Annie Lee of Bloomberg reports that producing lithium is slow and dirty. Is direct lithium extraction (DLE) a fix?
A substance seen as critical to the green energy revolution, lithium, is at risk of a future supply crunch.
Even though a recent surplus of the metal has been crashing prices, demand for lithium is set to grow by almost nine times over the next 15 years in a scenario where the world meets the Paris Agreement goals for limiting global warming, according to estimates from the International Energy Agency.
Extracting lithium from the rocks and salt water where it is found can be a slow process that often harms the environment. So a race is on to develop more efficient, less damaging production methods. […]
Lithium is a key ingredient in the batteries that power electric vehicles and store the energy generated by wind farms and solar panels. The low mass and radius of lithium atoms ensure that lithium-ion batteries can quickly absorb and store more electricity than other batteries of the same weight. The weight aspect is crucial when it comes to EVs as a lighter car will travel further on the same charge. […]
Adopting DLE could be the only way to access some important lithium sources in future, as Bolivia and Chile push companies eyeing their lithium riches to adopt DLE techniques — an approach aimed at conserving scarce water supplies.
DLE could potentially open up supplies in new regions. That could be significant at a time when building localized and diversified streams of critical minerals is increasingly a political priority in the West. […]
DLE technologies also have varying sustainability credentials, with some consuming more energy or more fresh water than others.
Over the past three years, investors suspicious of some of the claims made for the technology have placed short bets on the shares of DLE companies in the expectation that they will decline.
Read more here.
Also, read The Reality of Direct Lithium Extraction, Can America Ever Compete with China’s Lithium Dominance? and America Requires Billions of Gallons of Water to Mine Lithium
