Electric vehicles web-journal EV World has done the English-speaking world a favor by translating an excellent Peak Lithium story written last week by Le Monde journalist Hervé Kempf. What is Peak Lithium you ask? The notion that a wholesale shift to EVs powered by lithium batteries in response to peaking petroleum production could just as quickly exhaust the global supply of lithium metal.
Kempf credits a May 2008 study by consultancy Meridian International Research -- The Trouble with Lithium 2 -- as the source of growing concern over peak lithium; the study concluded that reasonable increases in lithium production over the next decade will generate enough of the light, energetic metal to produce batteries for only 8 million batteries of the sort that GM plans to use in its Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid.
But he does his own homework, providing an accessible introduction to the geological distribution of lithium and its likely magnitude. I say 'likely' because Kempf shows that industrial secrecy makes it difficult to assess the probability of a peak lithium scenario prematurely squelching the electrification of the automobile.
As George Pichon, CEO of French metals trader Marsmétal puts it in Kempf's piece, the world of a lithium metal is "un monde fermé."
Alas, its a just little less closed today thanks to Le Monde and EV World.
You can follow the monde link here. I'm torn on the issue. The idea of giving another relatively unstable country the power that Saudi Arabia has (although I think it unlikely to get quite to that point) worries me. On the other hand it could be a tremendous source of income in the region. It's also clear that there's a certain irony in pushing these new green technologies when they themselves are the result of waste. At least lithium can be recycled. Still, I think alternate modes of transportation will be needed. My money is on having Satyr drive a rickshaw.
5 comments:
Driving a rickshaw could be a very interesting summer job. Especially if it was one of those neat hybrid solar powered ones.
Et la Bolivie ne sera jamais comme les sales émirats arabes et leur dégoûtante mère l'Arabie Saoudite. Pourquoi?
Parce que la Bolivie est socialiste! L'arabie saoudite et les autres émirats, avec tous les milliards de dollars engrangés au cours des 50 dernières années, n'a rien réinvesti pour le peuple! Juste des infrastructure pour les riches par les riches. Ce qui fait que ces imbéciles, lorsque le pétrole aura disparu, seront pris avec les ruines de leur ignorance et leur stupidité démesurée (dubaï).
Si la Bolivie devait avoir la chance d'obtenir autant de richesses, il est évident que le peuple bolivien, et même les autres peuples avoisinant en bénéficierait en premier.
Suddenly, we'll hear that the cruceños won't want to separate anymore. They'll instead want to retake Colla country. The question now is, where will the natives go? As soon as their land is of interest, they lose it.
isnt Evo Moralles a native?
PENIS PRODUCTS!
Post a Comment