Un-Noticed but Most important - Lithium.

[Weezer Fan]

This has been discussed on the investment forum before. Consensus is that lithium is easy to supply, but will require new mines. Graphite is also easy to supply; many think they'll have to switch to cheaper natural graphite, which would require new mines, but they might keep using petroleum graphite. Nobody seems to be worrying about aluminum, nickel, or silicon -- they probably won't require new mines. The biggest question mark is cobalt (which will definitely require new mines), followed by manganese (I'm not sure whether that will require new mines).

Tesla is well on its way to securing multiple lithium supplies. There are multiple large lithium deposits in *Nevada*. I haven't heard about cobalt, however -- if Tesla announces a cobalt deal, I think it'll be big news.

The reason we haven't discussed it for a while is that there has been absolutely no news.

I have a lot to learn!!!

 

[Garlan Garner]

This has been discussed on the investment forum before. Consensus is that lithium is easy to supply, but will require new mines. Graphite is also easy to supply; many think they'll have to switch to cheaper natural graphite, which would require new mines, but they might keep using petroleum graphite. Nobody seems to be worrying about aluminum, nickel, or silicon -- they probably won't require new mines. The biggest question mark is cobalt (which will definitely require new mines), followed by manganese (I'm not sure whether that will require new mines).

Tesla is well on its way to securing multiple lithium supplies. There are multiple large lithium deposits in *Nevada*. I haven't heard about cobalt, however -- if Tesla announces a cobalt deal, I think it'll be big news.

The reason we haven't discussed it for a while is that there has been absolutely no news.

Great points.

I don't think there's a concern about recyclable metals such as Aluminum etc. Lithium is not recyclable. Recycling Lithium out of AA batteries etc is just too expensive. I recovered lithium in class when I was a freshman. Its a dangerous proposition.

There is what's known as fake lithium - which has the properties of real lithium...except the number of charges is drastically reduced to 25% of true lithium. Real raw mined powdered lithium is very expensive.

I hope that TESLA utilizes other forms of stored energy ( graphite ) as you stated.

TESlA can produce 230K steering wheels and doors and seats in a few months if they needed to, but electric storage sources....that's a challenge.

 

[Saghost]

I have a lot to learn!!!

We all do. Some of us realize it more than others.

 

[Cyberax]

It was glaring to me to hear Elon Musk mention Lithium as much as he did. I heard him loud and clear. Tesla is going to HAVE TO BE the largest consumer of Lithium on the face of the planet.
Where in the world is TESLA going to get that much Lithium?

From lithium suppliers. Duh.

Lithium can be produced from raw seawater for about 3x of its current market price, pretty much indefinitely. Lithium "mines" are simply saltwater lakes that naturally concentrated the seawater salt.

There can be no "lithium OPEC" or long-lasting lithium shortages. In the worst case scenario, Tesla will have to build a desalination/lithium production plant somewhere.

 

[jame521]

anyone got some hot lithium mine tipps? I'm in at 'pure energy minerals' for a few bucks.. They seem to be a long way from production, but to mostly have their *sugar* together. Anyone know a guy, that knows a guy, that actually knows something about who the most promising suppliers are?

 

[Cyberax]

There is what's known as fake lithium - which has the properties of real lithium...except the number of charges is drastically reduced to 25% of true lithium. Real raw mined powdered lithium is very expensive.

What are you smoking?????

 

[Garlan Garner]

What are you smoking?????

Its true. We produced mock Lithium in our labs in school. MIT. Discharge rates were identical to the real stuff. Charge rates are lightning quick. We just can't charge them but 200 times until we have to break it all down back into powder and start over. I currently work for HP in their robotics division. We use it here. Its really cheap. We make our own power sources.

 

[neroden]

Well, lithium is recyclable, just not *commercially* recyclable... I expect it will be recycled at some point in the far future. Right now, however, it's much much cheaper to mine it, from at least three different types of deposits.

Batteries typically use liithium hydroxide, though it can be converted from high-grade lithium carbonate. Lithium hydroxide is not expensive and there are several ways to bring the price down by improving the refining process.

I can order battery-grade lithium hydroxide from AliBaba for about $6000/ton -- obviously Tesla would better prices due to the volume discount. This is roughly a *quarter* of the price per ton of the going price of cobalt on the open market ($22200/ton). And if I remember correctly, there is more cobalt by weight in the battery than there is lithium (partly because cobalt is a lot heavier than lithium).

Honestly, everyone who's seriously looked at it doesn't worry about the lithium price much. The only question is, will the numerous new mines get financing and open fast enough? That is a question, certainly. But there are deposits *everywhere* and they can all be mined fairly cheaply.

If enough cobalt can't be lined up, however, Tesla could be subject to disruption by any trouble in the cobalt market, and the vast majority of world cobalt supplies are from one set of mines in the Congo, which is very unstable. (Tesla currently gets their cobalt elsewhere, but it's not North American, and Musk promised North American sourcing...)

 

[Cyberax]

Its true. We produced mock Lithium in our labs in school. MIT. Discharge rates were identical to the real stuff. I currently work for HP in their robotics division.

No, I don't believe it. Or otherwise MIT has devolved to the level of the primordial slime.

What is the chemical composition of "fake lithium"?

Perhaps it's not chemical but nuclear? Li-11 is indeed about 25 percent less energy dense than the most prevalent Li-7. Of course, Li-11 has a half-life of only 8 milliseconds. But that's not a problem for MIT, right?

 

[AnalysiZ]

VWLi ?

 

[Garlan Garner]

No, I don't believe it. Or otherwise MIT has devolved to the level of the primordial slime.

What is the chemical composition of "fake lithium"?

Perhaps it's not chemical but nuclear? Li-11 is indeed about 25 percent less energy dense than the most prevalent Li-7. Of course, Li-11 has a half-life of only 8 milliseconds. But that's not a problem for MIT, right?

No problem.

All we do is use thicker aluminum plates - remove more air between layers - use less lithium and more iron. Baking process is just about the same. They are very close to LiFePO4 batteries. This is what an my rolled / unwrapped / uncut cell looks like.
Problem for MIT? I don't know what you mean. I just used these to power our robots.

 

[Garlan Garner]

Here's How they look once I'm done. Only takes about an hour. We learned how to do this 2 years ago in china.

 

[Canuck]

Elon Musk made some crucial statements that seems to either bored most consumers to death or exceeded their technical savvy. It was glaring to me to hear Elon Musk mention Lithium as much as he did. I heard him loud and clear. Tesla is going to HAVE TO BE the largest consumer of Lithium on the face of the planet.

I don't think you heard him at all. If you did, you would understand that it's not the raw materials that are at issue when it comes to production. That's the easy part. Lithium is widely available on Earth, but is not found in its pure elemental metalic form. Rather, it is found in compounds. Producing pure lithium metal requires processing, and must be pure to be useful in batteries. So the hard part is the processing and assembly of the materials into batteries, which is currently being solved by the gigafactory -- hopefully at a reasonable cost. The cost is not reasonable now, which is why the Model S is expensive. If you paid attention, you will note that in that part of his talk he focused the giga building, and its implications, when it comes to production of the Model 3, and not on lithium. Lithium is the easy part, processing and producing extremely large quantities of batteries, in individual cell (there's over 7,000 of them in each Model S!) is the hard part.

 

[ikjadoon]

Raw materials info from JB Straubel, CTO at Tesla.

Time point where he's specifically talking about these fake "lithium shortages".

/thread

 

[Garlan Garner]

I don't think you heard him at all. If you did, you would understand that it's not the raw materials that are at issue when it comes to production. That's the easy part. Lithium is widely available on Earth, but is not found in its pure elemental metalic form. Rather, it is found in compounds. Producing pure lithium metal requires processing, and must be pure to be useful in batteries. So the hard part is the processing and assembly of the materials into batteries, which is currently being solved by the gigafactory -- hopefully at a reasonable cost. The cost is not reasonable now, which is why the Model S is expensive. If you paid attention, you will note that in that part of his talk he focused the giga building, and its implications, when it comes to production of the Model 3, and not on lithium. Lithium is the easy part, processing and producing extremely large quantities of batteries, in individual cell (there's over 7,000 of them in each Model S!) is the hard part.

WOW... LOL...

 

[McRat]

IIRC, most US lithium production was shut down after the cold war. No big secret but lithium is used for "strategic weapons" and was considered a national defense material just like beryllium.

To the best of my knowledge, the US lithium mines could open back up if the prices rise enough. There will never be a lithium shortage. Worry more about rare earth metals.

 

[Cyberax]

View attachment 170320
No problem.
All we do is use thicker aluminum plates - remove more air between layers - use less lithium and more iron.

So what does this have to do with lithium?

 

[Garlan Garner]

Well, Just thought it was interesting to discuss. As long as they deliver my model 3 in a reasonable time...I'm happy. I'm going to power/charge my model 3 with my solar array - storage to the grid and the LI batteries I made.

Here is a link to my array. My son and I installed it ourselves. My wife and I are trying to be as green as we can.

SolarEdge

Feel free to reject this thread. I'm done.

Cyberax - Thanks for all of your support.

 

[Garlan Garner]

So what does this have to do with lithium?

Thanks for all of your support.

 

[AWDtsla]

Elon Musk made some crucial statements that seems to either bored most consumers to death or exceeded their technical savvy.

It was glaring to me to hear Elon Musk mention Lithium as much as he did. I heard him loud and clear. Tesla is going to HAVE TO BE the largest consumer of Lithium on the face of the planet.

Apparently not clear enough. Listen again. More carefully this time.