carbonates

How PHEVs and EVs Will Sabotage America's Drive for Energy Independence

Having just returned from a field expedition related to carbon sequestration research, in which my 4WD was the only thing that kept us alive in the 130 degree desert heat, I can seriously relate to the comments by Iowa Corn. I can never imagine the day I will give up internal combustion engines for my truck (much less my marine research vessel). My truck can carry enough fuel to last me a week and travel 500 miles or more- just enough to make one trip. I can't imagine driving through a river or operating in rugged terrain in an EV. As far as I am concerned I am already burning organically grown biofuel- it's called gasoline and it was made by phytoplankton so I feel no moral anguish.

That said, the market will sort this out. I believe you answered your own question when you compared the cost of a Prius to the Volt. Unless Washington manages to interfere with the market enough to cut the cost of the Volt by 50%, the Prius and its clones will continue to dominate in the market that it can satisfy. It will never satisfy the market that requires vehicles to do more than transport a single person over a relatively short distance. It's not going to replace 18-wheelers, airplanes, tractors, or trains, and so is going to remain a minor solution to transportation fuel usage. As for carbon output, the EV is hands down the largest emitter of carbon as long as coal-fired electricity is the source of its power.

As a geologist who has worked in the Atacama Desert looking at lithium deposits, I do still disagree that the ECONOMIC supply of lithium is unlimited, especially when its afficionados see it replacing millions of cars (and still acting as the major supply for electronics, computers, commercial power back-ups, and other device batteries). At current lithium prices, the supply is not large enough to build large numbers of EV's. The market may also solve this problem, as a tenfold increase in lithium prices will significantly increase the economic supply- but seriously damage the economics of EV's. That, influenced by a political trend among lithium producers leaning toward an "OPEC" of lithium exporting countries, is what I see coming as EV's hit the market.

Full disclosure: I own stock in lithium mining companies and oil companies. I don't own stock in GM or Toyota, and none in any battery manufacturers.

Li-ion Batteries and How Cheap Beat Cool in the Chevy Volt

From a geologist:

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...
>
>

Li-ion Batteries and How Cheap Beat Cool in the Chevy Volt

You already heard from one and you don't believe me. I am a geologist and engineer who has studied the lithium industry and visited the lithium mining operations of Chile and Bolivia. I know what I am writing about: lithium is not abundant enough at present prices to meet the supply that would be needed to convert any significant proportion of the auto fleet to lithium batteries.


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.
>

Li-ion Batteries and How Cheap Beat Cool in the Chevy Volt

Lithium batteries and "green" are not at all compatible ideas. Besides the fact that lithium is a rare metal with limited supplies, mining the lithium will destroy two of the most unique, fragile, and unspoiled environments on the planet. Eventually the "greens" will figure this out and lithium carbonate from brine will become shunned by the market. The problem is that lithium comes from the Atacama Desert in South America (the driest place on earth) and similar environments in Tibet, which itself is a political hot potato. Even if the environmental risk of lithium mining is ignored, the economically recoverable lithium (at present prices) is nowhere near enough to supply the auto industry with any significant amount of battery quality lithium.

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.