Can lithium batteries power all cars in America? 23

[Space car]

Can lithium batteries power all cars in America? The answer may be “Yes,” but we must change direction if we are to have any chance. Based on recent history, after the coronavirus pandemic is over, US new car sales will return to about 17.5 million units per year. When we get to a first year for all-electric car production, how much lithium will be needed? A lithium ion battery contains 0.3 grams of lithium per amp-hour of battery capacity, or about 0.09 kg of lithium per kilowatt-hour (kWh)

https://batteryguy.com/kb/knowledge-base/how-to-calculate-the-lithium-content-in-a-battery/

Lithium mines measure their output in kilograms of lithium carbonate. In terms of mine output, it takes 0.96 kg of lithium carbonate per kWh of battery capacity. Assume each car has an average battery capacity of 60 kWh. Multiplying by 17.5 million cars, the amount of lithium mine output needed will be 1.0 million metric tonnes of lithium carbonate for each year of new EVs
In 2020, total world mine output of lithium carbonate is projected to be about 0.7 million metric tonnes. The world is now scrambling to find more lithium. There are more problems:
• US auto sales are only about 22% of vehicle sales worldwide.
• Power companies are aggressively purchasing Lithium batteries for the grid.
Some say that science can solve the problem—"another, even better battery will be found that may not even need lithium.” Well, no, that isn’t the situation. No other element carries as much charge for its weight as does ionized lithium and the lithium ion cell produces a prodigious 3.7 volts. Current batteries obtain about 85% of the theoretical limit of energy storage for their lithium content. Future improvements will only be in battery structure, weight, and charging speed.

CONCLUSION: Power companies don’t need light-weight batteries—they MUST use something else! America must vastly increase domestic mining and processing of lithium and other strategic materials such as cobalt, nickel, aluminum, and rare earth metals needed for an electrified economy. Plus we can learn to be more thrifty. The auto industry can make more efficient electric vehicles that need only half as much battery capacity.

 

[SnTMan]

Couldn't read the whole story, paywall, but I expect I'd be underwhelmed. Grid-scale storage is a not-solved problem.

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[moltenmetal]

MedicineEng: rare earth elements (lanthanides) are NOT USED IN LITHIUM ION BATTERIES.

They are used in EV motors, where they are a straight up features for cost deal. They make the motors lighter and more efficient, reducing how much battery you need for a given range- saving the metals that are actually used in Li ion batteries, i.e. Li, Co, Ni, Mn, Al, Cu etc.

 

[moltenmetal]

...and by the way, rare earth elements aren't actually rare, either. Deposits of them, particularly deposits rich in the heavy elements, of mineable concentrations, are rare however. They often form via ion exchange. And the real problem with mining these guys isn't mining them, but rather separating one element from the next because they are very chemically similar- and from the radioactive thorium that they are usually found with.

The irony that people who hate or fear EVs often also seem to be in love for some reason with the possibility of thorium fission is rather delicious.

 

[Sparweb]

I love EV's and nuclear fission reactors. Do I get a prize?


Please remember: we're not all rednecks!

http://www.sparweb.ca

 

[MedicineEng]

moltenmetal:
Thank you for your clarification on the rare earth elements and its use in EV ecosystem.

 

[0707]

what will we do with batteries waste?

luia

 

[SnTMan]

Shhhhhh

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[JohnRBaker]

What are we doing with nuclear waste? Or for that matter, the sludge from processing coal and the stuff that we're injecting into oil wells to increase net production or what we're forcing into the rock formations during fracking, for natural gas production?

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[BrianPetersen]

Battery recycling will happen when there is sufficient demand for it, which will be when there are sufficient EVs not only out on the roads but also reaching the end of their service lives. Batteries are a richer ore of nickel, cobalt, etc than any natural ore is.

The "greening" of the power grid is connected/related but bear in mind that a new combustion-engine vehicle is locked into its fuel source for its life (and its related CO2 emissions, and the various environmental issues associated with extraction and processing of fossil fuel), whereas an EV will transition "green" in conjunction with the power grid. Or, if you wish, with the installation of photoelectric panels on your own roof and your own on-site battery storage. Can't do anything of the sort with a combustion-engine vehicle.

 

[0707]

BrianPetersen
Battery recycling will happen when there is sufficient demand for it, which will be when there are sufficient EVs not only out on the roads but also reaching the end of their service lives. Batteries are a richer ore of nickel, cobalt, etc than any natural ore is.

That just, sounds me to push with the belly forward and later we'll see, like has always happened with human activity, while the stick goes and comes back, your back rest a little.

luis

 

[0707]

JRB
What are we doing with nuclear waste? Or for that matter, the sludge from processing coal and the stuff that we're injecting into oil wells to increase net production or what we're forcing into the rock formations during fracking, for natural gas production?

About the above subject we are just pushing the belly forward, or the same as whistling to the side.

luis

 

[moltenmetal]

0707: battery waste is already being recycled in China, and numerous companies (more than can possibly survive) are pursuing battery recycling tech development in North America and Europe. There will be a death march leading to consolidations and construction of a few plants of sufficient scale to make significant money and hence they will BUY dead batteries as a feedstock.

Li ion cathode is better ore for Ni and Co than any ore for those metals found on earth- better than most concentrates actually, because it contains no iron.

Li ion batteries similarly are a great source to recover Li from, because they contain no Na, K, Ca or Mg that are difficult to separate from the Li.

And even Li-FePO4 batteries, which contain no valuable cathode metals- are being accepted by recyclers like Li-Cycle. Why? Because the Li, and the Cu and Al current collector foils, ALREADY make them of value to recycle. Value to them, i.e. they make Li-Cycle money.

 

[0707]

moltenmetal

"In South America, the biggest problem is water. The continent’s Lithium Triangle, which covers parts of Argentina, Bolivia and Chile, holds more than half the world’s supply of the metal beneath its otherworldly salt flats. It’s also one of the driest places on earth. That’s a real issue, because to extract lithium, miners start by drilling a hole in the salt flats and pumping salty, mineral-rich brine to the surface.
Then they leave it to evaporate for months at a time, first creating a mixture of manganese, potassium, borax and lithium salts which is then filtered and placed into another evaporation pool, and so on. After between 12 and 18 months, the mixture has been filtered enough that lithium carbonate – white gold – can be extracted.

It’s a relatively cheap and effective process, but it uses a lot of water – approximately 500,000 gallons per tonne of lithium. In Chile’s Salar de Atacama, mining activities consumed 65 per cent of the region’s water. That is having a big impact on local farmers – who grow quinoa and herd llamas – in an area where some communities already have to get water driven in from elsewhere.

There’s also the potential – as occurred in Tibet – for toxic chemicals to leak from the evaporation pools into the water supply. These include chemicals, including hydrochloric acid, which are used in the processing of lithium into a form that can be sold, as well as those waste products that are filtered out of the brine at each stage."


luis

 

[moltenmetal]

The "water" is actually brine much saltier than seawater. It's not being "used", it's being withdrawn and evaporated.

It's not like they're taking freshwater out of wells and using it to purify the lithium. They simply pump the brine to the surface of the desert and then allow it to evaporate. As each salt crystallizes out, they pump the remaining brine to another evaporation "pan" to cryztallize out the next salt.

It's about as benign a mining process as can be imagined.

But when you draw brine out of the subsurface, there's a fear that this will cause freshwater to flow lateraly from great distances away to replenish the brine aquifer. That's what the local people are worried about. And maybe they're right. But there's no mining operation on earth that doesn't have environmental impacts of some sort.

 

[moltenmetal]

The refining generally doesn't happen on site in the desert. Most of the purification happens in China, because that's where the batteries are made in the largest quantities.

And the quantities of brine used per tonne of lithium are large- because lithium isn't the largest mass product produced, by any stretch. There are quite a few other products from a salar evaporation "mine", including potash (potassium chloride) and quite a few others.

 

[JohnRBaker]

An interesting development, if true:

VW accidentally leaks new name for its U.S. operations: Voltswagen

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/29/vw-accidentally-leaks-new-name-for-its-us-operations-voltswagen.html

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[SnTMan]

April Fool!



The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[JohnRBaker]

I did say "if true"...

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-Product 'Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without

 

[SnTMan]

Well, yeah, but this Editors Note was placed ahead of the article itself:

Editor’s Note: Volkswagen initially said it was going to rename its U.S. operations Voltswagen to signify its commitment to electrification of its fleet. The company confirmed Tuesday that the announcement was an elaborate April Fools’ joke. Our full story on the ‘joke’ is here. Below is the original story based on VW’s announcement of the name change.

Maybe added after you posted your link? Who knows...

The problem with sloppy work is that the supply FAR EXCEEDS the demand

 

[JohnRBaker]

This is the trend...

Lithium battery costs have fallen by 98% in three decades

In a few years electric vehicles may cost the same as their combustion-engine counterparts

https://www.economist.com/graphic-d...tery-costs-have-fallen-by-98-in-three-decades

John R. Baker, P.E. (ret)
EX-'Product Evangelist'
Irvine, CA
Siemens PLM:
UG/NX Museum:

The secret of life is not finding someone to live with
It's finding someone you can't live without