Where We’re Going We Won’t Even Need Lithium: A Neurotic Look at Our Energy Future
Editor’s Note: Gas 2.0 writer Karen Pease has written a response to this post entitled “Lithium Counterpoint: No Shortage For Electric Cars.”
So I stumbled across a time machine the other day and made my way into the future. I noticed something rather bizarre while I was riding my hover-board and wearing a pair of Air McFlys. First I couldn’t pump any more gas into my Delorean, so I asked the good people of the undisclosed future what they used for fuel. They used lithium-powered batteries, and their supply was running out…
For the record, I support all forms of alternative energy. Anything but oil I say, it’s a relic of the Cold War as far as I’m concerned. But what will be the future of energy? Well, my time machine wasn’t completely accurate. While I sincerely hope that we can establish an electric infrastructure, it appears that the market will decide our energy future (for more on the economics, read my last post).
- » See also: Leo Motors CEO Dr. Robert Kang on the Future of Electric Vehicles
- » Get Gas 2.0 by RSS or sign up by email.
In the scientific community, we keep running into this massive roadblock known commonly as thermodynamics. It’s an intimidating word for an intimidating world-view. Simply, thermodynamics states that we just reuse matter. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can only be converted. It appears that we will only be converting matter to energy for the next, oh I don’t know, maybe million years or so? Sorry, my imagination couldn’t take me much further past 2015 (plus I had a broken flux-capacitor).
There is a huge philosophical implication here. Won’t we eventually run out of everything we can possibly use for energy? Following this logic, that would mean that we could only use ethanol from corn to power the world’s economy. I believe in progress above all, and I sincerely hope that someone, somewhere is thinking about completely redesigning the engine. According to William Tahil of the Meridian International Research Group, the Earth only has 35 million tons of Lithium available and we only know where to find 15 million tons of that total. I know that seems like a lot, but remember what we used to think about oil? Our great grandfathers probably shouldn’t have bathed in it for health reasons and our futures.
So maybe it is the Woody Allen inside of me talking, but isn’t it totally feasible that we run out of lithium someday just like we are running out of gasoline? The age of cheap gasoline is over, and soon the age of relatively cheap gasoline will be a memory as well. As a nation we hardly even blinked. There was some yelling by that old guy running for president about removing a gas tax to save us from high prices, but I feel like people would rather just deal with the price hike than change lifestyles.
After a bit of research I found that the lithium supply more closely mirrors our silicon supply. We have enough of it to theoretically meet our demands for now and the foreseeable future, its just that most of it is currently tied up. Lithium is a highly reactive element and is very rarely found on its own, ready to make into a lithium battery (like silicon, which is readily found in sand, but needs to be separated to be useful).
I know this all seems a little far-fetched, but just think about what pulling lithium from our ecosystems would do to them. All ecosystems are cyclic and each part is important to how it runs on its own. We won’t fully understand how lithium fits into the world until we start pulling it out. If everyone drove electric cars (and more than one, like a normal American family), imagine how much lithium would be needed! On the other hand, not tapping into lithium for electric cars would be like not doing homework because the universe is expanding. It just doesn’t make economic sense. It’s best to ignore these very large and general fears because they are inevitable. But there is one thing that we can do, especially a nation as rich as America. We can strive for efficiency.
We should not worry so much about a new energy infrastructure as much as we should worry about being efficient with the supplies we do have. Efficiency is key to never having an energy crisis again. I got some great feedback on my last post stressing efficiency over all forms of alternate energy, and I couldn’t agree more with that sentiment. We’re not talking just about transportation, but we need American industries to stop wasting gasoline and investing in more sustainable energy sources. If we had been worrying all along, none of this would be an issue.
It’s a fast rule of economics that we never run out of anything because when we do we just find a new resource to fill the void. Sorry to get neurotic again, but that is an awfully scary concept. What happens when we get to the point where there is nothing else to switch to? I guess worrying about that is a lot like worrying about the sun burning out. But just because it is so far away, doesn’t mean it won’t happen.
If you tend to worry a lot like me, follow these links:
- My Mileage is Better Than Your Mileage
- 100+ EcoDriving Tips to get Better Mileage in Your Car
- Toshiba’s Super-Charged Battery: Nearly Full in 5 Minutes
- Lithium Batteries
Thanks to Matt Comi for the image, under Flickr’s Creative Commons.
Here is the rest of William Tahil’s research on the element Lithium.
Nothing is forever, not even the human race. My bet is that we will go extinct, mostly because of our own limitations, long before we run out of every energy source.
So is this optimism or pessimism? I’m not sure, but I don’t see any way for us to hold on until the sun burns out. We as a species are not competent enough to do that.
We do not havean energy crisis. We have plenty of energy available - for several hundred years anyway - from coal nuclear natural gas and alternatives like wind, geothermal, solar when they become economically attractive. Also, bio fuels as long as their production does not impact food production - cellulosic and algae derived - are interesting alternatives. We do have a crude oil, or generally liquid energy crisis. Liquid energy is the only form of energy suitable for transportation. All energy, coal, electricity and natural gas are convertible into liquid fuel. The technical problems, while are significant, are solvable and less challenging and less expensive than alternative energies like wind and solar. One of the problem these solutions are facing, that they are being ignored because are being accused of contributing to global warming. This is nonsense. In the geologic history of the earth, carbon dioxide concentrations were higher, often by orders of magnitude than they are today. In fact, if you think about it all the fossil fuels that we have and burning have been derived from atmospheric carbon dioxide
Run out of resources? When we have the whole darn Universe to play with, and the means (since 04 October 1957) to get “out there”?
Anthony, grab a clue!
*yeesh*
If your interested in real science visit http://www.gasresources.net where you will learn that oil cannot come from fossils or any biological material because of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.
Oil is a renewing resource produced deep, 100+ km, in the earths crust and travels from the depths through deep fissures.
‘The high-pressure genesis of petroleum hydrocarbons has been demonstrated using only the solid reagents solid iron oxide, FeO, and marble, CaCO3, 99.9% pure, wet with triple-distilled water.’
The earth has always produced oil, continues to produce oil and will alway produce oil. Its the product of an iron core and a carbon based crust rubbing together.
The old unscientific ‘fossil’ fuel story is maintained to cause fears of oil scarcity to drive the price up and keep it up.
Hydrogen could end up to be the most efficient means of storing energy.
There’s a key flaw in the author’s logic: We’re not running out of gasoline–we’re running out of freedom.
If the foreign-oil-company-bribery-bought regulations that were put into place in 1973 in the United States to keep American oil companies (except the biggest, Bush-owned ones) from functioning were rescinded, the HUGE deposits, which are currently sitting untapped, would be opened up, and (1) we would have plenty of petroleum again, (2) America would become the world’s principle supplier of oil again, (3) gas prices would drastically lower (especially in the U.S.A.), and mom-n-pop oil companies (which were all forced out of business by those regulations) would crop back up.
i think there’s a problem with your time machine. Within 5 years, let alone 15, chemical batteries will be completely replaced with ultracapacitors which will probably be made of carbon, which we seems to have plenty of around…
Perhaps Algae.
Or microbs that make fuel.
Liquid or compress H2 is terible.
NH3 is much better for a whole host of reasons.
Easy to make, liquid at much higher temperatures, and lower pressures, and 50% more H in every molecule.
NH3>>>fuel cell>>>electric cars>>>no carbon emmission.
When you get the N from atmosphere, the H from water, and put it together, it is totally clean and natural when you use it. The N goes back to the atmosphere, and the H to water.
Lithium wont work as a fuel for the future unless batteries become very efficient, and longer lasting.
Currently lithium batteries “burn” out become oxidized every 4-5 years
Thousands of dollars will have to be spent to buy new batteries to replace the old ones.
There is only 35 million tons of easily recoverable lithium in the world,and only 15 of that is available now.
Lots of extra energy would be needed to extrat lithium from other sources. A giant Lithium infrastructure would have to be built. The US would have to build hundred of powerplants to power all the electric cars.
This is a call to end suburbs. Suburbs are stupid anyway. Citys are the technological evolution of our civilization. Cities are highly efficient, suburbs are wasteful. The great infrastructure of highways and cars wouldnt be needed if we all lived in cities.
Interesting article, though not particularly realistic. EV’s and Gas Hybrids will still not be found in large numbers by 2010-2012 as they are not sustainable and not particularly green. The migration through Clean Diesel, biodiesel and syndiesel blends to B100 and S100 have the best chance for success. If you want to know why the world is using petroleum based oil, research the funding of Prohibition by Rockefeller and Standard Oil.