Bottled Lightning


Bottled Lightning: Superbatteries, Electric Cars, and the New Lithium Economy
By Seth Fletcher

:Main Points

A majority of the world reserves of lithium can be found in South America in Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. Here, the "Lithium Triangle" is home to a large number of salt flats that are rich with lithium- Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia), Salar de Atacama (Chile), and Salar del Hombre Puerto (Argentina). Estimated global lithium reserves and resources are 29.9 million tons and the current 
world lithium demand is 16,000 metric tons.

Nevada has lithium rich clay residing under more than 80% of the state's federal land. The McDermitt Caldera is one such example of an ancient volcano that collapsed on itself and is home to plenty of 
lithium, gallium, uranium, gold, etc. Western Lithium mines heavily here.

The future of batteries for electric cars is exciting. The threshold that the US Advanced Battery
 Consortium set was $200/kWh for a battery to be affordable. According to Electrek, the Tesla Model 3 will beat this threshold by targeting a battery cost of $150/kWh.



For a brief introduction on how batteries work and the historical debate between Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta, watch this Ted-Ed video

For a video on Tesla and Batteries, watch a lecture by Jeff Dahn, the inventor of the NMC (lithium-nickel-manganese-cobalt oxide)  battery cathode! This is used at a rate of 6,000 metric tons per year (1/10 Li-Ion cells have this materials).

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