Hi guys, can I just put something into perspective. Whilst I think there is a good deal of money to be made on lithium in the short term, I think that it is a fad, because when you consider the broader implications of switching from liquid fuels to batteries the maths does not work. Things will change in ways we can not imagine, and my little sums here only consider cars and transportation, not any other kind of energy use or generation.
Consider your average Toyota Hilux. It weighs about 1500kg and has a 60 litre tank. A diesel engine is about 40% efficient at converting the energy in diesel to mechanical energy to propel the car forward. Dielse has a energy density of about 45 megajoules/kg and a physical density of about 0.85 litres/kg. So out of 60 litres or 51 kg of diesel, you'll have about 918 MJ of usable energy.
(45MJ/kg * 40% = 18 MJ/kg. 60 litres * 0.85 l/kg = 51kg. 18*51=918 MJ).
Lets run the same figures with an EV.
For convenience, lets say an electric motor is 100% efficient (they're about 80-90%). The energy density of a lithium ion battery at the upper end is about 0.8 MJ/kg. so if you want a Hilux, that runs on electricity and for about 600kms like mine does, you'll need about 1150kg of batteries. That doesn't leave much room in the tray for the dog.
Transportation is only a very small part of the equation, but hopefully its enough to get the cogs turning in our heads. All cars, if they were to be able to continue travelling for the distances they do now would either have to radically change the material structure of the vehicle to accommodate an extra 1500kg in weight for the batteries (don't even worry about the physical size of the batteries, but you would need to put the batteries in a trailer); the battery technology would have to exponential improve (it is limited by laws of physics; don't hold your breath); or we would have to accept that all vehicles are limited to about a 100-200 km range, and a Hyundai Excell size. To transport a parcel from one end of perth to the other would now mean an extra driver to pick it up halfway. A trip to the countryside for the weekend will now have to stretch out for a week to allow for charging times (dont count on fast charging methods to fix this,
the toyota lead engineer has said so). Consider what this means for bulk good transport, which in Australia mainly done with trucks. Our country is the size of the US with half the population of Spain. The switch will be fckn painful to say the least. Our rail networks have been run into the ground and are barely used anymore so that as a backup is dead in the water.
The best we can hope for in the lithium ion market is a small pop in the price, but it will never take hold and allow us to drive little priuss everywhere. Our lives will change beyond what we know now before it does and the effect on lithium of all this happening will essentially be negated.
Please correct me if I am wrong.
#gold
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