Lithium is the first of the Group I elements of the periodic table - one of the base metals. It is a highly reactive white metal and less dense than water. Pure, metallic lithium is obtained by electrolysis of lithium salts at high temperature. Because it is so highly reactive it quickly tarnishes when exposed to air, acquiring a dark black coating.
Lithium and lithium compounds have several legitimate commercial uses and and at least one criminal use in the synthesis of methamphetamine. Lithium’s principle commercial use is in the manufacture of long-life and rechargeable batteries.
Non-rechargeable lithium batteries are used extensively in electronic devices such as calculators, cameras, computers, electronic games and watches. The BIOS battery on your PC - the coin-sized metallic disk with “CR2032 3 volts” stamped on one side with the manufacturer’s name - is powered by an electrochemical reaction involving lithium.
Rechargeable lithium (or lithium-ion) batteries are used in video cameras, portable computers and telephones, and cordless tools - this use of lithium is expected to grow, as rechargeable lithium batteries are more compact than alternatives such as nickel metal hydride (NiMH) batteries. The Japanese car manufacturer Toyota is looking to replace the NiMH used batteries in current models of their hybrid electric vehicle, the Toyota Prius, with lithium-ion batteries. A switch from NiMH to lithium-ion batteries in automotive uses, together with increased use of hybrid vehicles would increase the demand for lithium enormously - and possibly create a few interesting economic and geopolitical problems.
The world’s largest lithium producer is the Chilean company SQM (listed on the New York Stock Exchange). According to the brief history on the company web-site:
SQM was founded in 1968 to reorganize the Chilean nitrate industry. In the course of the first phase the ownership was shared between the Chilean State and the CompañÃa Nitratera Anglo Lautaro S.A. During the second phase the industry was nationalised and was thus fully owned by the Chilean State. Finally in 1983 the process of privatisation started and was successfully completed in 1988. Today SQM invests in its customers: in understanding their most profound needs and offering them the best business formulae to guarantee their growth.
The nationalisation of SQM hapened in 1971 under the government of Salvador Allende regime; the privatisation process under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. While it was in state hands the company was controlled by the Corporación de Fomento de la Producción (CORFO). CORFO’s name in English is the Chilean Economic Development Agency - established in 1939, CORFO pre-dates the Allende and Pinochet eras by a few decades and has survived both.
According to a March 2006 press release (pdf), SQM earned revenues of $81.4 million (US) in 2005 from the sale of 27,800 tonnes of lithium and lithium derivatives (principally lithium carbonate). This is a return of $2928 per tonne, which suggests that there is something a bit off in the US Geological Survey time series data on lithium prices which quote a price of $1720 per tonne in 2004 (based on lithium carbonate prices).
Although SQM is the largest lithium producer, as a mining company it’s small potatoes: it’s total revenues (across 4 business divisions) were 895.9 million dollars US in 2005. By comparison, BHP Billiton had revenues in 2006 of 44 billion Australian dollars, with profits of 14 billion. The Australian Surfwear makers Billabong had revenues of 1.025 billion Australian dollars, which is roughly equivalent to SQM’s 2005 revenues (hat tip to Brian Bahnisch for the figures).
On 15 June, 2007 a seller in Argentina offered an ingot of 15 grams of lithium for sale on eBay at a price of $65.00 US, plus $10 postage and handling. That’s a total “street” price of $5.00 US per gram, if you’re looking for lithium for amateur or criminal use. $5 per gram works out to $5000 per kilogram, or $5 million per tonne. This is either a typical case of an eBay seller not knowing the market price of their wares, or an indication of the kind of price premium you have to pay for the privilege of turning legally traded commodities to illegal ends (a quick check of the seller’s eBay page suggested that the latter is more likely).
On a country by country basis (PDF file), the biggest producers of lithium are Chile, Australia, China, Russia and Argentina; of those Chile and Argentina are the leaders in producing lithium carbonate from brines. This is the most useful form of lithium for the production of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Such as those Toyota is rumoured to be developing for its 2008 Prius. Which brings us to those economic and geopolitical problems I mentioned earlier.
Postscript: if you want a look at where all that lithium carbonate comes from, here’s a Google Map.
So, basically, we should be moving away from the Lithium-based technology when it comes to electric cars? Am I understanding the post correctly?
Hey, does there have to be a ’should’ in there? That was just a fascinating post, for reasons unknown.
BBB
Absolutely, of course. Full of things to think about.
The last sentence in that report was curious - something about civilisation melting down.
Adam,
This post is a bit inconclusive, isn’t it? That’s one possible conclusion - another is that lithium technology isn’t going to save the car as we know it, or the car-dependent lifestyle we’ve developed over the course of one century.
Sooner or later we’ll have to bite the bullet on urban planning - at a local and national level. And maybe get used to the idea that we no longer live in a world where shitloads of stuff can be manufactured in China, and packed into shipping containers for sale in “The West”.
And no, it’s not about civilisation melting down - although the linked report does suggest that a lithium dependent global economy would have a few more problems than an oil dependent one. I remain mildly optimistic about the prospects for civilisation.
As an urbanite who loves walking and catching trains, this is not bad news for me. That is, until enough of those committed drivers decide to join me on the train, possibly with aggression issues intact. Perhaps the trains won’t be so nice then.
And remember kids. Don’t drink tea or coffee with your lithium, it make is less effective in keeping your bipolar manic episodes under control. F*CKING A BUBBA! I’M THE KING OF THE WORLD!
There is another problem with lithium. So long as it stays in its ionic form it is safe. If it is ever reduced to its mettalic form (due to excessive discharge or overcharge) it catches fire. There have been lots of fires with lithium laptop batteries. You can find video on the net. Commercial cells are hung about with safety chips, but they still catch fire. A laptop battery fire is one thing, a vehicle battery fire is another; the battery goes off like a huge bomb. Look to other metals in Group 1.
The problem for Capitalism is that its entire “success” is due to the enormous amount of really cheap energy embodied in oil. The average “value add” by low cost oil is over 80% in any commodity you care to name. There is no substitute for it when it comes to transport fuels. Don’t even think about hydrogen. The “hydrogen economy” is the biggest and most delusional wank of all time.
I always thought that lithium formed a white oxide when exposed to air and that to keep the stuff from oxidising you had to keep it in kero or something similar.To post an ingot I think you would have send it with its kero bath and to only charge $10 seems very naive.Maybe it was an “ingot” of the less reactive but still dangerous oxide which was for sale on ebay.
The science of battery construction from lithium is still in its infancy - think of the Apple ipods which had spectacular and firey battery failures.
Dany le roux wrote:
You might be thinking of Sodium. Lots of fun in chemistry class when the teacher drops some in a bucket of water.
Danny,
Lithium is stored in the same way as sodium - usually in a bath of oil.
It’s unlikely that you’d store a Group I element in kerosene - the flashpoint is a wee bit too low, and when the kero coated pellet of metal was exposed to air, nasty things might happen.
For postage, I suppose you might slip your little ingot into a jar of vaseline - and not tell the post office what you were actually posting. But that’s just supposition on my part - I’ve never actually shipped lithium to anyone.
Huggybunny,
You said: “The average “value addâ€? by low cost oil is over 80% in any commodity you care to name.”
I’m not sure what you mean by that - could you elaborate?
Cheers
BBB
Our school sodium was stored in kero with the advantage that you could see the stuff.Wiki says Li is stored in oil but you never know with the Yanks what they mean by “oil”ie it could refer to kero.Do they have a word for kero?They ascribe to some relatively long molecule hydrocarbons the name of “gas” when they put it in their cars but of course it is in a liquid form.”Heating oil” sounds like it started its etymological life in the US and as far as I know this stuff is kero.I think the important thing about the storage liquid would be a lack of oxygen molecules in the chain.
If I’ve understood you correctly you’re saying we won’t be able to solve the worlds energy problems with electric cars because there isn’t enough lithium for all the batteries in those those cars.
So it would seem that Lithium, like Robert mentioned in the recent post on Uranium have a similar problem: there is such a limited quantity available, it’s not going to be able to replace oil - despite what various cheer squads would have us believe.
Lithium is a more fascinating problem as electric cars are seen as “nice” unlike nuclear (I realise I’m making an incredibly loaded value judgement). I think the comment is right that urban planning will have to be part of the solution, but how do we get that to happen within the short term thinking dictated by the election cycle?
I was thinking about this today as I drove to work here in Canberra. It’s recently been decided not to proceed with a light rail system for the ACT because it’s $1 billion price tag is too expensive. Would that be the case if it rapidly has to be built in 20 years time because there is no more oil?
How do we get a visionary to put in better urban transport solutions? The catch is selling that they expect it to run at a loss for 10-20 years.
Off Topic: Am I allowed to gloat that I’ll be going to that part of Chile in a few months for holidays?
The Atacama desert is the driest place on the earth.
Gummo, do you know exactly where on that map is the mine?
Fozzy,
Sadly no. I’ve inferred that the lithium deposits (in the form of old salt lakes) are in that part of the world where Chile, Bolivia and Argentina meet. The SQM site mentions the “Salar Brines” - it may be the Salar de Atacama (there are a few others up there I think). The Bolivian reserves are around Uyuni (Salar de Uyuni).
Danny,
Long ago I lived in a house with oil heating. The oil was a denser than kerosene and nowhere near as volatile. Paraffin oil maybe.
Fozzy, while others have said so, I really don’t think uranium availability is going to be a problem. The people making the claims about running out next week assume a) no more uranium will be discovered (clearly false, given that a number of miners have been announcing discoveries in Australia), b) thorium will be unviable forever (probably false, given that India and Russia are trying it now) c) recycling will never take place (false, Japan, France, and the UK are already doing it), d) that new-generation reactors will have the same efficiency as old ones (false), and e) breeder reactors would not be developed if the price went up enough.
In any case, I’m also unconvinced by the paper Gummo’s linked to. On my brief perusal there appears to be a big sleight of hand in it - on one hand, he says that a form of low-cost reserve in South America will forever make alternatives economically unviable, and on the other says that we’ll run out of lithium as soon as those known low-cost reserves are used.
Gummo: “This is a return of $2928 per tonne, which suggests that there is something a bit off in the US Geological Survey time series data on lithium prices which quote a price of $1720 per tonne in 2004 (based on lithium carbonate prices).”
Lithium is of such low density and atomic weight that lithium carbonate weighs more than five times as much as the lithium content within it. Hence, per-weight costs for lithium are remarkable rubbery, depending on what lithium compound you are calling “lithium”.
My hunch about the drug-synthesis form of “lithium” is that this is actually lithium aluminium hydride, an extremely powerrful reducing agent that is a standard part of the organic chemist’s synthetic toolkit. Making LAH from lithium metal is not easy, straightforward or safe, so I don’t expect a mad rush on calculator batteries by mad druggies anytime soon. This is scaremongering, really
Dany le roux: “I always thought that lithium formed a white oxide when exposed to air “
Yes. And a dark red nitride. And a rough surface. Which all combine to make it look dark.
“and that to keep the stuff from oxidising you had to keep it in kero or something similar.”
a water- and air-repellent medium such as kero, oil, inert gas or vacuum, yes.
“To post an ingot …with its kero bath and to only charge $10 seems very naive…”
The “ingot” was almost certainly a small pellet of metal in an evacuated or argon-filled and sealed glass ampoule.
There are a few sites offering small samples of chemical elements on eBay, and this is usually how they do the reactive metals.
Incidentally: as far as I know, Western Australia has plenty of lithium-rich pegmatite rocks.
The Brits refer to Kero as paraffin. Ain’t sure what the yanks use.
Cheers…
Lithium ion batteries have another problem - a short lifetime. Replacing your laptop or mobile phone battery every 18 months or so is tolerable but doing it for a car is not.
Lithium also has another bulk use - for Li-Al alloys in aerospace construction. Military jets use lots. These alloys are hard to recycle - melting them down in an ordinary furnace will cause an explosion.
DD: depends on how you use them. Tesla Motors, who are using lithium batteries in their roadster, reckon they’ll get at least 160,000 kilometers out of their battery pack.
Keys to this are not fully charging the batteries, controlling the temperature carefully, and other stuff which they don’t seem to be talking about right now.
Newsflash: Doomsayers say doom!
So what is the predeterminate that restricts lithium production from brine!? Environmental,volume, heat ,purity,or that a way of artificially inducing growth hasnt happened,or the scale seems improbable!? And Tesla Motors are a way of describing certain peculiarities of their car,but not its complete design,so they could have solar panels on them piezo-electrical refits ,applied bicycle dynamo principles at wheels,wind generators in light plastics or alloys magnetics applied to roads and tyres.Lithium-piezos theres a go,and recumbent pedalling when life seems a bludge,and….. The Freddy Flintstone Inaugural race is on.And do not forget to be able to cannibalise old machine parts if trends dont happen,and no-one is going over to plant-based plastics,uh,and find themselves off subject.
Gummo Says:
No, that’s not true.
Material Safety Data Sheet - Lithium Metal
Material Safety Data Sheet - Sodium Metal
Material Safety Data Sheet - Potassium Metal
Any questions?
But you have been a successful bidder on e-bay?
nudge wink
Lots of info about lithium at Theodore Gray’s Wooden Periodic Table Table. His project (a table of the elements which is an actual table) and web site are the most amazing things.
SJ,
Thanks for straightening that out. Should have said it seemed unlikely to me etc.
Lithium is fine for bipolar problems not so good for cars.
Nickel metal hydride batteries are preferred for motive power (used in the Prius and in trams and latest hybrid electric buses) because they have a much lower internal resistance needed for very high current drain applications.
However, on paper at least, the future battery for motive applications is the vanadium redox battery, which allows an exchange of a charge fluid (the electrolyte) to be pumped into a car, like petrol or diesel, while discharging the spent electrolyte, which is then recharged in situ at the servo to be pumped into the subsequent customer’s vehicle.
The Meridian Research paper (last link in the post) puts the case for zinc air batteries (and other alternatives to lithium-ion batteries).
What I found interesting (on reading it more thoroughly) is the unstated assumption that we gotta have cars! JUST GOTTA!
Makes you wonder where all the electricity to power up the batteries will come from, doesn’t it? Nuclear fusion reactors using lithium as a source of tritium, perhaps?
Robert,
You seem to have a passion for fast breeder reactors. No amount of loving will ever make plutonium, sodium and water, friends. Boom.
BilB:There are breeder designs that don’t involve water or sodium. See Gas-cooled fast reactors or Lead cooled fast reactors, which the Soviets used to power a class of their submarines.
Robert,
I can see that lead is a far better proposition apart from its high boiling point. Safer, but still a nightmare. Solar nuclear fusion power is by far the most practical, and it has the largest fuel resource of any of the energy options.