Interesting article, but there is one absolutely gobsmacking fact that Paul failed to include in his article ...
CAN WE MAKE ENOUGH BATTERIES ???
The average Tesla S battery pack contains ~63 kg of Li. Ref:
https://electrek.co/2016/11/01/breakdown-raw-materials-tesla-batteries-possible-bottleneck/
The current World Mine Reserves of Li are 14,000,000 tonnes. Ref:
https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/lithium/mcs-2017-lithi.pdf
Now 14,000,000,000 / 63 = 222,000,000 Tesla S battery packs.
Basically, there is enough proven mine reserves (can be mined on an economical basis) of Li in the world to replace every existing car in the United States ONLY (ONCE).
What happens after that? Yes we will discover more Li but it is not as abundant as iron or silicon.
Yes the first article bangs on about Co as well, but it is the one element of a Li-ion battery that is recoverable/recyclable.
