USGS uses machine learning to show large lithium potential in Arkansas

Say Lithium becomes essentially free because we find so much of it…would that drastically lower battery costs? Is our current supply of lithium limiting production?

No, lithium is not rare and we have enough of it. It's available from friendly countries like Australia too.

The major limiting factor of lithium is not really availability so much as the cost of extraction. China is the leader in this field, not so much because of abundance or stellar technology, but out of a willingness to completely ignore environmental externalities (including those of the power generation involved in the whole process). As a result the price of Chinese lithium is low enough that it would be essentially impossible to compete with them unless a country had similar... "advantages"... or some new and impressive technology.

In the US environmental regulations, the cost of producing power, labor costs, would all drive up the price of the end product in a way that makes it totally noncompetitive. That's also why the US and some other countries are investing in other ways to find lithium (among other things) on seabeds, where it's hoped that extraction would be less expensive. Of course the threat to the seabed environment is a concern, which in turn might drive up prices by imposing regulation, etc etc etc.

What an informative comment, thank you

Is sand essentially free because we have beaches and deserts full of it? It can be used to make concrete, a valuable material? (Don't forget the shipping, storage, and refining costs)

> the price of Chinese lithium is low enough that it would be essentially impossible to compete with them...

In an export model, yes. However, given their negative externalities (including geo-political factors), importing countries may place tariffs on Chinese lithium in order to make use of other sources.

If the total embodied value of lithium in any particular product is small compared to the overall value of the product, the tariff might not represent a significant drag on the indigenous industry.

Lithium is too abundant in the world right now (as expected - we've just gotten better at discovering it).

To be honest, the energy problem is more or less a solved problem with the current technologies we have. We just need to accelerate our pace of adoption to hard-reverse on fossil fuels (except Germany). We already have large reserves of Uranium, of which only a small amount is needed to fuel a power plant. We already have lithium battery tech to store the power. We already have solar panels being mass produced and adopted to fill in the gaps. All we need is connecting the dots and making sure these resources play well with each other in symbiosis.

This goes double if your refining and battery production is still in China as well. If you are using the material domestically then the situation could be made more fair with tariffs, but if you're exporting that obviously won't work.

>would that drastically lower battery costs?

I'm skeptical. China is already mass-producing batteries, securing as much lithium as possible. Additionally, US regulations will significantly increase costs for battery manufacturers.

Logistics depends on where you are not the inherent price of the commodity. Plenty of things like air and are freely available but you still need ventilation systems in caves and whatnot. Moving free dirt around when building roads can be extremely expensive due even if it’s just being moved a few miles volume adds up.

So yea desert sand is essentially free, even if you pay for shipping.

Keyword there is may. Putting aside whether the sentiment is justified, it is currently extremely unpopular to impose Chinese tariffs.

It's also worth noting that Chinese prices are so low that certain tariffs can reach the stratosphere (eg: American 100% tariff on Chinese EVs), further making them unpopular with the commons.

Congress plays whack-a-mole with policy while importers shuffle goods or various parts of the manufacturing process to neighboring countries or follow tighter packaging constraints to avoid specific tax rules or earn specific tax incentives. Tariffs are political showmanship. It's not really a viable nor an enforceable option in the modern economy, at least not based on my experience in the industry.

And all that shuffling introduces more costs, creates negative externalities for exports does it not?