Li-ion Batteries and How Cheap Beat Cool in the Chevy Volt 87 comments
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Since November of last year, I’ve argued that cheap will beat cool when it comes to the commercialization of battery chemistries. As details on the design and construction of the Chevy Volt battery pack emerge and are publicized on sites like Green Car Congress and Popular Science, it’s clear that cheap Li-ion chemistry has already beaten cool Li-ion chemistry and many of the concerns I’ve expressed about using Li-ion batteries in cars have been considered and resolved by thoughtful automotive design engineers. It bodes well for the introduction of PHEVs as long as the tax incentives remain in place, but the long-term impact on developers of high-cost Li-phosphate and Li-titanate chemistries may be devastating.
Battery Cost The Chevy Volt will use Li-polymer batteries manufactured by Korea’s LG Chem. While Li-polymer batteries have had a spotty safety record in cell phones and laptops and do not begin to approach the extreme cycle-life of Li-phosphate and Li-titanate chemistries, they are far and away the cheapest variety of Li-ion batteries with prices in the $600 to $700 per kWh range as opposed to the $1,300 to $2,000 per kWh range.
Passenger Safety To resolve the basic safety issues associated with Li-ion batteries, GM has designed a T-shaped battery pack that sits in front of the rear axle and runs forward through the space that used to be taken up by the driveshaft. At first glance, the battery pack looks like it comes out of a battle tank instead of a passenger car.
The topside of the battery pack looks far stronger than the bottom side of the battery pack and it’s clear that the basic geometry has been designed to deflect the potentially explosive force of a battery failure down and away from the passenger compartment. The absence of any visible deformation in the 35 mph crash test photos of the battery pack confirm that GM thinks armor plate is more cost-effective than exotic chemistry. Overall, GM’s battery pack design is a cheap but effective way to avoid potential personal injury risks.
Cycle Life Performance Li-polymer batteries are not renowned for the extreme cycle-life of their more glamorous and expensive cousins like Li-phosphate and Li-titanate. To optimize the cycle life of the batteries in the Volt, GM has chosen to install a 16 kWh battery pack in the Volt but only use 55% of the theoretical capacity to power the car. By limiting the maximum state of charge to 85% and switching to internal combustion when the state of charge falls to 30%, GM believes it can get a 10-year life out of batteries that would die much more quickly with a wider cycling range. Once again, GM has chosen a cheap but cost-effective way to balance battery capacity and cycle life.
Weight and Energy Density The final weight of the Volt battery pack is about 175 Kg. This works out to an energy density of roughly 50 Wh/Kg for useful battery capacity, about the same value as a high quality lead-acid battery.
Recycling While the Chevy Volt battery pack will be built to European recycling standards, those standards only relate to safe disposal of potentially toxic materials and do not get into issues like recovering materials of sufficient purity that they can be used to make new batteries. This is good from a pure disposal perspective, but suboptimal if one’s environmental sensitivities extend beyond landfills to include the environmental damage caused by mining and other resource extraction activities.
In the Chevy Volt, cheap has already beaten cool like I predicted it would. Since GM has established battery cost reduction as a primary goal for future generations of PHEVs, I would not be at all surprised to see GM and other auto makers paying particular attention to advanced lead-acid and lead-carbon chemistries over the next few years because the widely heralded energy density and size advantages of Li-ion chemistry evaporate when the technology is reduced to safe commercial practice.
For investors, I think the lesson of the Chevy Volt is that premium priced energy storage stocks like Ener1 (HEV) and Valence Technology (VLNC) are likely to see lower market valuations while bargain basement energy storage stocks like Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) Exide Technologies (XIDE), Enersys (ENS) and C&D Technologies (CHP) are likely to see higher market valuations.
Disclosure: Author holds a large long position in Axion Power International (AXPW.OB) and small long positions in Active Power (ACPW), Exide (XIDE), Enersys (ENS) and ZBB Energy (ZBB).
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This article has 87 comments:
I would hazard to guess that widespread adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles will only occur with rising oil prices. Consumers will be making a value choice as opposed to an environmentally conscious one. Cost per mile driven may become a selling point much as horsepower was just recently.
But it doesn't apply to Old Tech made new.
Cheap beats cool in the "li-ion" adaptations for batteries. Lead-acid/lead-carbon are not even considered. Green Car Congress/Popular Science, the Hype is on Li-ion varieties.
A few years down the Road, as you say, GM and others will realize the cost advantages of Lead based batteries in Future PHEV models.
The Volt comes on in 2010, future models translate into 2011-2012. Lead variations may have to wait until 2013.
In my opinion the "Cool" aspect relates to the Usage of Li-ion itself, not the mundane "lead" varieties no matter how cheap.
But that's the same opinion that I've had all along, Lead is not Cool.
"...a spotty safety record..." Oops!
"...the basic geometry has been designed to deflect the potentially explosive force of a battery failure down and away from the passenger compartment." That makes me feel so much better!
"...not renowned for the extreme cycle-life..." So can I pick up a new one at WalMart when the old battery dies?
"...suboptimal if one’s environmental sensitivities extend beyond landfills to include the environmental damage caused by mining and other resource extraction activities." Oh, good! So instead of polluting the atmosphere with CO2, we'll be planting our toxic waste for future generations to dig up.
....maybe I'll stick with the old gas-powered piston engine for a while longer.
"...a spotty safety record..." Oops!
"...the basic geometry has been designed to deflect the potentially explosive force of a battery failure down and away from the passenger compartment." That makes me feel so much better!
"...not renowned for the extreme cycle-life..." So can I pick up a new one at WalMart when the old battery dies?
"...suboptimal if one’s environmental sensitivities extend beyond landfills to include the environmental damage caused by mining and other resource extraction activities." Oh, good! So instead of polluting the atmosphere with CO2, we'll be planting our toxic waste for future generations to dig up.
....maybe I'll stick with the old gas-powered piston engine for a while longer.
paultaut, I agree that lead will never be cool, but it will have an important place in the market when real people go shopping for solutions.
lilguy, the first steps are always the tenuous ones and things will improve as the technology ages.
BTW, just wait until Bolivia gets the idea that lithium will become a uniquely required element with a significant shortage in place. Additionally, just trust the American car makers who state repeatedly with a straight face, “We swear buyers, it will be different this time!”
The PHEV is an intermediate step. Its been around since the Beginning of the Millenium.
Why not go straight to the target instead of circling the wagons. All Electrics, Hydrogen. Get away from Oil alltogether. IMO
On Mar 23 07:42 AM sleepless_on_wall_street wrote:
> I think there will be a much more forward looking customer for hybrid
> technology than there has been in the past. There is greater awareness
> that oil and gasoline can skyrocket in price again with little lead
> time. All it takes is an economic recovery to set the stage and that
> will come, be it one year or five.
Do you remember the Pinto?
"To optimize the cycle life of the batteries in the Volt, GM has chosen to install a 16 kWh battery pack in the Volt but only use 55% of the theoretical capacity to power the car. By limiting the maximum state of charge to 85% and switching to internal combustion when the state of charge falls to 30%, GM believes it can get a 10-year life out of batteries that would die much more quickly with a wider cycling range"
How does Li-phosphate compare in price is you reduce the size? It sounds like you have to use an explosive device at lower capacity to avoid using a better device that lasts longer and is safe. It looks like if Li-phosphate batteries can reduce price by a third, they would be a reasonable choice for a lighter Volt that doesn't explode "away from the passenger" but maybe killing the people in the car it hits or a pedestrian standing next to the collision hit by metal fragments..... in a collision. I think I'll pass on the exploding cars....
I don't defend GM often, but they were the first car company to build a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle in 1966.
On Mar 23 10:39 AM conceptwizard wrote:
> I really can't agree with the overall technology on these cars. Once
> again GM is behind the curve. Very soon if people have not figured
> out already that when these cars are being plugged they USE ELECTRICITY!
> these USA currently uses 49% of power from COAL, which emits 10 times
> what a car does. Its fruitless, like fuel from corn, now commoidities
> are up and people are starving..GEESHH. Honda is on the right track
> with their new Hydrogen fuel cell fleet in California. Why is GM
> just following the trend instead of being the trend. The company
> is a dinosaur and will go the way of the dinosaur, if thats the best
> that we can come uyp with.
On Mar 23 09:37 AM John Petersen wrote:
> sleepless, ultimately I think you're right, but even the DOE doesn't
> see cars with plugs being mainstream before 2030 when they're forecasting
> a penetration of <10% for plug-ins and >50% for mild and straight
> hybrids.
>
> paultaut, I agree that lead will never be cool, but it will have
> an important place in the market when real people go shopping for
> solutions.
>
> lilguy, the first steps are always the tenuous ones and things will
> improve as the technology ages.
On Mar 23 10:39 AM conceptwizard wrote:
> I really can't agree with the overall technology on these cars. Once
> again GM is behind the curve. Very soon if people have not figured
> out already that when these cars are being plugged they USE ELECTRICITY!
> these USA currently uses 49% of power from COAL, which emits 10 times
> what a car does. Its fruitless, like fuel from corn, now commoidities
> are up and people are starving..GEESHH. Honda is on the right track
> with their new Hydrogen fuel cell fleet in California. Why is GM
> just following the trend instead of being the trend. The company
> is a dinosaur and will go the way of the dinosaur, if thats the best
> that we can come uyp with.
On Mar 23 12:01 PM John Petersen wrote:
> raw materials that can be economically produced north of the Mexican border
Commenters keep telling me that the DOE and NEDO are wrong when they peg Li-phosphate prices in the $1,300 per kWh range. The only way I've been able to confirm manufacturers cost is an analysis of A123's SEC registration statement from last November. I know that there are a number of Chinese companies that offer cheap Li-phosphate products on the internet but I have no way to compare those products with the product offerings from A123 and Valence. It really is a shame that battery manufacturers avoid a common metric like the plague, but we seem to be living in a world where everybody is so concerned with secrecy there is no way to independently sift through the frequently conflicting data.
As I understand the numbers, Li-phosphate cells have an energy density in the 70 to 80 wH/Kg range. So by the time you build them into a battery pack, what you lose in housing weight you gain in battery weight.
By DONALD PETERSON AND WILLIAM STRATTON
Los Alamos Education Group
Until recently, large numbers failed to resonate, but the economic bailout has forced people to think about very large numbers. A trillion is a million million and once people get comfortable with the idea, both dollars and watts can be discussed. This discussion is about watts.
Instead of speculating on the potential energy yields of the green technologies, it estimates the amount of renewable energy available, and how efficiently it can be gathered.
The sun is the source of all renewable energy - hydro, biomass, wind and solar, that Al Gore has proposed as the future global replacement for fossil and nuclear energy. Below are some numbers you can clip and stick on the refrigerator for future reference when you want to check the dimensions of someone's energy calculations. A huge amount of solar energy strikes the upper atmosphere; 170,000 trillion watts is 1366 watts/m2 (watts per square meter), but because of clouds, dust, latitude and seasons, the average for power hitting any point on the surface is limited to just over 150 watts/m2 far different from the 1 kW/m2 at noon on the equator, usually cited.
The land area of the earth is 150 trillion m2. Hence, the most readily harvestable energy amounts to 22,500 trillion watts. Current global energy demand is 15 trillion watts. The world population is 7 billion so each person has about 20,000 m2 of land (2 hectares), and an allocation of roughly 2,000 watts.
By 2050, forty years from now, there will be 9.4 billion people. If Gore is right, the transition to green energy will be close to complete, the standard of living will approach that of the United States, and the world will be saved from global warming. The five- to sixfold increase in energy allocation to 10,000 to 12,000 watts per person translates to global energy in excess of 90 trillion watts - more people with much higher demand. If poverty persists, the demand will be 20 trillion to 30 trillion watts.
Of the green energy available globally, 0.1 percent is a very generous estimate of the fraction that can be harvested by all methods - wind turbines, PV cells, solar thermal, hydroelectric dams -additional tide and offshore wind collection is proposed. Details of the mix are not clear but the intrusion of the collection systems will be enormous. Because of the wide distribution of green plants, photo. synthesis captures the most energy by far.
This estimate is that 22.5 trillion watts can be harvested - a little more than current, but a factor of four short of the optimized 2050 demand with absolutely no room for population growth. Collection efficiency can double or triple, and location can be optimized, but the source is finite - that's all there is
Low energy density is the culprit and nothing can be done about it. This scenario illustrates the importance of careful evaluation of far future energy demand before decisions are made to embark on expensive and ultimately inadequate projects.
The conclusion: either population must be culled - unacceptable -or we must find a more capable, long term solution to the energy shortfall.
OP-ED Albuquerque Journal Monday March 23, 2009"
home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...
Reliable and safe.
What is wrong with this picture?????
tallguy, my dream configuration would be an ultra-efficient diesel HEV with excellent recuperative braking. I believe plugs are ultimately expensive parlor tricks, but there is still a lot of room for improvement in the HEV world.
If consumers get it that they have to shield lithium batteries to protect against explosion, it is a definite negative for selling the vehicles- especially to soccer moms..
Remember Pinto gas tanks in rear end collisions.
Oh, they'll get to using lead-carbon batteries alright. Right after the first few explosions are dramatized on 60 Minutes and a Corvair-like book (eg. Nader's Unsafe at Any Speed) comes out.
Just remember who's pushing this nonsense down our throats when it all craters. The same folks running the post office, Social Security and Medicare and regulating Wall Street.
Indeed, it's the VERY definition of insanity.
Paul, don't sugar coat it - tell us what you really think!
I think your insights would be far more valuable if you wrote your own articles instead of sniping at mine.
I thought I was sugar coating it.
When I look outside, however, I can't help but see the disastrous results of the fed's previous forays into our economy.
It's getting more and more like the Twilight Zone out here.
When tech met banking it worked out not so well.
And when tech meets government there's no telling what the outcome will be, but it most likely will not be pretty.
Mobile recharge companies to the rescue.
EV's are built with small secondary gasoline engines in case you run out of electric power. But don't worry, we'll need plenty of tow trucks for the vehicles themselves.
John, thanks again for your thought (and comment) provoking articles on battery technology. Another interesting idea: Electricity storage storage stations for top-ups of electric vehicles. This would eliminate the strain caused by top-ups during peak usage periods - another push for energy storage development.
"Very soon if people have not figured out already that when these cars are being plugged they USE ELECTRICITY! these USA currently uses 49% of power from COAL, which emits 10 times what a car does."
By the time EVs or PHEVs have substantial market penetration, the grid will be much cleaner.
And as you say, coal is now about half our energy supply, not all of it. So the overall grid is cleaner than burning gasoline in cars.
The ramp up to new vehicles should proceed apace with the ramp up to clean energy.
Hydrogen sounds good to me too, but supply of hydrogen that is cost effective and environmentally sound is the issue. That problem may be solved someday.
billp37
The article, you quote from, misses one important, and maybe the biggest factor, in the energy equation. --- improved efficiency.
An enormous amount of energy is wasted in our current (no pun intended) electrical generating and transmission system.
If the U.S. adopted California's energy policies, energy consumption could be cut by 40% nationwide. And we can probably do better than that. For instance California's example doesn't include much of the following.
Turning power plants into combined heat and power, capturing the wasted heat from smoke stacks for instance, can vastly improve efficiency. More mass transit, more long haul rail freight instead of the far less efficient trucks, high speed rail to reduce driving and airline trips, co-generation, more efficient lighting like LEDs, etc, are all things that can save energy. Parasail assist (look up Skysail) for freight ships, that can save 10-30% of fuel, and they're cheap. Eating more locally grown foods saves money and energy that are used to ship food around the world. Better urban planning to reduce urban sprawl can also help.
More efficient buildings is a cost effective solution. Overall, Efficiency is the biggest bang for the buck.
Conservation is another avenue for cutting consumption. Just plain smarter living.
It's time to wake up to the fact that throw away consumerism is destructive of resources, energy supplies and our pocket books. And it is entirely unsustainable.
By the way, some European countries have standards of living comparable to in the U.S., while using far less energy per capita.
And they produce far less waste per capita.
I repeat what many others have said. Using 1% of the Sahara Desert for solar thermal power, could power the entire world. Using 1% of the U.S southwest desert land could power the entire United States, or at least the lower 48.
These are facts, that are supported by numerous studies.
I think your calculations are missing something.
But then, you never miss a chance to downplay renewable energy. What is your motive?
Is this a clue?
Whenever someone mentions Al Gore in the same conversation with energy or climate change, you can usually be sure their opinions are mostly politically motivated.
You can have your energy density of fossil fuels. I'll opt for a planet to live on for the next 50 generations.
There is a good reason for the energy density of fossil fuels and unfortunately it is also the cause of our undoing. When you burn biomass, you are putting CO2 that was absorbed by plants recently, like in the past year or so, back into the atmosphere. The net difference in the short term carbon cycle is zero. When you burn coal, you are releasing carbon that accumulated for 60 million years, and was locked in the long term carbon cycle and thus out of the short term carbon cycle, back into the short term carbon cycle. Common sense is all it takes to see the problem with this.
I do agree that we need to reduce population growth however. Some countries have shown that it is do-able.
On Mar 23 12:26 PM John Petersen wrote:
> User 360916, raw materials like lithium that represent less than
> 5% of a typical ore body are mined, milled refined and then chemically
> converted into useful compounds. Extraction is indeed the first step,
> but the refining and processing are typically referred to as production
> in all extractive industries; or at least they were when I worked
> in mining and oil and gas.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.
Doing otherwise will eliminate Jobs galore in the Current Auto Industry Infrastructure.
All Electrics will eliminate almost everything under the Hood. From the Builders to Suppliers to Service stations to dealers, etc.
Bankruptcy would be a better solution than going to an All Electric. Europe is better suited and the UK is already building charging posts.
PHEV's are not oil independent.
Lithium weighs 3
Sodium weighs 11
Nickel weighs 28
Zinc weighs 30
Lead weighs 82
With any of these technologies in a vehicle, weight matters. People want to use lithium because it's very light. Lead is always going to be vastly heavier than Lithium. Unfortunately Lithium is not terribly abundant, (Li,Be, B tend not to be produced) though sodium is. I think we'll end up with something like a sodium ion battery technology because it'll be dirt cheap in comparison to Li but still a fraction of the weight of an equivalent lead technology.
Anything which stores enough energy to push a car is likely to be dangerous.
What I am wondering about is the latest or next-gen capacitors, that would seem to potentially play a huge role in energy storage. Have you studied this part of "your" sector? If so, it would be great if you could impart some of your knowledge on to your loyal readers. It would seem that capacitors really are not talked about much, and deserve to be.
Mayascribe, there is a lot of work going on in the ultracapacitor area but the only pure play public company in the space is Maxwell. Since comparing ultracapacitors to batteries can be really tough because they do different things, I've not spent a lot of time studying the pipeline. I agree that the transcript is interesting, but will refrain from further comment.
Or is that a different director who somehow managed to sell 40,000 shares of AXPW at $3.00 just a bit ago.
And still holds more than 400K of stock.
www.greencarcongress.c...
Then there's the "setbacks," the losses endured that categorically demonstrate John's belief in not only his vested interest, but also his interest in the entire sector.
Problem is that the Energy Storage Sector is much, much more than just batteries, which only comprise a mere handful of "pure play" companies.
In my opinion, it's beyond time for John to investigate more deeply the whole sector, and not just a narrow slice of the Energy Storage Sector pie. I'm sure John might argue that the battery slice of the pie is changing/evolving so quickly that just to keep up is a huge task. Given his investment, I wouldn't give him much of an argument.
John has always maintained that he no longer has a position with the company. The connection is not listed in his profile and he has been asked often in the past about specifics on it but has denied knowledge because he is no longer with the Company.
Simply, I would like to know if I have been tossed a curve. I have been following AXPW since it was $2. John has been adamant about its prospects throughout.
I did not like the chart so I did not buy the stock, Had I bought it, I would be down 50%.
If he has a vested interest in promoting AXPW outside of mere ownership, I would like to know about it.
It would not change My view of the company, but it may change the views of others.
www.sec.gov/Archives/e...
That odd looking report of a $3 sale in February originated from a typographical error on a Form 4 that I filed to report a 40,000 share sale that I made at a price of $3 in February 2006. The Form 4 that has the typo on the second transaction line can be found at:
www.sec.gov/Archives/e...
My holdings are a good deal larger than they were in 2006.
I enjoy a lot Speculawyer arguments, in any good discusion of themes this things are healthy otherwise it becomes a prophet and a bunch of followers...without ideas in the middle.
Anyway i appreciate A LOT your effort in producing this material because it means a good effort and risks when the data are made public, even if there are errors your work in this is quite useful for investors.
The GM approach is the same applied (and american industry in general follows) in american industry, keep it simple and cheap even when is not the best solution.
The jumbo 747 still has hydraulic controls when Airbus is using electric ones since 1983, fuel injectors were common in Europe in the 70s, american cars late 90s, diesel engines etc...in this case being prudent is the best bet but what is clear is that Volt is not going to save GM.
Regards
I appreciate speculawyer's comments too, until it gets personal. GM went with cheap Li-polymer batteries from LG-Chem because A123 was unable to supply Li-phosphate at a competitive price. Acknowledging that one battery is dirt cheap while a second is absurdly expensive is not an endorsement of the second or an agreement that the second will ever be as cheap as the first. It is also not an agreement that production costs in the U.S. will ever compare favorably with production costs in China.
But I did have to find out. That's the way I am.
I've heard glowing remarks about the Ford Fusion. Any insight on this model?
If lithium were to increase in price by an order of magnitude it might become economic to go after resources where the concentration of lithium is in the tens or hundreds of parts per million, rather than the thousands of parts per million that are currently extracted. Add another order of magnitude of price increase and 1 to 10 ppm might become economic. Even with this idea in mind, recovery of these low concentration reserves is often a very small percentage of the resource. The simple fact is, it is very unlikely the supplies of lithium will ever allow lithium batteries to dominate the EV market.
The other risk of that these battery manufacturers will experience is that an OPEC equivalent in lithium may eventually be formed. South American countries that produce most of the world's lithium supply could easily demand that lithium batteries be manufactured in their countries as a condition of obtaining the supply. As an investor, I have no interest in the battery manufacturers, as they will be at the full mercy of the mining companies that control the supply.
All this technology is great, but if you can't grow it you have to mine it. And if you can't mine it, you can't build it.
Having read your post again, I realize I over-reacted in my first comment. I now realize you were remarking not so much on what renewable energy can do, as on how the demand for energy will increase.
The issue, I believe, has to do with the expectation that the whole world will live like Americans do now. This is where the false expectation lies. It is impossible.
We may well find endless sources of energy like nuclear fusion that solve the energy problem, but that won't solve the problem of other resources being depleted.
Fresh water supplies are a huge issue, for one.
As I said before, we are extremely wasteful. We are also too materialistic, IMHO. We have gotten too addicted to consumerism on steroids. We can have a good standard of living without the mania or more and more and bigger and bigger. We don't all have to own three of every product ever conceived of.
There have been several books recently on the topic of limits to growth. The idea is not new. Barry Commoner, who once ran for President, wrote a book 3 decades ago, called "The End of Affluence" that made the same points, that resources are finite and there are limits. Some forward thinkers even recognized this a few hundred years ago. I think this is something we need to think long and hard about. It's instructive to look at the history of America, and how the idea that material wealth can be endlessly expanded has been instilled in the American mind set. It's a complicated topic, that includes a religous belief in a new Eden, to be established on what was seen as basically an empty virgin continent (native Americans would not agree) where there was no limit to growth and progress. We were the chosen people, with a mandate from God for Manifest Destiny. This idea was so powerful that we didn't even stop at the shores of the Pacific, but went on to expand the empire into Asia (the Phillipines for example), the Carribean
and into Mexico, where we only held back from taking the whole country because it would overextend the military reach at the time. Even Canada was seen by some as a rightful God given extension of our expansion.
It's time to question that mind set. We have also exported the idea of endless material growth to the rest of the world.
A couple of books that I've read recently touch on this topic of the American mythos of endless growth.
"The Great Delusion" by Steven Stoll
"What is America?: A Short History of the New World Order" by Ronald Wright
We can reduce our population growth. Thailand did it with education and distribution of contraceptives. The Pope isn't helping with this issue. We may have to rethink the practice of rewarding Americans for having large families through tax breaks etc. Maybe we should be rewarding those who have less children instead. ( Not that America is the center of the population problem, it's more the developing world.)
Draconian measures like China has taken are not the only means of achieving slower population growth.
What I find surprising is your post makes it sound like you were actually surprised to hear it.
Welcome to the soon to be Big Two of Detroit. And hopefully shortly thereafter, the Big One. Most likely a Ford lead conglomerate.
On Mar 27 02:17 PM musik199 wrote:
> I am a battery scientist with PhD degree in electrochemistry. I am
> very familiar with LiFePO4 and other chemistry (I have publised >10
> papers). Last year, during an ECS meeting in Phoenix (May 20th, around
> 1:50PM) , I asked Dr. Abbas Nazri, (which is from GM) " 50% SOC swing
> is very demanding and how could GM ensure the battery last 10y/100K
> miles?" He replied this to me: "People will have to get used to the
> idea of buying a second battery for the Chevy Volt". Later I questioned
> this on gm-volt.com, both GM and Dr. Nazri denied this, obviously
> for fear of bad PR in anticipation of huge bail-out money. I have
> a feeling that they use the Volt program to beg money from Obama,
> (whose team has no clue of battery technology) and Volt is likely
> to fail because of high cost and battery longevity problem.
I sent you a link the other day to a presentation given by Bob Kanode from Valence Technologies. I don't know if you actually listened to the presentation or not, but they are now shipping lithium iron magnesium phosphate for $1,000 per Kw. Mr. Kanode also states in the presentation that the costs will drop by 50 to 60% over the next 2 to 3 years. Lithium Polymer does not last very long (only 500 to 750 cycles) when it is 100% deep cycled. Lithium iron magnesium phosphate has been deep cycled 2,800 times and still maintains 80% of its original capacity. We use Valence’s batteries in our product and are very happy with it. See cybersport.us to see our product.
If any one wants to know what has already been accomplished in this segment, it will be worth the 20 minutes. Sorry John lead acid can’t do the things you wish it could do. I would love it if lead acid or any other kind of battery or storage device could at a price, weight and reliability that work in the applications needed, but I can’t find a battery I can test (at least not yet). We are going to try the Firefly battery if we can get a couple this summer for a different application. If the Valence battery does come down by even 30 or 40% over the next 2 to 3 years it won’t matter, because the Valence battery will make more sense form an overall cost standpoint. Since you are an accountant, you can’t just look at the cost to buy, it is the cost to own that must be calculated as well.
Here is the link
www.wsw.com/webcast/th.../
Prior to 1997, the major producer of lithium was the US, from two sources – a brine operation in Nevada and a mining operation in North Carolina. The NC mine shut down in 1997 because it could not compete with the growing brine operations in Chili. This blog claims that North Carolina has reserves of 2.6 million tons of lithium, ½ the reserves of Bolivia.
www.nicholas.duke.edu/...
From the USGS 1994 yearbook:
“The United States has been the largest producer and consumer of lithium and the two U.S. companies have been the leading lithium carbonate producers in the world for many years.” …
“Lithium carbonate, … Truckload lots, delivered $2.00 (per/ lb)”
minerals.usgs.gov/mine...
What if the 50 to 60% reduction in cost is achievable? If it is, then a part of the world is about to change in a dramatic way. Maybe not overnight but the change would be faster than we thought.
Worst case scenario, it is time to change your cost calculations to $1,000 for Lithium iron magnesium phosphate. That is a big improvement based on your own figures. This also means that your idea that significant cost reductions are not possible is invalid. More importantly, I guess we should expect more and not less cost reductions in the future.
You use various studies to base your analysis on the “overall” battery industry, but these studies are based on old information. Worse yet, most studies only take a small sample of what is going on in an industry and try to depict the world based on the limited information they gathered. The information you base your analysis on is at best a limited snap shot of what was, and even less valuable for what is.
Using studies of an industry to figure out what’s happening in real time is like trying to use studies from the consumer electronics industry to figure out what Apple is going introduce for their next consumer product and/or predicting how successful it will be.
At best you are giving your opinion on what you think will happen and using antidotal information that is dated and/or doesn’t really apply because the studies are based on information at a fixed point in time.
On Mar 28 11:36 AM John Petersen wrote:
> jkessler, I've never suggested that a lead-carbon or lead-acid battery
> was suitable for your electric go-cart entertainment application.
> In fact there are a lot of applications that I don't think any battery
> is suitable for. With all due respect to statements made in an investment
> forum, a 50 to 60 percent reduction in the cost of a materials based
> product is very difficult for me to swallow. That's the kind of thing
> that requires a "Raw Materials Fairy" with a supercharged magic wand.
> I'll believe it when I see it.
jkessler, if the 50% to 60% cost reductions are achievable, and that is one monster "if," then Li-ion will only be twice as costly as advanced lead acid. I'm sorry if you believe there are better, more current and more reliable data sources than the DOE. I have not found any. The anecdotal information comes from people like you who have had good performance in a specific application and want to imply that the same results will be obtained by all users in all applications.
“We are seeing some indications that battery costs for high-volume orders may be below $1000/kWh already. With the large number of production PHEVs now planned, and the current focus on developing cell-manufacturing capacity, I expect that we will see these price levels ($500/kWh) by the time the second generation of PHEVs arrives, in 2015 or so.”
He also provides a couple of counterpoints to CMU’s study that concluded that a 7-mile all-electric range with frequent recharging is the sweet spot for PHEVs.
“We disagree on the relative costs and attributes of a “mild” (low-electric range) PHEV against a vehicle like the Chevrolet Volt. EPRI has a detailed analysis on PHEVs with 10 miles (PHEV-10) and 20 miles (PHEV-20) of electric range; for most drivers, the PHEV-20 wins on cost at gasoline prices of $3 a gallon and higher. This is because the PHEV-10 has all the costs of the PHEV-20—a hybrid drive system, electric accessories, regenerative braking system, et cetera—but its battery is slightly more expensive and heavier per kilowatt-hour because it still has to produce the same power level” (- to provide the same acceleration and to store energy at the same power level to provide the same ability to re-capture kinetic energy during regenerative braking.)
“… Frequent charging of a smaller battery will wear it out very quickly. Market research shows that vehicle owners expect the battery to last the life of the car. This makes sense, considering that we’re now used to 100 000 to 150 000 relatively trouble-free miles from a new car. The more frequently you charge and discharge a battery, the shorter the time until you have to replace it.
For example, let’s say I have a battery that lasts for 4000 deep cycles—a challenging goal, but one that our research and testing in this area leads us to believe today’s battery technology can reach. If I buy a 7-mile PHEV and drive it exactly 7 miles between charge cycles, I will need to replace the battery in just 28 000 miles. No one will be very happy with that. In fact, we have market studies that show consumers would be unhappy.”
www.spectrum.ieee.org/...
Based on the USGS 1994 Yearbook, “Production of lithium carbonate from brine in Nevada (and the Andes, I assume) is much less energy intensive (and simpler) than the production from the spodumene” (the ore type found in North Carolina).
minerals.usgs.gov/mine...
As for what mining production costs are, I have only a press release from Western Lithium Corporation on drilling results for one of the five deposits (lenses) at its King’s Valley hectorite clay property in Nevada. (Yeah, it’s not even spodumene but it is an ore.)
“The PCD lens contains Indicated Resources of 48.1 million tonnes grading 0.27% lithium, or the lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) of 688,000 tonnes LCE and Inferred Resources of 42.3 million tonnes grading 0.27% lithium, for an equivalent of 606,000 tonnes LCE, both at a cut-off grade of 0.20% Lithium.”
“Economic assumptions for base-case cutoff grade (high-lighted), $3.50 Lithium Carbonate USD/lb, 60% metallurgical recovery; $45 USD/ton processing, $2 USD/ton Mining; Rounding errors may exist”
finance.yahoo.com/news...
Below a price of $4.50 per lb. or $10/kg (LCE), this ore body seems somewhat marginal when one considers capital needs, the ongoing drilling costs and risks – market pricing, energy cost escalation, … However, they may be able to tap into battery stimulus money to improve the project economics. The development of this significant lithium ore body would help to prevent the pricing of LCE from going absolutely silly.
John, I agree that it would be good to hear from some mining engineers.
John - If you know of an advanced lead acid battery that I can buy tomorrow for $250 per Kw and can be deep cycled by 100% for 1,400 cycles with a remaining usable capacity of 80%, then please give me a phone number so I can call them to order their batteries to test for our application.
If you can’t give me the phone number, why would you mention advanced lead acid batteries as a comparison to lithium phosphate?
Basing your assumptions on historical data collected by the DOE, does not mean you can project that data into the future with any real accuracy. That is just as bad as a business owner thinking he can accurately project sales and cost for the business over the next 12 months by utilizing the prior year’s data. What happened in the prior year is of little importance when compared to what is happening in real time in the market place.
On Mar 28 05:37 PM John Petersen wrote:
> Northern, I'm not qualified to speak to what mining costs are or
> may be in various parts of the world. I'm also really not well-equipped
> to judge whether lithium supplies will be adequate for everybody's
> grandiose dreams. The only thing I know is I would want a lot more
> factual clarification before I built a national energy policy based
> on uncertain resource availability. That's why we have mining engineers.
> I would love to hear what they say.
>
> jkessler, if the 50% to 60% cost reductions are achievable, and that
> is one monster "if," then Li-ion will only be twice as costly as
> advanced lead acid. I'm sorry if you believe there are better, more
> current and more reliable data sources than the DOE. I have not found
> any. The anecdotal information comes from people like you who have
> had good performance in a specific application and want to imply
> that the same results will be obtained by all users in all applications.
The link below goes to a pdf for a Smith Electric Vehicle. The warranty on their battery pack says 5 years, but don’t know what or how much is really covered. Smith Electric has been around for awhile and is now working with Ford on a start up in the US. This vehicle is similar enough to what could be done for a family vehicle. The vehicle can operate at a maximum speed of 70 mph and has a range of over 100 miles per charge. It has a 24 kWh lithium phosphate battery pack and based on today’s cost that would be $24,000 for the batteries (obviously not inexpensive). If the price is reduced by 50% the cost would be $12,000.
I believe the batteries currently being utilized by Smith are from Valence Technologies. Valence’s battery test data shows that after 2,800 deep cycles at 100% DOD the batteries are still showing remaining useable capacity of 80%. If these tests are valid this vehicle should be able to operate for 7.67 years and travel over 250,000 miles at 90 miles traveled per day. The batteries would still be useable at the end of 7.67 years, but the maximum distance would be 80% or 80 miles and declining. Figure the cost savings on gas and maintenance and you have a competitive product that can compete against a significant portion of the vehicles available today. If you look at the simple math and you take $24,000 cost of the batteries and divide it by the total miles driven of 250,000 you get a cost for the batteries of 9.6 cents per mile and 4.8 cents per mile if the cost is reduced by 50%. The cost advantages will work out the best for delivery vehicles used by UPS and Fedex and many other van users.
I don’t think PHEVs are going to be the car of choice long-term. I would buy full sized car or SUV that could travel 50 to 100 miles on a single charge even if I had to pay a premium upfront (my personal preference would be to lease).
Market studies in which you ask a customer what they would like or dislike does not explain the vast majority of automotive purchases made today. If price was the only thing that mattered, Ford would still be building cars that came only in black.
www.smithelectricvehic...
For what it's worth, I expect gas prices to return to the $3 range by the end of this year and never look back. While I could give you a phone number for a lead-carbon device that costs about $500 kWh and can more than satisfy your cycling needs at 90% DOD, the line for evaluation devices is long. On the bright side, however, the lead-carbon is much easier and cheaper to scale up than Lithium.
Previous EPRI studies on xEV economics consistently cite battery costs, not cell costs. For example, here is 1994 EPRI study written when NiMH was the only viable battery technology for EVs and gas cost $1.65 – ah, the good old days.
www.spinnovation.com/s...
The costs ($/kWh) at the pack level are about twice the cost at the cell level. This is clearly shown in slide #15, “Battery Pack Supply Chain Cost Breakdown” from a 2008 presentation by the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI).
The slide shows projected cost build-up in the manufacture of battery packs – from raw materials to components to cell-level to module-level to battery pack. For 2010, RMI projects costs of $300 and $700 per kWh for PHEV-40, li-ion cells and packs, respectively; the projected 2020 costs are $150 and $350 per kWh. Please note that these are presumably US-based costs not prices.
www.its.berkeley.edu/s...
In summary, I believe that the EPRI prices ($/kWh) projected for the pack level are conservative and reasonable, and somewhat align with RMI’s cost figures. These projections are highly dependent on the assumed uptake of PHEVs and EVs, as shown by the learning curve in the RMI presentation (Slide #14). If there are 1,000,000 PHEVs on US highways (and another 2,000,000 in Europe and Asia) by 2015 and “Peak Lithium” is the sham that I believe it is, these 4/kWh projections are too high. Furthermore, if a large battery manufacturer, e.g., BYD, decides to leverage a material cost or labor advantage to buy market share, then all bets are off. Time will tell.
techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/.../
In my experience, parsing unclear and non-specific language from forecasts prepared by a variety of sources is a herculean task that is complicated by the fact that the only people who have incentives to make forecasts are people who are trying to promote an agenda or build a company, which means the forecasters are by nature optimists. When you put one optimist's forecast in the hands of another optimist, the only possible result is optimism squared, which is a very dangerous place for investors.
I've consistently maintained that facts are the only things that matter and there is an immense gulf between hope and reality. I agree that time will tell, but fear the current fervor is prelude to catastrophe.
After figuring out how to calculate kWh (I verified this by talking to two different electrical engineers) and knowing what we paid for our batteries, I can tell you that you are dead wrong about the costs of Lithium Phosphate batteries. We are buying complete battery packs with a BMS for around $1,000 per kWh now. The Valence battery packs are scalable for the same cost for an automotive application. The weight of our go-kart is 650 lbs including the weight of a 200 lb driver. The go-karts are built as light weight as possible, but a lot of bumping and banging is a given. So our go-kart is designed to be a lot more durable than a car. If you were to scale up our go-kart and compare it to a full sized car, our go-kart would be heavier not lighter.
By the way, I am still waiting for that phone number of an advanced lead acid battery company. Are these top secret companies who aren’t interested in selling to companies that would actually use their product?
I'd also like to thank you for providing the data points on your application. A 450 pound vehicle for a 200 pound driver is right in the middle of what I've always viewed as an economic sweet spot for Li-ion. It just beats the heck out of a 3,000 pound vehicle for a 200 pound driver.
Right now the advanced lead-acid and lead-carbon manufacturers like Firefly and Axion are using all of their production to facilitate field testing in their primary intended applications. Given a choice between selling a few devices for you to test in a go-cart and selling several hundred devices for testing in a trucking fleet or a utility substation, the major projects in billion dollar potential markets win hands down.
As far as the weight ratio, I think you missed my point. Our go-kart is heavier than the average car (which can seat 5) when you scale up the weight of our go-kart along with the number of batteries to move that same mass. I agree that a scooter would have a better weight ratio to move a person than a car, but that doesn’t mean these batteries won’t work in an automotive application. Yes, the batteries would make the car a premium purchase based on today’s cost, but look how many premium cars exist already. There is a big difference in price when you compare a Lexus to a Toyota Avalon, but not much else other than price (and I have owned both). It would be very cool and green to own a car that looked good and went 100 miles per charge even if it cost $50,000 to $75,000 dollars. Smith Electric Vehicles and others are already proving that the batteries work (in the real world).
We have been in communication with a salesperson from FireFly, but the first batteries won’t be available till early summer (I guess I’m not on the special list like you said). We will hopefully be able to buy some batteries to evaluate at that time. Their specs look promising.
I'm a fan of li-ion for applications like yours that truly need the cycling capacity because of constant customer turnover. I also think li-ion makes sense in delivery trucks, buses and taxis that are on the road for eight or more hours per day and put tremendous strains on their batteries. A personal car that gets driven to and from work and spends most of its time in a parking lot or garage is an entirely different economic proposition. I agree that the car you describe would be very cool, but I'm the only person who attended my last family reunion that would even consider such a purchase.
Having said that, the Pb Carbon batteries appear very promising,
www.furukawadenchi.co....
On Mar 31 03:36 AM John Petersen wrote:
> jkessler, without more data detail on the complexity of your battery
> packs as compared with the complexity of the Smith battery packs
> it's dangerous to assume a level price across the board. But I have
> no problem using a $1,000 figure instead of the DOE's $1,333. I have
> a much harder time with assumptions about future cost reductions
> because the numbers are so far out of line with industry norms and
> I don't know what they're based on. So I'll remain a skeptic until
> somebody shows me how it can happen.
>
> I'm a fan of li-ion for applications like yours that truly need the
> cycling capacity because of constant customer turnover. I also think
> li-ion makes sense in delivery trucks, buses and taxis that are on
> the road for eight or more hours per day and put tremendous strains
> on their batteries. A personal car that gets driven to and from work
> and spends most of its time in a parking lot or garage is an entirely
> different economic proposition. I agree that the car you describe
> would be very cool, but I'm the only person who attended my last
> family reunion that would even consider such a purchase.
Lead-carbon is very interesting for high-cycling applications that need lots of power (like HEVs with recuperative braking) but it's pretty bulky for plug-in transportation unless space is not an issue. The big issue with the lead-carbon is that Axion won't be in first stage production until later this year and Furukawa is looking at a 2010 introduction in Japan. So they are not readily available yet.
jkessler, if Valence can nail down a customer that has substantial sales, get to a position where it can earn a gross profit on sales and trim its SG&A, there may indeed be a solid business that will only improve as they reduce production costs.
Next up? Watch what the Mark-to-Mark "loosening" I talked about on the very same March 6th does to the financials this Thursday. POW! I'm in. Hope you are!
John, learning curves have been observed and documented for many industrial products. Batteries will be no different – the costs will go down a certain percent (about 15%, according to RMI) as cumulative production doubles. Here’s a presentation on learning curves as applied to photovoltaic modules that cites various studies on learning, a.k.a. experience, curves.
hdgc.epp.cmu.edu/maili... Curves and Photovoltaic Technology Policy
As for your comment that you “think li-ion makes sense in delivery trucks, buses and taxis that are on the road for eight or more hours per day”, I agree but, for now, only in Europe, where current petrol prices are 3x those in the US and where fees for vehicle registration, parking and access charges are often waived for EVs. Your comment is equally applicable to personal cars which deplete almost all of their battery charge more than 250 days per year.
Volt, as a utility car will be a good one it will be the Boing 747 of GM but GM problems are too big to be solved by this.
Regards
On Mar 27 02:17 PM musik199 wrote:
> I am a battery scientist with PhD degree in electrochemistry. I am
> very familiar with LiFePO4 and other chemistry (I have publised >10
> papers). Last year, during an ECS meeting in Phoenix (May 20th, around
> 1:50PM) , I asked Dr. Abbas Nazri, (which is from GM) " 50% SOC swing
> is very demanding and how could GM ensure the battery last 10y/100K
> miles?" He replied this to me: "People will have to get used to the
> idea of buying a second battery for the Chevy Volt". Later I questioned
> this on gm-volt.com, both GM and Dr. Nazri denied this, obviously
> for fear of bad PR in anticipation of huge bail-out money. I have
> a feeling that they use the Volt program to beg money from Obama,
> (whose team has no clue of battery technology) and Volt is likely
> to fail because of high cost and battery longevity problem.
Also, April 2nd, quite possibly, watch the geothermal stocks get a pop. I put a toe into the hot water today. We'll see....
250 charges a day on a 4,000 to 5,000 cycle battery gives a useful life of 15 to 20 years. By the time you factor in the time value of money on the purchase cost, the economics cannot work without a massive increase in gas prices. That's the problem with too much cycle life - it's wasted by underuse. I've heard the thinking about re-tasking batteries after ten years in a car but remain convinced that over the next 10 years something better than either lead or lithium is likely to be developed. If that expectation is right, they'll be trying to sell 10 year old obsolete products for salvage.
Advill, the Prius is still using NiMH, although there is talk of Li-ion in the future. The fascinating part is that Toyota plans to use lithium-cobalt-oxide because it doesn't have enough experience with the newer flavors.
www.technologyreview.c.../
www.its.berkeley.edu/s...
From a European perspective, a $1,000 per kWh battery with 2,000 deep discharge cycle capability is economic, a 4,000 to 5,000 cycle capability would merely make it more economic.
An EV would displace1/6 of a gallon (~$1.00) of diesel fuel for each kWh (10¢) for an economic gain of over 85¢ for every kWh of charge. 250 charges a year at 1 kWh per charge would save $212.50 a year just on energy costs, which would pay off a $1,000 loan at 8% in 6 years, i.e. after 1,500 cycles, even without factoring in the EV’s further savings over a conventional vehicle on brake jobs (at least half), oil changes (none), access charges (waived), registration fees (waived) and parking (free). The other 500 (or 2,500, or 3,500) cycles represent sheer gravy.
One of us will be wrong. If it's me, I'll not hesitate to admit that my opinions about the pricing practices of global commodity markets were wrong.
Please don't misunderstand my position on cars with plugs. I don't believe they are competitive under current market conditions. That may change in the future, but even with the $5 a gallon I regularly pay for gas, I would rather invest my capital for a better return.
By the way, the only diesels that are limited to 24 mpg are the big SUVs. A modest sized car does about 50% better.
As for diesel mileage, a 6-speed Jetta Diesel is rated at 30 mpg for city driving. Comparably sized PHEVs, converted Priuses and Volt mules, get about 5 miles per kWh, presumably in mixed city-highway driving. So, I conclude that, for an urban delivery van or an urban bus driving cycle, 1 kWh of electricity would displace at least 1/6 of a gallon of diesel.
www.fueleconomy.gov/fe...
I would like to follow up on your comment, “...but even with the $5 a gallon I regularly pay for gas, I would rather invest my capital …” It summarizes the market risk for would-be purveyors of PHEVs – the reluctance of people to pay an up front premium in return for a promise of future savings. If there are minimal sales, then prices will creep down the learning curve and our quibbles about whether li-ion batteries will follow an 85% or 95% learning curve are moot.
www.tms.org/pubs/journ...
If the actual learning curve and pricing parameters were anywhere close to the "industry consensus" that served as the basis for the impressive learning curve graph in the Berkeley Labs report, we wouldn't be having this discussion because 8 years of progress would have cut Li-co prices to about $0.41.
I'd like you to take another look at slide 14 from the Berkeley Labs presentation.
www.its.berkeley.edu/s...
Li-ion and NiMH were developed within a couple years of each other. Far more time and effort has gone into Li-ion technology than NiMH and their use is far more prevalent because of all the electronic devices that use them. The graphs that show Li-ion falling by 2/3 when NiMH could only achieve 1/4 are based on "industry consensus." What that consensus is based on is anybody's guess. If the industry hasn't done it yet what makes you think it will be able to do so in the future?
Li-ion producers know the products will not be economic unless they are cost competitive with lead. Admitting "we'll never be able to drive the price down that far" is the equivalent of deciding to leave the industry and go to work flipping burgers. So the consensus will always be "we can drive the price down." With this dynamic and history in place, I'm not willing to accept the consensus unless somebody can show me exactly where the savings will come from, and nobody's even tried to do that yet.
I'm delighted to change my opinion when presented with new facts. But supposition and consensus are not facts. Bills of materials like they presented in the first article are facts.
Where I come from, the Jetta is considered a pretty big car, as is my Audi A6. But even the Jetta number is half-way between your starting point of 24 mpg and my starting point of 36.
Your comment, “Li-ion producers know the products will not be economic unless they are cost competitive with lead” is overly simplistic since, depending on the application, many different costs, e.g., $ per kW, and different requirements, e.g., cycle life, will be weighed in the purchase decision.
The EPA rating for a 6-speed 2009 Jetta diesel is 30 mpg for city driving. I chose the Jetta diesel since its curb weight of 3,230 lb. is between that of a 2004 Prius converted to a PHEV (3,100 lb.) and Volt mules (3,350 lb.), both of which get 5 miles per kWh., or 30 miles for 6 kWh. So, for my EV economics calculations, I assumed that, for similarly sized vehicles, one kWh would displace 1/6 a gallon of diesel, regardless if the diesel vehicle gets 10, 20, or 30 mpg in city driving.
So basically they built an armor plated housing for the battery in the Volt so they could use the unstable Li-ion polymer (non phosphate) chemistry. I'm scratching my head. I could never own, or let anyone I know own, a car that has a Lithium Polymer battery in it, no matter how armor plated it is. If you don't know why, check out some Lithium battery fire videos on YouTube. Then, picture a fire 500 times that size under your car. Nasty doesn't describe it.
On Mar 28 08:39 PM NorthernPiker wrote:
> John, I share somewhat your lack of qualifications to speak to mining
> costs.
>
> Based on the USGS 1994 Yearbook, “Production of lithium carbonate
> from brine in Nevada (and the Andes, I assume) is much less energy
> intensive (and simpler) than the production from the spodumene” (the
> ore type found in North Carolina).
>
> minerals.usgs.gov/mine...
>
>
> As for what mining production costs are, I have only a press release
> from Western Lithium Corporation on drilling results for one of the
> five deposits (lenses) at its King’s Valley hectorite clay property
> in Nevada. (Yeah, it’s not even spodumene but it is an ore.)
>
> “The PCD lens contains Indicated Resources of 48.1 million tonnes
> grading 0.27% lithium, or the lithium carbonate equivalent (seekingalpha.com/symbo...)
> of 688,000 tonnes LCE and Inferred Resources of 42.3 million tonnes
> grading 0.27% lithium, for an equivalent of 606,000 tonnes LCE, both
> at a cut-off grade of 0.20% Lithium.”
>
> “Economic assumptions for base-case cutoff grade (high-lighted),
> $3.50 Lithium Carbonate USD/lb, 60% metallurgical recovery; $45 USD/ton
> processing, $2 USD/ton Mining; Rounding errors may exist”
>
> finance.yahoo.com/news...
>
>
>
> Below a price of $4.50 per lb. or $10/kg (seekingalpha.com/symbo...),
> this ore body seems somewhat marginal when one considers capital
> needs, the ongoing drilling costs and risks – market pricing, energy
> cost escalation, … However, they may be able to tap into battery
> stimulus money to improve the project economics. The development
> of this significant lithium ore body would help to prevent the pricing
> of LCE from going absolutely silly.
>
> John, I agree that it would be good to hear from some mining engineers.
>
The brine operation in Nevada still operates, but it does not sell lithium on the open market. The operator consumes all of its own production.
The USGS report from 1994 is completely out-of-date, obsolete and irrelevant. You really need to read some recent references.
Unless lithium prices rise enough for hard rock mines to be economic I will stick to my point. The brine-resources are not large enough to supply an automotive lithium battery market as well as the electronics market they already supply. If lithium were to rise in price to hundreds of dollars per lb. for battery grade, then the hard rock miners might come back into the market. However, that is unlikely to be in the US because the regulatory environment makes US hard rock mining uncompetitive. How do the economics for car battery packs work at $100 per lb? $200/lb? $500/lb?
On Mar 28 01:23 PM NorthernPiker wrote:
> carbonates, lithium is not a rare metal. It is marginally more abundant
> than lead in the earth’s crust and vastly more abundant than lead
> in seawater. Based, on the 1994 domestic US price of $4.41 per kilogram
> (up from $4.21 in ’93), it can be mined economically; however, mining
> cannot compete with a cheaper brine operation.
>
> Prior to 1997, the major producer of lithium was the US, from two
> sources – a brine operation in Nevada and a mining operation in North
> Carolina. The NC mine shut down in 1997 because it could not compete
> with the growing brine operations in Chili. This blog claims that
> North Carolina has reserves of 2.6 million tons of lithium, ½ the
> reserves of Bolivia.
>
> www.nicholas.duke.edu/...
>
>
>
> From the USGS 1994 yearbook:
> “The United States has been the largest producer and consumer of
> lithium and the two U.S. companies have been the leading lithium
> carbonate producers in the world for many years.” …
>
> “Lithium carbonate, … Truckload lots, delivered $2.00 (per/ lb)”
>
>
>
> minerals.usgs.gov/mine...
>
>