How Abundant Is Lithium?

A reader asks, “Has it been determined whether the world’s supply of lithium is sufficient to produce enough battery capacity to make renewables reliable?”

It’s a complicated question, unfortunately. Perhaps it’s best summed up by what the CEO of a very large Li-ion battery concern told me during an interview several years ago: “To those who claim there is a shortage of lithium, I point out that we haven’t really started looking for it in earnest. We didn’t think there was much oil in the ground until we started hunting around. Unfortunately, we found all the easily-accessed oil, and burned it.”

Another key point is that Li-ion batteries are not the only form of storage that facilitates the large-scale integration of renewables (though it is important in the penetration of electric transportation).  It’s also true that storage generally is only one way to integrate variable resources into the grid-mix; power transmission, demand response, and load shifting are other major contributors.