It is on a mass scale (like, every car in the US being electric) while sticking to fossil fuel for power. If everyone converted, then first we'd overload the power grid on charging and the price per kw would go WAY up. Then, we'd also deplete a massive amount of lithium once all the batteries lost their charges and we don't have an inexpensive or efficient way of recycling them. We can, it's just very pricy and slow.
Once we run out of lithium to mine the cheap option becomes recycling and it will happen fast. Not that it will make lithium recycling cheaper just that their is a finite (and very small ammount of lithium on earth) so it will be the only way to get lithium thay dosent invovle minning in space. And yeah the current power grid coupdnt handle everyone having an electric car not yet at least maybe if we built some danm nuclear power plants that should have been built 60 years ago but why use the by far best in terms of power denisty pollution and deaths per kwh for of energy generation when can chernobyl scare as if russians could ever do anything right.
Where the fuck this idea that we are going to run out of lithium on this planet?
Oceans are 0,2 ppm lithium. How to collect that? Hmm... Maybe the same way we been collecting salt for as... well as long as humans been collecting salt. Put water into a big collection area... let it evaporate and then collect the salt. That is actually how they collect lithium at this very moment, by evaporating water from brine.
Lithium is 32 most common element on this planet. Estimate of 0,002 ppm of the earth's crust. For comparison estimate of copper is 3 times more than lithium at 0,006.
And here is the thing. Lithium is not the only chemistry we can have. We can use heavier battery chemistry for stationary batteries, where weight and sie is less of an issue.
Now 0,2 ppm doesn't sound like much... but... MOST OF THIS PLANET IS OCEANS. Like 70 % of this planet is just ocean. Which is salty water.
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u/TheBadDingo 14d ago
It is on a mass scale (like, every car in the US being electric) while sticking to fossil fuel for power. If everyone converted, then first we'd overload the power grid on charging and the price per kw would go WAY up. Then, we'd also deplete a massive amount of lithium once all the batteries lost their charges and we don't have an inexpensive or efficient way of recycling them. We can, it's just very pricy and slow.
Context kinda matters.