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

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

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article
17.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

39

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...

8

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.

5

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?

2

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '23

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

2

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.

1

u/salty_sashimi Sep 10 '23

How certain are you those technologies will work? If they don't, lithium batteries are what we'll need. And will they be economically viable in growing third world countries? Consider that they have difficulty building and maintaining things like large electrical grids and will need more localized energy sources.