Other lithium consuming processes

There are many lithium consuming processes outside of batteries, whether for electric vehicles (EV) or not. Examples include ceramics, glass, polymers, aluminium, medications, continuous casting molds, air conditioning, lubricating greases, etc. However, there is a distinct lack of data on the lithium consumption of the various lithium consuming processes. 

One scientific paper from 2009 (Yakson and Tilton, doi:10.1016/j.resourpol.2009.05.002) estimated the growth rates for 8 different processes until 2100. More recently, two industry reports from Deutsche Bank (DB) (2016) and Stormcrow (SC) (2015) included estimated for a more elaborate range of processes, until 2025. As they both distinguish different processes, only a few can be compared for the assumed volume and growth rates. The resulting similarities and differences, and thereby implications on total lithium demand, are interesting to note. 

I compared these two estimates per process on total volume and growth rates, and extrapolated reasonable growth rates until 2050 for each process to magnify the effect of the estimates and provide a range of likely total industry growth for lithium consuming processes other than EV batteries. The first step was to convert the estimates of lithium carbonate equivalent into lithium in tons. Next I determined annual growth rates for the SC data. For both data sets I estimated reasonable growth rates per process as listed in the table below. As a last step, I compared both data sets to my previously estimated total of demand from lithium consuming processes other than EV batteries (dependent on Yakson and Tilton, 2009).

Estimating the future number of cars - 2

I prepared two scenarios to estimate the future number of electric vehicles (EV), and total number of cars, on a global scale. 

The first scenario is a business as usual (BaU) scenario, where the annual number of new cars is based on the average growth rate of total cars from 1999-2016 (calculated to be 3.28% - data from OICA). The annual number of new EV and the total stock of EV were estimated in line with the target of 41 million cars sold by 2040 (What will the global EV Light-Duty Vehicle fleet look like through 2050?, Sitty & Taft, Fuel Freedom Foundation, 2016). 

The second scenario is called 2DS, as it is in line with the 2 degree Celsius scenario from the International Energy Agency (IEA). This corresponds to reaching 80% greenhouse gas emission reduction by 2050. In this scenario the annual number of new cars is based on the low growth scenario in Sitty & Taft (2016), which leads to 2% growth until 2040, and 1% until 2050. The annual number of new EV and the total stock of EV were based on the IEA goals of 25 million stock by 2020 and 200 million stock by 2030 (Global EV Outlook 2017, IEA, 2016). 

For both scenarios, the total stock of cars is based on OICA figures including the current stock in use (2015), the average of retired vehicles (2006-2015), and the annual number of cars. The ratio of battery electric vehicles (BEV) to plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEV) was based on the average of annual new BEV/PHEV registrations (data taken from the IEA, 2008-2016). This lead to an increase of BEV over PHEV, with 100% BEV reached by 2028. 

Estimating the future number of cars - 1

A lot of information is available for projecting what the future global number of cars, and electric vehicles might look like. Looking at the production of vehicles over the past few years, the top vehicle manufacturers have stayed roughly the same. The top 12 manufacturers were identical from 2010-2015 and produced 75% of all vehicles. 

Viable technologies for 80% GHG emission reduction

As we saw previously, certain renewable energy sources are more in abundance than others. The biggest is solar, and one magnitude smaller is wind. One magnitude smaller again is biomass, and smaller than that in one magnitude again are geothermal energy, wave-tidal energy, and hydro-power. Abundance however does not solely determine which technologies are most viable to reach the 80% or more greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction targets by 2050. This also depends on the maturity of the technology, and whether or not it emits GHGs to begin with. Given these limitations, there are four main pathways to reach 80% GHG emission reduction by 2050.

Nuclear power generation

Nuclear power has as advantages that during generation there is no emission of the main GHG CO2 or methane (CH4), and it can be produced continuously, as opposed to intermittent renewables like solar and wind. Japan possesses over 60 years’ experience with this technique, a large amount of infrastructure and knowledge workers in the nuclear industry. Before the 2011 GEJET, Japan had 54 nuclear reactors in operation. Since then most of all had shut down for regular maintenance, after which the safety regulations have tightened and prevented restarting regularly scheduled operations. Due to the stricter regulations, some of the older plants have seen early retirement. 42 reactors remain capable of a restart, of which 24 have requested approval to restart. Plans from 2010 from the METI envisioned 50% of the total electricity coming from nuclear power; a plan that could be reawakened.

Disadvantages to nuclear power include Japan’s tectonically active location, leading not only to a high chance of natural hazards with potential disastrous effects as seen in the aftermath of the GEJET, but also a lack of safe storage space for the small amount of waste that remains unable to be processed further after nuclear power generation. A second issue is the reliance on imported uranium, as this resource cannot be mined in Japan itself. Some of the countries that have the most abundant uranium resources are Australia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan, with whom political ties are likely to remain good. The environmental impacts of mining uranium however are often not factored into the cost of the resource. The third issue is that only several kg of nuclear material are needed in order to create nuclear weapons, and an large nuclear power plant produces several hundreds of kg annually. One the one hand, this makes any nuclear facility a potential target for terrorists and raises security issues until a more peaceful global society is created. On the other hand, the current reality is that Japan cannot fully abandon its nuclear power installations due to the necessity of using the hypothetical capability of producing nuclear weapons within several weeks as a potential threat for certain international political maneuvers, as instigated by other countries. This situation is unlikely to change in a significant way until the global powers are reorganized, or a stronger focus on global peace is enforced throughout citizens of all countries, including their governments. 

Technologies under development in NIMS: fuel cells

A future technology enabling 80% or more greenhouse gas emission reduction is that of fuel cells. The difference between a fuel cell and a battery is that batteries have their energy stored inside, whereas fuel cells generate electricity from external fuel that can be refilled. At the moment hydrogen fuel cells are still under development, but their main advantage over current battery driven electric vehicles are their short refueling time. It takes several minutes to replace a hydrogen fuel tank, whereas charging batteries of electric vehicles regularly still takes several hours. Other advantages of fuel cells compared to batteries are their longer life time, their continued efficiency vs batteries whose efficiency decreases over time, and the reduced environmental impact in comparison with batteries that require more recycling processes. 

NIMS has two teams working on fuel cell developments. One is the  Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Group led by Je-Deok Kim. This group is developing new conducting electrolyte membranes for alternate temperature fuel cells and new catalyst electrode materials. Another group is the Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Materials Design Group led by Toshiyuki Mori. Their goal is to increase fuel cell efficiency, by developing an optimum of materials on the active solid electrolyte/electrode interface and enable high speed ion diffusion pathways. 

The main difference in functioning of these two types of fuel cells is explained below: 

Technologies under development in NIMS: batteries

Our team has as task to help determine which future research directions and technology developments could be necessary and promising if we are to reach a society with 80% or more greenhouse gas emission reduction. To achieve this task, we coordinate with other GREEN team leaders and investigate current research projects at NIMS. Regarding energy storage, two types of batteries are being developed at NIMS, namely lithium air batteries, and all solid state batteries. 

You may have heard of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that you find in mobile phones and laptop computers. They often rely on expensive metals like cobalt for the positive electrode and cheaper graphite for the negative electrode. A lithium air battery uses a simpler chemistry of lithium and oxygen and could be developed to be cheaper, and they have 5-15 times more energy per unit mass (also known as specific energy) than lithium ion batteries, which makes them highly sought out in the automobile industry. Under the leadership of Yoshimi Kubo, the lithium air battery team at NIMS is aiming to develop a battery with the highest energy density possible. 

Kazunori Takada leads the NIMS research team on all solid state batteries. They are developing batteries with higher energy densities than those obtainable with lithium ion batteries. Solid state batteries have a solid electrolyte and thus do not leak, and they can be made to be ultra thin, with finished products of only several mm thick. 

This short investigation in NIMS' technologies currently under development has taught me that batteries for mass storage of energy are nowhere near where we would like them to be. While there are billions of batteries in the world, they are often small, and have either little power stored in them (energy density) or a low capability of transferring energy (power density). For a sustainable energy supply, we need to develop more energy storage options with high energy and power density that allow capturing and transferring the intermittently produced energy from renewable sources such as solar, wind, and hydro.