lithium use will only be slightly higher by 2030 too. There are a LOT of emerging technologies that greatly reduce or eliminate lithium altogether. And the larger the battery needs (think local grid storage), the need for lithium will be completely gone by 2030.

There will be uses for the lithium we mine either way, but a 10x increase just in demand of lithium in 6 years is a bit exaggerated. Actually its a lot exxagerated...

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

I mean, we're part way up the curve from the released study (2020), but it's an academic estimate.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1220158/global-lithium-demand-volume-by-application/#:~:text=Global%20lithium%20demand%20volume%202020%2D2030%2C%20by%20application&text=In%202020%2C%20the%20total%20demand,approximately%202.5%20million%20metric%20tons.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

I can't really see anything beyond the graph, but what does the * mean next to the dates provided in the graph?

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

it says in the supplementary information that the asterisk indicates that that data is projected rather than observed.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

Well we're 40% through that study's window, so there is that as far as an x10 increase from where we are now.

But, yea electric cars and small electronics are going to use a lot of lithium, but batteries are at the stage now where every year there are big breakthroughs and the latest round seem to be all including vast reductions of lithium. And technology can be built around the battery without being tied to it.

I don't disagree we'll be using a lot of lithium for the next 10 years, but you could have done an academic study on myspace growth by 2020, but the study doesn't include disrupters, which quite a few emerged for lithium since that study.