Hi Scarpa thanks again to you and
@Sjlasx for indulging and developing the notion of “so how many EVs each year could
theoretically drive out of the Altura ‘garage” *
And thank you for intuiting one of my next questions, which was “ If one tonne of raw spod equals ..say.. 22 EV batteries, how much of that tonne gets whittled away before it ends up as the lithium in each battery...
To that I first read your take as 800- 900
grams of lithium per KWh (ie o.9 kg) but I see you meant
nine kilograms? [as per your previous {linked} post that 50KWh: “ roughly translates to 45 kg of LCE in each battery.]
......So if you multiply the 45kg of end product by the
(theoretical) 22.2 EVs in each tonne, you have each tonne of Altura grade spodumene producing 999kg of lithium ?(according to my calculator).
- Which means approximately 90% of each tonne ends up being burnt off or scrapped?
-But this doesn’t sound right?
But if it is - for anyone else out there who is visually rather than numerically minded - this figuring can perhaps be imagined by chopping off and keeping only the head of a saltwater crocodile.
..being one of the examples of visual tonnes provided by a Google search.
Spoiler : See here... https://weightofstuff.com/things-that-weigh-one-ton/
List of Things That Weigh One Ton
Written by
Niklas in
Weight of Random Stuff
Sharing is caring.
Most people go through their lives without fully understanding the weight of the things around them. Some things weigh so much it is difficult to comprehend how heavy they truly are.
One ton is the equivalent of 2000 pounds or 1000 kg’s. To put this into perspective, the average adult male weighs about 200 pounds or 90 kg’s. It would take ten adult men to equal a ton.
If you have ever wondered about things that weigh one ton, take a look at the following list. These 26 things all weigh one ton, and some may surprise you!
Ocean Sunfish Baby Humpback Whale Walrus Right Whale testicles Black Rhinoceros Wild Asian Water Buffalo 1979 Volkswagen Beetle Flagstaff Hardside Pop-up Camper The Liberty Bell Chevrolet Chevette 5 Megabytes of data in 1965 110.6 million feathers and 333 Standard Red Bricks 73 Bullion bars of gold 31.2 cubic feet of saltwater 20 yards of the track of the New York City Subway System American Percheron Draft Horse Adult Male Polar Bear Bass Cat Jaguar Boat Adult Male Moose Live Oak Tree Award-Winning Pumpkin The Mark 84 Bomb Saltwater Crocodile Giraffe 22 cubic feet of sand Great White Shark .
*disclaimer : ultimately only 46% of lithium ends up in EVs according to the Australian Government in June 202o
[ref] and there is no official data that indicates 100% of Altura spodumen goes to EVs.
For further reading on the many uses of lithium see this useful link from AVZ which seems to be dated December 2016
[here]
Rupfel thanks for this link -essentially direct from Tesla - it informs Tesla delivered
174,525 Teslas in the six months to end of June - ie it delivered 90,650 cars during Q2 , and 88,400 cars
in the first quarter .
FWIW to anyone out there, the Cox forecast I posted earlier
[here] had predicted US Tesla sales would be down 4% on last year’s half yearly figures - from 83,875 in June 2019 down to 80,550.
I presume the CNN story quoted global sales not just US ones Rupfel?
It would be interesting to see how correct Cox was on its’ US predictions ?
cheers
(20min delay)