Do we have enough lithium for the EV boom?, page-15

Happy,

Always enjoy your posts, informative and well written even if I don't always agree with your sentiments on Lithium oversupply.

When you have 5 minutes can you look over the article below and let me know your thoughts.



http://www.greentechmedia.com/artic...ntain-the-Growth-of-the-Lithium-Ion-Battery-M

The U.S. Geological Survey produced a reserves estimate of lithium in early 2015, concluding that the world has enough known reserves for about 365 years of current global production of about 37,000 tons per year (Figure 1). Current production goes to a little over one-third for ceramics, almost one-third for batteries, and miscellaneous uses for the last one-third. The same report finds about 39.5 million metric tons of “resources,” which is a less firm category than “reserves.” "Resources" include supplies that could feasibly be extracted economically at some point in the future, whereas reserves estimates refer to current economic viability.

Even though 365 years of reserve supply sounds very comforting, the point of the EV and stationary storage revolutions is that current demand will shoot up, way up, if these revolutions do happen. The 100 Gigafactories scenario could come true. And if that happens, the 365-year supply would be less than a 17-year supply (13.5 million tons of reserves divided by 800,000 = 16.9 years).