Lithium unlikely to deliver us to post-oil nirvana
In the first of two parts, a look at the factors that could stall this key to electric car batteries
Peter Gorrie
For now, it produces the best batteries for electric cars. No alternative offers its combined low weight, longevity, power storage and delivery, or its ability to withstand heat and cold.
It's also causing much angst. Some experts argue demand will swamp supply. There's also concern that much of it is in Bolivia, South America's poorest country and one considered unfriendly to the U.S. and multinational companies.
In last year's American elections, "politicians ... ran on a plank based on ending foreign oil dependence, and it is unlikely that voters will want to meekly transfer this dependence to lithium," says a recent report from the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, in Washington, D.C.
Do we need to fear that a shortage or Bolivia's status as "the Saudi Arabia of lithium" might stall an electric transformation?
For a start, the global supply is uncertain. The United States Geological Survey estimates nearly 14 million tonnes. Washington's National Research Council, using less stringent evaluation rules, makes the number 30 million.
Only Chile and Argentina produce lithium in large quantities. The biggest remaining reserves are in South America – with Bolivia considered to hold more than one-third of the global total – as well as China and Australia. The United States has 3 per cent; Canada, a small supply.
Those numbers aren't static. A Canadian company – Vancouver-based Western Lithium Corp. – says it's developing a source in Nevada that, it expects, holds one-third as much as Bolivia's salt flats, in a form relatively easy to develop.
About 100 salt lakes worldwide might be additional sources, but little is known about them, says Edward Anderson, who heads Toronto-based TRU Group Inc., which bills itself as "the most qualified lithium team in the world."
Russia remains a major question mark.
Adding to the uncertainty, not all the reserves could be mined and processed economically using present-day technologies. Counting just those that could now be developed cuts the resource estimates to anywhere from 4 million to 15 million tonnes. Those figures fuel bitter debate.
But then, little about lithium is straightforward.
It's in three types of deposits. Until the 1990s, most came from a hard-rock compound called pegmatite, mined in North Carolina and used in glass and ceramics. That's the form found in Canada. The preferred current source is brine, from salt flats. Some, like Western Lithium's, is in wet clay.
Brine is considered the cheapest to mine and process; pegmatite, the most expensive. But brines aren't equal: Their lithium concentrations vary widely as does the presence of contaminants, notably magnesium, which must be removed. It can be cheaper to develop a good rock or clay source than low-quality brine.
Producers who exploit brine sources do nicely. It costs them roughly one-third of the market price to mine the stuff and process it into lithium carbonate – the compound required for batteries.
The next generation of producers isn't so lucky: Much of China's supply is rock, and its brine sources are loaded with magnesium. Bolivia's lithium region lacks roads and other infrastructure; analysts also suggest the resource might be poor – not enough lithium, too much magnesium, or both.
On the other hand, if lithium prices rise, or technology improves, more lithium deposits might become economically viable.
And Bolivia's resource isn't captive to politics: Its leftist-populist president, Evo Morales, simply insists his country must benefit, perhaps gaining a battery industry, car assembly plants and technology training. He still needs partners and if others invest – Japan and China are scrambling for access – the U.S. would face less competition for its own supply.
Part Two: The demand.