Welcome > Themes > Hybrid & Electric > Opinion > Burning issue 4: li-ion
THE BURNING ISSUE 4: From oil shortage to lithium-ion shortage?
Whether to become more oil-independent, to save the environment, for business purposes, or for all those reasons together, many politicians, interest groups and part of the automotive industry have high hopes for electric vehicles. The battery packs these vehicles need are preferably of the lightest possible kind. As lithium is the lightest existing metal, it is particularly suitable for this purpose. But some experts are warning the industry against making mobility lithium-dependent.
Like hydrogen, lithium does not occur naturally in elemental form; it has to obtained and processed. In North Carolina, Zimbabwe, Manitoba, Canada and Western Australia lithium is available in rock-like form. But more and more a brine-based product is used instead, which is obtained primarily in Bolivia, Chile and Nevada.
Delighted
Let's first elaborate on the positive side. Lithium-ion, or li-ion, technology can enable large-scale electric mobility. More testing is needed to develop high-safety, high-effective and affordable batteries for this purpose, but the German Ministry of Education and Research, for instance, is funding a high-energy li-ion battery consortium headed by BASF with EUR 21 million. It will only be a matter of time before the third and fourth generation batteries will be on the market and in our cars.
In the current economic hardship, both industry and politicians are delighted with the possibilities. In the United States, the Obama administration are preparing a refreshingly 'green' transportation and infrastructure package. Electric vehicles (EVs) fit seemlessly into the new policy. Moreover, politicians cannot but welcome the new jobs the li-ion battery industry could create. Massachusetts based li-ion battery makers A123 Systems have applied for USD 1.8 billion (EUR 1.3 billion) from the Energy Department to build a seven-million-square-foot factory in Detroit. The company wants to supply multiple car makers with enough batteries for a total of five million hybrids or a half million plug-in EVs annually by 2013, and needs about fourteen thousand employees to do so.
Downside
On the downside, however, the li-ion business comes with health and environmental risks and possibly a strategic risk as well. First of all, as explained on the
Daily Green website, the most cost-effective method to obtain lithium is to evaporate brine in ponds lined with toxic PVC plastic. Lithium is corrosive, and breathing its dust can irritate nose and throat; in big doses, it can cause fluid build-up in the lungs. It also presents a fire hazard.
On a larger scale: in a December 2006 report,
The trouble with lithium, Meridian International Research writes that the world's supply is just 6.2 million metric tonnes. "Analysis shows that a world dependent on lithium for its vehicles could soon face even tighter resource constraints than we face today with oil," the report says.Bolivia is believed to harbour half of the world's lithium reserves. The country supposedly has plans to nationalise its lithium industry, which could make Bolivia the 'Saudi Arabia of lithium'.
Bolivia is the new Saudi Arabia
Pending threat
Is it only a matter of time before li-ion shortage has replaced oil shortage as a threat to our mobility? Not everyone agrees. When we asked materials chemistry professor Josh Thomas of Swedish Uppsala University for comment, he replied: "Li shortage ? ---- NOT in the foreseeable future; unlike the situation for OIL!"
Charles Gassenheimer, CEO of battery maker Ener1, supplyer to Norwegian car maker Think Global, states on the Daily Green website: "The amount of lithium in a lithium-ion battery is very low when compared to other substances (...) There's not likely to be a problem until 2020 at the earliest." Gassenheimer is confident that new sources in both the brine and rock-like forms will be found to meet demand.
But these are just relative reassurences. If oil shortage poses a more immediate threat, that does not mean it is wise to invest in the next short-term solution. And 2020 is not that far off.
Debate
Is it wise to invest in the growth of the li-ion industry, or does that mean we'll be investing in the next big problem? Is there even a problem, or would it be foolish to let future problems that may not even occur in the end, thwart the industry's ambitions? Let's get a debate started: share your view below (in comments) and we'll follow up with more extensive expert opinions.
Download PDF version of this page
Link
Janowski
Thursday 28 May 2009