Where will the gigafactory get all the lithium?

[hiroshiy]

News Release | Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd.

Is this relevant? 2nd PDF about Sumitomo Metal Mining increasing capacity for lithium nickel oxide.

 

[RobStark]

News Release | Sumitomo Metal Mining Co., Ltd.

Is this relevant? 2nd PDF about Sumitomo Metal Mining increasing capacity for lithium nickel oxide.

In a word yes.

http://insideevs.com/sumitomo-metal...um-nickel-oxide-to-meet-tesla-model-s-demand/

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Sumitomo Metal Mining invests in producing EV battery materials- Nikkei Asian Review

Tesla Model S for strong 2.2 times the production capacity Sumitomo Metal Mining and automotive rechargeable batteries for lithium nickel

Isn't this 4-5 times the initial planned investment/output?

 

[AWDtsla]

There's only ~3 grams of Li per cell.

Perhaps you should be more concerned with Aluminum or Nickel markets. But hey, Lithium is in the name of the battery, it must be super important right?

:-/

 

[AudubonB]

That's not the appropriate way to tackle the question. What matters is

*How large a fraction of present world supply of Component A will be required to satisfy Tesla's battery demand?

and

*What is the price elasticity of supply of Component A?

The importance of the latter is a function of the size fraction that Tesla's batteries consume of Component A. If global demand bumps up against current supply limits as a result of the batteries' requirements, then something's gotta give - prices rise, new mines open, and so on.

Now, I certainly haven't crunched the numbers, but I can be relatively certain that aluminum will not rank highly as a key component based on these two criteria. Nickel - also unlikely. Flake graphite, lithium, cobalt - these definitely have possibilities and as such, new sources ought be considered as deserving a strong look.

More: TMC does not use, sensu strictu, "aluminum", "lithium", or so on. It or its immediate suppliers purchase Al-Mn-Si billets, Al-Mn sheet, lithium hydroxide, and related downstream materials. As a discussion of resource acquisition, however, it remains appropriate to identify primary sources of the elemental materials.

 

[AWDtsla]

That's not the appropriate way to tackle the question. What matters is

*How large a fraction of present world supply of Component A will be required to satisfy Tesla's battery demand?

and

*What is the price elasticity of supply of Component A?

The importance of the latter is a function of the size fraction that Tesla's batteries consume of Component A. If global demand bumps up against current supply limits as a result of the batteries' requirements, then something's gotta give - prices rise, new mines open, and so on.

Schoolbook economics equation do not work. It's much simpler to look at the abundance and accessibility of the material in the Earth's crust. Mines will open if they must. It's nearly irrelevant to consider present day production capacity. It's a geology/physics question, not so much an economic one.

Now, I certainly haven't crunched the numbers, but I can be relatively certain that aluminum will not rank highly as a key component based on these two criteria. Nickel - also unlikely. Flake graphite, lithium, cobalt - these definitely have possibilities and as such, new sources ought be considered as deserving a strong look.

More: TMC does not use, sensu strictu, "aluminum", "lithium", or so on. It or its immediate suppliers purchase Al-Mn-Si billets, Al-Mn sheet, lithium hydroxide, and related downstream materials. As a discussion of resource acquisition, however, it remains appropriate to identify primary sources of the elemental materials.

Have you looked at the car? The entire chassis, subframes, suspension parts, drivetrain parts, they are all made out of aluminum.

Not to mention the gigantic stamping machines that are producing Model S body panels give away the fact that raw sheets and billets of aluminum come in one end and leave the other end as cars. Gigafactory will basically have materials processing in-house, so the lithium coming in will be even less processed.

 

[Red Sage]

That's not the appropriate way to tackle the question. What matters is

*How large a fraction of present world supply of Component A will be required to satisfy Tesla's battery demand?

and

*What is the price elasticity of supply of Component A?

1) Very little in general, ~29% perhaps, depending on the chart used.

2) Rather limited, to the point that if anything, prices will go down.

The importance of the latter is a function of the size fraction that Tesla's batteries consume of Component A. If global demand bumps up against current supply limits as a result of the batteries' requirements, then something's gotta give - prices rise, new mines open, and so on.

Meh. I really don't think there is much room for positive movement on the stockmarket with these elements/compounds.

Now, I certainly haven't crunched the numbers, but I can be relatively certain that aluminum will not rank highly as a key component based on these two criteria. Nickel - also unlikely. Flake graphite, lithium, cobalt - these definitely have possibilities and as such, new sources ought be considered as deserving a strong look.

OK. We'll see, I guess.

More: TMC does not use, sensu strictu, "aluminum", "lithium", or so on. It or its immediate suppliers purchase Al-Mn-Si billets, Al-Mn sheet, lithium hydroxide, and related downstream materials. As a discussion of resource acquisition, however, it remains appropriate to identify primary sources of the elemental materials.

True, the majority of the elements do not exactly occur naturally on thier own. They usually are found as part of molecular compounds. That's because each of them reacts with oxygen and is ready to bond with something else on a whim. It may or may not be easier to start with the pure element to create the final product. But my main point was that the individual elements are not at all rare, they are in fact, rather ubiquitous.

Schoolbook economics equation do not work. It's much simpler to look at the abundance and accessibility of the material in the Earth's crust. Mines will open if they must. It's nearly irrelevant to consider present day production capacity. It's a geology/physics question, not so much an economic one. ... Have you looked at the car? The entire chassis, subframes, suspension parts, drivetrain parts, they are all made out of aluminum.

When necessary, the elements/compounds will be mined. When they can be bought, that may at times be easier to manage. The main thing to remember is that they can all be found and used rather easily and used safely.

 

[AudubonB]

Schoolbook economics equation do not work. It's much simpler to look at the abundance and accessibility of the material in the Earth's crust. Mines will open if they must. It's nearly irrelevant to consider present day production capacity. It's a geology/physics question, not so much an economic one.



Have you looked at the car? The entire chassis, subframes, suspension parts, drivetrain parts, they are all made out of aluminum.

Not to mention the gigantic stamping machines that are producing Model S body panels give away the fact that raw sheets and billets of aluminum come in one end and leave the other end as cars. Gigafactory will basically have materials processing in-house, so the lithium coming in will be even less processed.

Yikes. It's not that you're wrong in any of those points, but I will once again gently suggest you are placing emphasis on more irrelevant criteria at the expense of what matters. I presented some guideposts as to how to start an analysis of the materials flow - you can use those or not, but using 'crustal abundance' is one breadcrumb that is going to lead you astray.

 

[ratsbew]

I remember a comment about Elon approaching a lithium mining company about directly buying the product from the mine. The gist of the quotations were that the mining company could offer drastically reduced raw material costs over commodity prices in such a partnership.

 

[macpacheco]

Geology issues (places available to mine) is the first half of getting useable materials to the Gigafactory.
Conversion of Bauxite mineral into Aluminum requires vast electricity. But of those materials listed, Oxygen and Aluminum are the easiest to obtain (available production worldwide in the millions of tons yearly). There are several very large Bauxite mines worldwide, lots of it is produced in my Brazil.

There is no shortage of available Lithium mining sites.

Nickel is also a widely available metal. Many operational mining sites, including in Canada.

Cobalt might actually be harder to obtain as most Cobalt in the world is mined in Congo and Zambia, while Lithium is mined even in the USA.
Anywhere a very valuable natural resource is found in Africa tends to attract military rebel movements.

From wikipedia it says there's a Lithium Cobalt Oxide (LiCoO2) composition, so one Cobalt atom for each Lithium atom, since Cobalt is about 10x heavier (per atom) than Lithium, it follows Li-Ion batteries require about 10x the weight in Cobalt than Lithium.
Perhaps Cobalt supplies are the most critical for the Giga factories I think. I'm not a Chemist or Geologist, just trying to make sense of wikipedia, chemistry and lots of time spent talking to mining professionals from Vale (the Brazilian based multinational mining company). Vale produces every metal listed on the materials required to make Li Ion cells (mines all ores and process some into the final usable metal). My dad retired as an executive of Vale (running one of its Aluminum production joint ventures with Alcoa before retiring).

 

[TheAustin]

This is almost an irrelevant question...Lithium Ion batteries are what's working NOW, but they will not factor into the future of electric cars...It's the next wave of battery innovation that will matter. Maybe it's lithium air...Maybe it's graphene...Maybe it's something else...But my point is, I don't think Tesla is going to hedge to far into the Lithium Ion direction, knowing that the future will most likely hold something else. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if Tesla themselves are the ones to pioneer the next generation battery chemistry. But they will certainly take advantage of it once it presents itself.