
Electric Vehicles: Setting the Record Straight on Lithium Availability - revorad
http://www.ensec.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=213:the-future-of-electric-vehicles-setting-the-record-straight-on-lithium-availability&catid=98:issuecontent0809&Itemid=349
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hristov
The supposed lithium shortage has always been a red herring used by oil
supporters. The theory goes something like this "if we rely too much on
electric vehicles and hybrids we will switch from reliance on oil exporting
countries to reliance on lithium exporting countries, which will be just as
bad or even worse." Then the oil supporter starts drawing a scary picture of
evil socialist Bolivia which is poised to take over the US economy with its
vast lithium deposits.

Of course this ignores a couple of things -- (i) lithium is not that rare, and
is not only found in Bolivia and most importantly (ii) lithium is not used up
or destroyed in batteries. It can be recycled. So it is very unlikely that we
will get into the situation of progressively using up all the lithium supply
and having a lithium crisis and so on.

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iigs
This topic is as fascinating to me as it is impenetrable. I'd love to
understand what he's saying but get balled up in the abbreviations and not
understanding how to calculate how much lithium is usable from each mined
mineral.

Not to be too USA Today, but my understanding would certainly benefit from a
couple pictures/graphs.

