Green: Slow road to electric driving
Lithium is used in batteries in electric cars like the Chevy Volt, which raises the question as to whether there will be enough of the metal to go around.
Aug 08, 2009
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SPECIAL TO THE STAR
This is the second of two columns on the potential for lithium.
Future vehicles powered by battery alone might require up to 25 kilograms.
Will there be enough of this ultra-light, ultra-conductive metal to go around? It's a crucial question since it's by far the best material currently known to power electric vehicles.
As I wrote in this column last week, the global supply of lithium, as estimated by the U.S. Geological Survey, is 14 million tonnes. Not all of it could be mined and processed economically using current methods. On the other hand, it's an uncertain and conservative assessment. Additional sources might be confirmed, including one in Nevada that Vancouver-based Western Lithium Corp. says could total nearly 2 million tonnes. As well, better mining and processing techniques might emerge.
"Now that a very large market seems a possibility, exploration activity has increased," says American lithium guru Keith Evans. "New sources will be discovered and existing sources will be increased with additional drilling."
Each tonne of lithium converts into 5.3 tonnes of lithium carbonate, the compound required for batteries. So for now we can call the global supply 74 million tonnes.
Okay: 60 million cars, give or take, are built each year. If, for the sake of argument, we assume each is battery-powered and contains 20 kilograms of lithium carbonate, we'd need 1.2 million tonnes of the stuff annually. The world's fleet of cars now totals about 900 million and will soon hit a billion. If all were electric, that would be 20 million tonnes of carbonate. These numbers make the supply seem tight.
After a few years of production, some lithium could be recycled from worn-out batteries. The precise amount, like so much else, is unknown.
But even if the resource is big enough to fuel a completely electric world, production isn't. It's just over 100,000 tonnes a year, and almost all goes to non-car uses, including laptop batteries and ceramics. Supplying electric vehicles would mean starting from scratch, and ramping up quickly to millions of tonnes would be impossible.
But this kind of argument ignores the fact that only a small fraction of us will be driving all-battery vehicles or even hybrids in the near future. Most analysts say it would be a stretch to envision electrics taking 20 per cent of new-car sales by 2020 and that, in a world of slowly rising production, supply won't be an issue.
"Concerns regarding lithium availability ... are unfounded," Evans says.
The experts prefer not to forecast beyond a decade. "The fact is anything can happen after 2020," says Edward Anderson, who heads Toronto-based lithium analysts TRU Group Inc.
"After 2020, it's more likely fuel cells or another technology will come strongly into play. Who's to say the lithium market won't collapse?"
Flourine batteries are said to be on the distant horizon. And even if lithium continues to dominate, improved battery designs might require less of the metal: Ten years is, after all, a lifetime in technology development.
All this isn't necessarily good news for those hoping electric cars will help to combat climate change. The transition to them will be too slow to help to achieve the emission cuts scientists say are essential.
To the extent we use batteries, we still face the issue of whether coal or other polluting fuels produce the electricity to charge them. And lithium isn't impact-free: mining and processing it generates a heavy load of greenhouse emissions and other environmental damage.
All this means simply there's no need to panic about lithium supply. It's among the least of our worries.
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