Let's see, iron phosphate, titanium spinel, manganese oxide... how many Li-ion chemistries are there now?

Last year, more than a billion mobile phones were sold and probably well over 50 million notebook computers, the vast majority powered by Li-On batteries. Meanwhile, we are still "experimenting" with Li-on technology for cars. If it did not happen now, for whatever reason(s), it will most likely not be a mainstream technology and at most occupy some specialized niches.

Joe,

See the recent Sony recall on Li-ion? Yeah, I think it best to still "experiment" with these until a thermally stable setup can be developed such that we don't have to worry about the much, much harsher environment they will be put in (temperature & vibration of a car vs. laptop or cellphone application).

So how much Li is there in the world and does the US have to import it?

World lithium production

Reflecting the growth in demand, world lithium production is estimated to have increased by some 4%py from 15,300t Li in 2002 to 18,800t Li in 2005. The industry is characterised by a high degree of concentration of production. Two countries - Chile and Australia - together account for nearly two-thirds of world output, and for most of the growth in production in the first part of this decade. Sons of Gwalia in Australia produces some 60% of world output of lithium minerals (as spodumene), with output estimated at 120,000t (gross weight) in 2005. SQM of Chile, with shipments of 27,800t lithium carbonate in 2005, accounted for 36% of world production. This share will increase from 2008, following the companys planned expansion in production capacity from 28,500tpy to 40,000tpy.

An interesting feature of world lithium production is the potential emergence of China as a leading supplier. The successful development of technology to extract lithium from high-magnesium brines has led to the start of lithium carbonate production from salt lakes in Qinghai and Tibet provinces. Capacity could rise to 45,000tpy if planned projects come on-stream. In late 2005, CITIC Guorun began construction of a 35,000tpy lithium carbonate plant to exploit lithium reserves in Xitai Ginar salt lake in Qinghai province. Production was scheduled to start in 2006.http://www.the-infoshop.com/press/ros42739_en.shtml

Lithium is more than 2 orders of magnitude more abundant in the earths crust than in ocean water. http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele003.html

I may have missed it, but I keep seeing the idea that the world does not have enough retrivable Lithium to make enough batteries to power all the cars. Lets assume this is a myth. Lets assume that a Lithium Ion battery is mostly other elements, and that only a thin coating of one element contains lithium, such that Lithium comprises less than one one hundreth of the weight of a Lithium Ion cell. I am making these numbers up because I have not seen an article that addresses the first principles. But if I am in the ball park, then a cell with an energy density of 100 wh/kg, would provide 10 KWH/kg lithium. If we say the average vehicle would need to store 30 KWH, then each vehicle would need about 3 Kg of lithium. Is there enough lithium for 500 million vehicles? That would be about 15 billion kg of lithum. And the World's known reserves amount to about 100 billion kg of Lithium. So there would seem to be plenty, unless someone has significantly different numbers for the ROM calculation.

great posts!! It's really good to see some "pressure" on auto manufacturers to get on the PHEV bandwagon. I'd especially like to see Toyota get moving big time. If they don't, their lead w/ the Prius technology will evaporate and someone else will fill the vaccuum.
Remember, we don't need Li-On batteries for every new vehicle since there will be other competing technologies
allowing for room for continuing improvements in Li-On.
Maurice

Concerning World Lithium Supply & how much Lithium per EV. The following study was based upon an EV having a 35 kWh Li-Ion Battery & the math works out to enought Lithium reserves to make 1.2 Billion EVs. I went ahead and calculated for PHEV & 2 different HEVs also.

The following link is a May 2000 study put out by ANL (Argonne National Laboratory) for the DOE (US Dept of Energy).

http://www.transportation.anl.gov/pdfs/TA/149.pdf

USGS (2000) says USA used 2,800 tonne in 1999 & that was enough to make 290,000 EVs or 6,000,000 HEVs.

2,800 tonnes = 2,800,000 kg
290,000 EVs X 35 kWh each = 10,150,000 kWh
2,800,000 kg / 10,150,000 kWh = 0.276kg/kWh or 276 g/kWh

Argonne paper says world reserves exceed 12,000,000 tonne of lithium. Let’s just say there are only 12 million tonne.

12,000,000 tonne = 12,000,000,000 kg

12,000,000,000 kg of lithium / 0.276 kg/kWh = 43,500,000,000 units of lithium available to make 1 kWh each.

43,500,000,000 / 35 kWh per EV = 1,242,857,143 EVs or 1.2 Billion EV.

43,500,000,000 / 9 kWh per PHEV = 4,833,333,333 PHEVs or 4.8 Billion PHEV.

43,500,000,000 / 1.7 kWh per HEV = 25,588,235,294 or 25.6 Billion HEV. (Current Prius HEV has 1.3kWh vs. 1.7kWh shown here)

Just for the fun of it, let’s do the Prius….

43,500,000,000 / 1.3 kWh per Prius HEV = 33,461,538,462 or 33.5 Billion Prius HEV

The ANL article very clearly states when referencing the world lithium supply; “Therefore, long-term supply should not be a major concern.”

Supercaps also make sense if your power source is a primary battery, such as Zn-air cells.

The Argonne paper also states that the lithium costs are only around $100 per EV. Manufacturing the battery is still the big cost (and of course this could come down a lot).