$576M Mkt cap for a bunch of rocks, page-114

He is talking of recycling to try and make the resource last hundreds of years (rather than less than a century). In one of his papers I believe he estimates usable lithium will last around 50 years if demand continues as he thinks and if there is no recycling (due to 2 factors, increasing use and difficulty of extraction).


Even if recycling keeps the resource in play, it doesn't make new lithium - it just re-uses what has been extracted (and recycling involves costs itself).

So how much lithium do you need in the cycle? (ie use->recycle->reuse-> recycle -> etc) before we don't need to extract more?.

And at what point does recycling become uneconomical or impossible (recycling requires inputs as well - of energy and resources and money and there is no 100% efficiency - you will lose resource).

You may know the answer. I don't.

My gut would say though that even if we could cheaply and efficiently recycle lithium now, the current resources in play now are not going to be enough. More will be needed to be extracted. May be wrong of course.