@paulgf I cannot quote your post as quoting a large post seems to trigger a bug on HotCopper where clicking the 'Post Message' will not be actioned. Not sure if it has happened to you but it has happened to me quite a lot and to others which you can discover via a Google search. So I set out this morning to track down the reason.
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Some interesting points raised there Paul. Science should definitely prevail but I hope that the economic and geopolitical upheavals that we are currently seeing in this modern world of unbridled consumption do not persist for more than a few years. I would love to have a debate with you about some of those issues but this is not the forum for that. We might be able to catch up for a drink one day if our lithium investments do as well as we hope.
As for the extent of non-ocean based lithium, I have to rely on the experts. Improvements in human knowledge and technology may potentially allow us to exploit lithium from the oceans in a sustainable fashion. But we have to be able to convince the masses to elect people to power who will look beyond populism and use their short term in office to actually do something about the long-term issues facing the world. Consider, for example, the disaster that we have brought upon ourselves with the ever-increasing plastic waste going into our oceans (particularly micro-plastics) and that we do not even have the political will to resolve such a potentially devastating crisis. Yet it is a crisis that affects every living creature in, above, and around, the oceans. Unfortunately it remains the case that political parties, of all persuasions, increasingly view hanging onto power as an end in itself.
I have great hopes for the pending battery powered revolution because it plays equally to profits and environmental sustainability.
When I researched my post on the extent of lithium demand, I should have pointed out more strongly that one of the key takeaways is the important issue of battery recycling. Others have since raised this as an increasingly important factor influencing demand. Because batteries only last for a finite period and vehicle manufacturers now provide warranties for those 'end-of-life' batteries. This means that it is far more valuable to recycle them than to toss them into landfill. What would seem to be an extremely difficult process is now understood well enough that we can already extract an enormous amount of lithium from a recycled battery in just two core steps (the breakdown to a 'black mass' and then the chemical cycle allowing extraction of the original battery minerals). The battery recycling industry is already large and there seems to be increasing opportunities for investment. Science is providing many chemistry alternatives for the recycling process but the 'hub and spoke element architecture' (used by players such as Li-Ion and Neometals 'Primobius JV') seems to be very adaptable. In 10 years or so, David Jimenez believes that the amount of recycled lithium will be the equivalent of "the world's greatest lithium mine". I am keeping a close eye on local stocks that hope to reap significant rewards from this recycling industry.Just added a video, that some people may have already seen, from Li-Cycle which explains the 'hub and spoke' tech in a very simple manner: go to
https://li-cycle.com/technology/ then click the 'Watch' button.
(20min delay)