A great post by Dwayne Sparkes on X
I'm still sticking to my guns that we are going to struggle to get enough lithium to support the growth of EVs and batteries.Here's a bit of a different take that i had whilst sipping my morning coffee. I think future lithium discoveries are going to decrease significantly, more than people are anticipating. Here are my thoughts:The easy deposits have been found and that's just enough to meet current supply/demand predictions for the short term (i still don't think lepidolite is a real long term solution).Almost all of the discoveries that have been made within Australia have been off known pegmatites that were mapped decades ago. In fact, I've got an old book that essentially had all of these pegmatites mapped. KV, Yinnetharra, Tabba Tabba, etc. were all mapped many years ago. When the lithium boom happened, prospectors essentially pegged all of these pegmatites and tested them for lithium. Using the well known association between lithium with tin and tantalum, you could track down spodumene by using old tin and tantalum deposits. They all outcropped to surface also. The majority of these pegmatites that were mapped many years ago have now been pegged and tested.So the easy stuff is gone. The 100 years worth of mapping WA's pegmatites has led the current wave of discoveries. What next? Going forward, we are going to need a higher rate of discoveries given the rate the EV and battery market is growing, but this time, they are going to need to come from undercover (no outcrop). They will be much harder to find. How many discoveries have been made undercover so far? Maybe 1 if you count $TG6's deposit.I do believe hard rock lithium undercover is difficult to find. Firstly, pegmatites have no magnetic signature. Geophysics may help find faults, but they won't help you much in targeting pegmatites directly. In terms of geochemistry, lithium is extremely mobile in soils meaning it doesn't stick around making geochemistry complex. You need to target soil for pathfinders Rb, Ta, Sn, etc. given they are less mobile In soil. As far as I'm aware, zero discoveries have been made off drilling pathfinders in soil. Given the current price of Lithium, it would be difficult for companies to warrant drilling soils with just elevated pathfinders IMO. Using the K/Rb ratio to determine the fractionation of soil is good but questionable in my opinion. It's still an effective tool, but it works best when it's just done on feldspar crystals. Your soil is going to be made up of a combination of quartz, feldspar, host rock, etc. hence your ratio will end up diluted, making things more complex.Obviously there will always be rare cases like Andover where an outcrop of pegmatite was stumbled across, but it will be rare IMO. 100 years of mapping WA pegmatites has allowed us to keep up with current supply demand. Not sure how we will continue to make these discoveries to meet demand going forwards given the rapid rate of growth in EV/batteries we are seeing! Thanks for reading!
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