Good News & Bad News, page-177

@SF@HC .........."I think I will rely on groups like BMI who spend 100% of their resources on tracking the battery capacity and raw material requirements to feed those factories."

"My calcs on LCE demand for 2023 are as follows;"
827 GWh. 827 GWh x 0.9kg/kwh = 744kt of LCE.

- All other uses of LCE (i.e. phones, laptops, tools, medical devices, glass/ceremics, grease and shite we haven't thought of yet) = 180kt of LCE

= 924kt LCE demand by 2023 from the above sectors."

On using BMI information, the video I linked to was from Simon Moore on July 4th 2019.

https://www.benchmarkminerals.com/w...ies-and-electric-vehicles-on-al-jazeera-news/

I agree about using their information. He clearly states the world use of LCE is around 1 million tonnes by the mid 2020's at about the 2 minute mark. He also talks of around 1.9Twh of batteries by 2029.

If the number was 827 Gwh by 2023 the growth rate would slow down markedly to get to only 1900 Gwh by 2029. There are many prediction about the future growth rate, so I tried to take the one piece of consensus I could find which was the 1Mt of LCE by 2025 from a few different well known sources (including BMI, Roskill, Joe Lowry, SQM and ALB)
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-rel...-2018-to-about-740-gwh-by-2025-300865447.html

That is a different view again, but I just wanted to use the 2018 number of 150 Gwh for 2018 as the starting reference point (not their 2025 prediction).

The 150 Gwh number for 2018 works out well for the LCE of ~278,000t for 2018, with 'other' uses of lithium of around 140k-145k tonnes.

To get to 827 Gwh of battery production would be a growth rate of about 41%/yr to 2023. However to get to the BMI prediction of 1.9 Twh by 2029, would mean battery production growth rate would then slow down to about 15%/yr between 2023 to 2029.


That type of change in growth rate of battery factories does not make sense with the acceleration in the number of EVs expected to be built through the mid 2020's. It is much more likely that battery production will be less up to 2023 then keep growing at a good rate.

I've been trying to work what is most likely to happen, not what I want to happen, as there are so many different predictions about future battery and EV growth, that any of us could choose whatever source aligns with our wishes, so we have some references. Realistically all the different predictions will end up being out, as there are unaccounted factors that will change the future. Perhaps there will be a near term recession that stifles investment, or perhaps the trade war does it, or perhaps the price of oil goes through the roof and accelerates adoption of EVs, we just don't know.