Mar 18, 2010

Peak Rare earth, Lithium and future options

As discussed yesterday... a sustainable energy future requires sustainable resources for raw materials production.
If the costs for raw materials for solar, wind and batteries continue to skyrocket and resources dwindle, how is this and different paradigm? The key will be to build these energy resources around sustainable resources. Simple math that appears to be very hard for the 'green energy' community to comprehend...

Rare Earth Updated via Boing2: Life imitates Avatar. Danger Room reports, "The House Committee on Science and Technology's investigations and oversight panel is holding a hearing today on rare-earth metal supplies, focusing on China's near-monopoly on the stuff. As we've reported here before, China has raised concerns by threatening to limit exports. And to make matters more complicated, U.S. mining companies are dependent on China for processing."
http://www.jackliftonreport.com/WP/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/rare-earth-metals.jpg
Peak Lithium Update Via PeakEnergy -
The large scale future production of lithium
tends to focus on Bolivia, which has the world's largest lithium resource soaked into the coating on the world's largest salt flat, the Salar De Uyuni.

The subject of Peak lithium has been raised from time to time (with recent commentary at Seeking Alpha and The Oil Drum) with Jack Lifton (author of the Seeking Alpha article) arguing that lithium supplies will be insufficient to meet our needs while Keith Evans argues there is more than enough resources available.