New post out, on predicting how the battery industry will grow!
Conversation
Expert predictions have consistently underestimated the continuing exponential growth of solar and wind power and the drops in the cost of lithium-ion batteries.
What happens if we just...project those trends continuing for a decade?
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We get a world where over half of electricity is generated by renewables in 2030, the majority of new cars are electric by 2030, and we'll need about 64x the current amount of battery capacity to keep up with demand.
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Replying to
Since lithium mines take 9 to 10 years to open and there is nowhere near enough lithium supply to cover exponential demand growth for lithium batteries, where are we going to get the required lithium from?
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You can only recycle what has been produced in the first place. To get 64x of annual capacity from recycling we would have needed to use up batteries at the current rate for the last 64 x [average lifespan of batteries] years.
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What happened to using H2O <-> H2 + O2 as energy storage? I've not heard much of it lately. Too dangerous?
Expensive and inconvenient (e.g. large footprint). In its current form & at current prices, it can't compete with lithium.
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