Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103

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Resources Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/resourpol

The time dimension and lithium resource constraints for electric vehicles
Duncan Kushnir n, Björn A. Sandén
Environmental Systems Analysis, Energy and Environment, Chalmers University of Technology, Göteborg 412 96, Sweden

a r t i c l e i n f o abstract

Article history: The availability of lithium resources for a transition to electric vehicles is a vital topic for transport
Received 1 July 2011 technology strategy. Recent debate seems to have concluded that there is ‘sufficient’ lithium available,
Received in revised form but for the purposes of a technological transition, time matters. It is not simply the quantity of resource
29 November 2011
that is relevant—the flow rate into society may be a much more difficult constraint and transient events
Accepted 29 November 2011
Available online 13 January 2012
have disrupted heavily concentrated material supply chains in the past. Furthermore, critical assump-
tions such as the presence of recycling systems may not be justified without policy support.
JEL classification: Complacency is therefore not an appropriate stance for a robust evaluation of material risks in the
Q30 case of lithium.
& 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Transport
Battery
Electric
Vehicle
Transition
Lithium

Introduction opportunity cost of obtaining a resource and that the trend of

Issues of resource security and the end of cheap oil have sown
the seeds for a discontinuous change in transportation vehicles
and fuels. While there are many competing visions regarding
what shape future transport systems can and should take, one
prominent narrative is the adoption of plug-in hybrids as the first
step toward a future of electric vehicles. The assumed technolo-
gical core of these systems is the lithium ion battery, which
possesses clear performance advantages versus other battery
technologies at present for plug in hybrid (PHEV) and full battery
electric (BEV) vehicles (Khaligh and Zhihao, 2010).
One of the strongest arguments for using electricity as a fuel is
the promise of decoupling the production of transport energy
from its end use; electric vehicles allow the maximum flexibility
in choosing appropriate sources and mixes of energy for the
transport sector. Whilst this is correct in principle, policies aimed
at or hoping for a transformation of the transport sector towards
electricity presuppose that batteries can be supplied in overall
quantity sufficient for the scale of the project and at a rate that
permits a sufficiently rapid change in the stock of vehicles. This
has not gone unnoticed, yet there are divergent views on how
best to assess resource adequacy in the long run; one begins from
the truth that the planet and thus resources are finite and another
holds that a better (only) way to measure scarcity is the
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ46 31 772 1197.
E-mail address: kushnir@chalmers.se (D. Kushnir).
this cost is unpredictable. An excellent description of this debate
for resources in general is put forward by Tilton (2003).
Much research and data show that scepticism is appropriate
towards claims of physical limits of resource availability; no case
of general mineral depletion has existed as of yet (Simpson et al.,
2005). Warnings of mineral scarcity have proven wrong time and
time again because new discoveries and improving technology
have outstripped the depletion of high grade resources. The
empirical proof for this is that the real cost of most mineral
commodities has thus far been falling over time, while the
physical flow through society has increased (Govett and Govett,
1978; Slade, 1982; Tilton, 2003). The theoretical underpinnings of
this trend are very relevant to policy makers and have been
recently reviewed (Svedberg and Tilton, 2006) and defended
(Tilton and Lagos, 2007). Despite this, given the importance of
lithium to the vision of electric transport and of electric transport
to some visions of sustainability, it is vital to not remain
complacent and dismiss resource availability issues out of hand.
Discussions regarding the uncertain future of lithium avail-
ability have taken place for quite some time. With batteries now
looming as another vast new demand for lithium, this debate has
recently resurfaced. The scale of material use implied by some
scenarios for mass production of vehicle batteries is sufficiently
large that resource scarcity in the medium and long term cannot
be ruled out outright for a number of potential battery metals
(Andersson and Råde, 2001; Gaines and Nelson, 2009). With
regards to lithium, generally accepted ideas of the magnitude of
the resource seem to allow for a sizeable fleet of electric vehicles

0301-4207/$ - see front matter & 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.resourpol.2011.11.003
94 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103
Fig. 1. A general material flow model for lithium.
(Evans, 1978, 2008a, 2008b; Will, 1996; Garrett, 2004; Gaines and
Nelson, 2009; Yaksic and Tilton, 2009; Gruber et al., 2011). Many
of the required resources are likely available without extreme
cost or new technology, yet a closer look will show that visions of
US or even Western European style mobility or vehicles with large
batteries will test the boundaries of these assessments.
Furthermore, it is not sufficient to conclude that there is
‘enough’ lithium for a given scenario because there are other
factors that complicate the issue with regard to lithium and
which could ultimately be more relevant than the size of the
resource or its projected cost of extraction. The rate of extraction
needed to build up a large societal stock over a given time period
(Andersson and Råde, 2001; Tahil, 2008) has implications, and
historical cases featuring resources with similarly concentrated
supplies, such as cobalt, give reason to believe that institutional
inefficiency can be a major mechanism driving transitory scarcity
(Alonso et al., 2007). While there is not necessarily reason for
alarm over lithium supplies, there are risks and policy decisions
that can affect the outcome. A strategic outlook on material
availability demands explicit consideration of these risks and
implications thereof, and thus it is our hope to continue the
discussion on this important topic.
Analytic framework and paper layout
We use a somewhat stylized model to demonstrate key factors
for the future of lithium. Fig. 1 illustrates the general stocks and
flows of lithium as well as showing the layout of the argument
presented here. The flows begin with the conceptual movement of
a given bit of lithium from the resource base into the ‘pseudo-
stocks’1 of resources and subsequently reserves from which they
are extracted. As reserves are extracted into society they can be
used in ways that result in the lithium being dispersed (e.g.
grease), or they can be used in ways that form recoverable stocks
that can later offset part of the supply flow into society if
economics and technology allow. All such flows will be mediated
and routed over time by a set of transient processes (institutional
forces).
We begin in Section 2, by outlining possible global mobility
scenarios and then work backwards from the implied vehicle
battery stocks to determine the necessary flows into society and
how they relate to the resources. The discussion on implications is
structured by the time dimension; Sections 3–5 discuss possible
constraints at the stock, flow and transient level. Our base
assumption, discussed in Section 3, is that the work of Evans
1
So called because it is a conceptual subset of the total resource stock, not
physically distinct.
(2008b) and Yaksic and Tilton (2009) is approximately correct
and that 25 million tons of lithium metal are viable (our word,
discussed in Section 3) to recover from known resources plus
another 5 million tons in marginal stocks, which we assume will
be producible at prices that batteries will support. Beyond this,
new discoveries or ocean extraction will be needed for further
supply.
Societal stocks and flows—estimating the demand for virgin
lithium
We begin with the assumption that electric vehicles based on
lithium batteries will become heavily adopted for transport in the
future. The first level of comparison in our framework is thus to
define what this means in terms of a societal stock. This will
enable comparison with total and annual availability of virgin
resources in following sections.
Stocks and flows related to current lithium applications
Availability of historically extracted lithium
Historical cumulative extraction (1940–2010) is estimated at
about 0.5 Mt obtained by updating the 0.32 Mt that Andersson
and Råde obtained for the cumulative extraction in 1999 with the
annual mine production figures in the USGS lithium series for
1999–2011 (Andersson and Råde, 2001; Jaskula, 2006, 2011a,
2011b). This is a small amount compared to projected lithium
demand and to resources still in the ground (indicating that
lithium is a fairly new metal in industrial society). The amount
contained in lithium batteries is also currently very small com-
pared to any quantities projected for vehicles. Moreover, due to
the many dissipative forms of lithium use and the limited
utilization of recycling we assume that this potential resource
can be neglected and that there is effectively zero recoverable
lithium stock in society in 2011.
Expected use and dispersion of lithium in other applications
Current production of lithium is roughly 25 kt/yr as metal
equivalent. As shown in Table 1, lithium has a variety of uses, but
many are experiencing only modest growth compared to the total
or to that of batteries. It is very uncertain how other lithium
applications will react to a large new demand that possibly
pushes prices up. To this end, no specific treatment of the
elasticity of other lithium applications to price signals exists to
the authors’ knowledge. If the cumulative availability curve is
sound and prices stay near where they are, then other applica-
tions could continue on their current trajectories, which are
generally growing with the exception of lithium used in some
 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103 95

Table 1
Assumptions for non-vehicle lithium applications (Yaksic and Tilton, 2009; Jaskula, 2011a, 2011b).

End use Recycled Growth scenario

Non-vehicle secondary batteries Yes (3 years) 15% growth until 2018, 10% next decade, 3% to 2050 then 1%
Non-vehicle primary batteries Yes (1 year) 8% growth until 2018, 5% next decade, 3% to 2050 then 1%
Pharmaceuticals No 4% growth until 2018, 2% next decade, then 1%
Glass/ceramics No 3% growth until 2018, 2% next decade, then 1%
Rubber/polymers No
Lubricants No 5% growth until 2018, 3% next two decades, then 1%
Aerospace alloys No 4% growth until 2018, 2% next decade, then 1%
Other No

Fig. 2. Vehicle population and electrification scenarios. The dotted line shows the percentage of new vehicles with a battery component reaching 95% by mid-century. The
solid lines show the evolution of vehicle population under our three transport adoption scenarios.

aluminium production techniques. Assuming that they will con-
tinue growing would represent the ‘worst case’ scenario for
lithium demand.
We do not include non-vehicle battery demands for lithium in
the calculations presented in the rest of this paper. The effect of
the assumptions in Table 1 would be to disperse just under 3 Mt
of lithium by the end of the century. In terms of stock and flow
this amounts to less than 10% of our result for either variable: the
conclusion is that other applications of lithium certainly have a
role to play on the margin, but will not affect the viability of
lithium batteries one way or the other.
stabilization level of global per capita vehicle intensity from the
0.12 cars per capita that exist today (Fig. 2):
– High: Vehicle population stabilizes at Western European levels
(0.5 cars/capita)
– Medium: Vehicle population stabilizes at 0.33 cars/capita.
Taken to be the same as Yaksic and Tilton (2009) for
comparability.
– Low: Vehicle population stabilizes at 0.2 cars/capita, repre-
senting some coordinated efforts to limit the global car
population.

EV lithium demand scenarios

From Section 2.1, the only societal stock of lithium that we
consider is that that will exist in car lithium batteries, either in
use or discarded and potentially recyclable. Knowing the precise
form that battery technology will take is not possible, but an
assumption regarding lithium intensity is necessary (Sections
2.2.3 and 2.2.4). Combining this intensity with the scenarios for
vehicle adoption discussed in Sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.2 gives rise to
the implication for societal stocks of lithium in PHEV or BEV type
batteries.
Vehicle population
Our population scenario is taken from the UN baseline sce-
nario, stabilizing at 9.3 billion (UN, 2008). We do not consider
vehicles other than cars, such as electric bicycles and scooters. We
put forward three potential scenarios for the ultimate
Electric vehicle adoption
The rate of either hybrid or full electric drivetrain adoption is
assumed to rise along a logistic curve that reaches 95% by 2050
(Fig. 2). This is an arbitrary assumption, but provides reasonable
comparison with other studies.
Battery capacity per vehicle and battery lifetime
We present scenarios based on two battery sizes here: a 9 kWh
battery for a ‘PHEV’ scenario and a 36 kWh battery for a ‘BEV’
scenario. The number is intended to represent an ‘average’ battery
size across all vehicles entering the fleet.
We use an average battery lifetime of 10 years in our model,
and 100% collection for recycling. The most sensitive result to this
assumption is the resource flow peak (Section 4). A two-year
longer battery lifetime (or a delay in recycling stockpiles) can
exacerbate the peak required resource flow by more than 10%.
96 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103

Table 2
Comparison of battery lithium intensity with other studies.

Battery High Low Sources

chemistry intensity intensity
(g/kWh) (g/kWh)

We use 160 160 Estimation based on Fig. 3

LiNiCo 300 155 Gaines (based on production
LiFePO4 batteries at Argonne)
LiMn/LiTi
LiNiCo-type 140 110 (Andersson and Råde, 2001)
140 (Yaksic and Tilton, 2009)
LiCo, LiNi, LiMn 114 114 (Gruber et al., 2011)
(averaged)

Fig. 3. Lithium content of several battery chemistries.

Lithium battery material intensity

There is a minimum amount of lithium required for a given
battery capacity that is derived from the battery chemistry and
cell voltage. Although technology will continue improving, the
technically demonstrated and commercially viable lithium inten-
sities of each chemistry will remain higher than these funda-
mental limits. Purpose matters as well, BEV and PHEV batteries
will be either constructed differently or use differing materials
appropriate to the task and will thus be different with respect to
lithium content per kWh.
Fig. 3 shows the current use and range of lithium requirements
for a number of different lithium batteries (Kushnir and Sandén,
2011) An estimate of 200 g of lithium or roughly 1 kg of lithium
carbonate equivalent2 (LCE), per kWh of battery capacity is a
reasonable approximation of current designs for BEV batteries.
With progress, 160 g of lithium per kWh may be a reasonable
medium term estimate, and this is what we use here as an
average across all technologies. This could be compared
(Table 2) with 140 g per kWh used by Andersson and Råde
(2001) as well as Yaksic and Tilton (2009),3 or 250 or up to
400 g for current high power designs (Gaines and Nelson, 2009). If
lithium does become scarce, it may be possible to use as little as
120 g per kWh by substituting sodium for a part of the lithium,
although the resulting battery chemistry does not have the same
performance (Whittingham, 2004).
No additional processing losses in production are assumed;
although there certainly will be some, they are likely to be very
small in comparison with other flows (Andersson and Råde,
2001), or indeed the uncertainty on the resource recovery factors.
The other key observation is that raw lithium contributes very
little (between 1% and 2%) to the current cost of a battery. As it is
the only critical ingredient, the willingness of battery applications
to pay for it is presumably extremely high, and assessment of
which resources will be available to society over the longer term
must be on generous terms. Furthermore, it seems reasonable
that batteries could outbid some existing applications of lithium if
supply was tight. Nevertheless, not any price can be paid.
Implied cumulative and annual demand for lithium in vehicle
batteries—the critical role of recycling
Fig. 4 shows the implied cumulative demand curves arising
from the vehicle scenarios and assumed material intensity. Curves
for three levels of recycling, 0%, 80% and 100%, are plotted. If PHEV
Fig. 4. Cumulative lithium demand from vehicle scenarios with and without
recycling. The figure shows the cumulative virgin lithium demand in million tons
(Mt), for PHEV (left scale) and BEV (right scale) adoption. The dashed lines indicate
the 30 Mt resource used in this paper.
are assumed, the left axis applies, while the right axis applies to
the BEV scenario. Assuming 80% recycling, the cumulative
demand is almost twice as large as the lithium in the vehicle
stock (100% recycling) by the end of the century. No recycling at
all would multiply the cumulative demand over the century by a
factor of four compared to 100% recycling.
It is thus both logical and understandable that virtually all
studies on this issue assume recycling to take place; in virtually
any scenario recycling will represent the largest cumulative
source of lithium by the second half of the 21st century. Despite
being universally assumed to occur, recycling is by no means a
given. The cost of recycled lithium is difficult to determine
because current battery recycling processes are aimed at recover-
ing many different materials, cobalt in particular. Recycling
economics for lithium are currently not good4 and consequently
recycling is only done in limited quantities as a by-product of
recovering such more expensive materials from batteries or for
the purpose of minimizing toxic hazard from waste.
Although large automotive batteries are expected to be tech-
nically easier to recycle than electronic equipment batteries and
economies of scale in recycling will emerge, there are also reasons
to believe that the economics of recycling lithium batteries may
degrade instead, despite these points. Many new chemistries for
lithium batteries are being tested or in use for their unique
chemical virtues. If future battery technologies minimize cobalt

2 4
1 unit lithium metal¼ 5.32 units lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE). Toxcos process cost was initially about $10/kg of battery but is estimated to
3
6.75 kg LCE for a 9 kWh battery (Yaksic and Tilton, 2009). be half that now (Gaines and Nelson, 2009).
 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103
Table 3
Costs and recoveries of materials from batteries.
Component Material—recovery Value
Metal casing Steel—100% $0.80/kg
Cathode/anode Cobalt—90% $17.50/kg
Lithium—90% $6.20/kg
Electrolyte LiPF6—70% $20.00/kg
Copper foils Copper—95% $4.00/kg (scrap)
Compare to $5/kg recycling cost at present
Material compositions are taken from Kushnir and Sandén (2011). Prices for metals from metalprices.com (June, 2011). Electrolyte an estimate from lithium supplier
websites. Efficiency from text. The purpose is to illustrate how recycling economics could degrade.
use (or other expensive metals such as nickel), the apparent need
for as well as the economic viability of recycling processes could
in fact decrease, despite improving technology. Furthermore, as
the scale of production of the electrolyte increases, another source
of recovery value will erode. As an example, a previous assess-
ment from Argonne in 2001 listed LiPF6 at $60/kg. Recycling
technology and systems are attempting to hit a moving target
that is being driven by the need to make the batteries themselves
cheaper (Table 3).
There is some data available for estimating material efficiency
of recycling systems. Primary lithium batteries are currently only
handled by specialist companies (e.g. Toxco in North America)
that use cryogenic processes to minimize the explosive/fire
hazard. Some commercial secondary battery recyclers with
lithium recovery capability exist, and there are also many
national research initiatives to implement advanced battery
recycling. One example is the EU VALIBAT program,5 which
resulted in a process to recycle 95% of magnetic metallic com-
pounds, 90% of lithium from the electrode material, 90% of metal
oxides and 70% of lithium salt. Cobalt recovery can be upwards of 93%
(Xu et al., 2010), but these targets may be high for lithium recovery
compared to commercial processes in use today (Bernardes et al.,
2004; Dewulf et al., 2009). Over the medium term, however, they are
certainly achievable and the 80% lithium recovery that is assumed in
many studies seems to be a decent estimate of what can be achieved
with purities sufficient for re-use in batteries (Xu et al., 2008). The
other key determinant of available recycled lithium is of course the
institutional recycling efficiency, e.g. the proportion of recyclable
artefacts actually collected. We assume 100%, but one reasonable
estimate could be the 95% achieved for lead batteries in the US near
the beginning of the millennium (Socolow and Thomas, 1997) or 96%
today (BCI, 2009).
Lithium resource stocks and potential limits
The economic availability of the resources that we will need
for electric vehicle fleets is most eloquently captured with the
concept of the cumulative availability curve (as introduced by
Tilton, 2003 and refined for the case of lithium in Yaksic and
Tilton, 2009). The cumulative availability curve refers to the
amount of resources available with current technology at a given
extraction price and is shown for lithium in Fig. 5. The graph is
divided into three sections denoted viable, marginal and ocean.
‘Viable’ resources are defined as those where the midpoint of
estimates for production cost are below the peak price of $6.4/kg
lithium carbonate that occurred in 2008. Marginal resources are
known resources with higher production price estimates than any
5
EU program ID: G1RD-CT-2000-00232.
97
Recovery Recovered value Recovered value—future?
(per kg battery) (g)
20 $0.02 $0.02
19 $0.33 $0.00
18 $0.12 $0.12
11 $0.22 $0.22
105 $0.42 $0.42
$1.05 $0.72
price that has yet existed. Ocean refers to the very large quantity
potentially available from the ocean.
The first 26 Mt of lithium are in our viable category. If we
include marginal resources we reach 30 Mt. This abundance in
comparison with demand as well as the reasonably certain
production price of much of the curve and slow increase in cost
for the marginal unit of supply has been used to argue that ‘‘the
shape of the lithium cumulative availability curve indicates that
depletion is not likely to pose a serious problem over the rest of
this century and well beyond’’ (Yaksic and Tilton, 2009). Similarly,
Gruber et al. (2011) argue that the resource is about 39 Mt (in-
situ) and the maximum use until 2100 is roughly 20 Mt. These
conclusions are reassuring but also implicitly assume that recy-
cling will be used and that the so-called marginal lithium and
even perhaps oceanic lithium will be available, conditions which
may not necessarily be realized (see Fig. 4 where the 30 Mt of
viable and marginal resources are compared to cumulative
demand).
In any case, the lithium to form the societal stock must initially
come from resources currently in the ground, and which
resources will be available is important for analysis. Currently
most mineral lithium is produced in a form that is used directly
for a specific end use (e.g. glass). This fact has been used to argue
that not all sources are suitable for batteries (Tahil, 2008), but this
seems to be false. Although the final purification processes for
many sources are uncertain, it should be assumed that all lithium
outputs can be converted to lithium carbonate (and suitable
thereafter for purified battery materials) at a modest cost, even
for resources considered as marginal. This is true for recycled
sources (Xu et al., 2008), brines (Garrett, 2004; Boryta et al.,
2006), and minerals (Holger et al., 2000; Garrett, 2004) and
asserted to be true (Ajie, 2010) although not demonstrated for
clays. As mentioned, the main future demand market will be able
to tolerate higher prices than exist today and therefore purifica-
tion and transformation economics may affect the preference, but
likely not the long run viability of mineral and brine resources
beyond their individual merits.
Terrestrial lithium resources
Because of the heretofore arbitrary nature of the viable and
marginal categories, it may be better to lump them simply as
terrestrial, which can be further divided into brine (24.5 Mt) and
mineral resources (5.5 Mt). Economics of extraction seems to support
the contention that the majority of the resources identified this far
could be extracted with reasonably conceived technology, but the
estimates presented here for recovery may be optimistic. It is also
possible and even likely that new discoveries and technology will
continue increasing the resource. There is currently a wave of lithium
exploration activity that is defining costs for known resources and
identifying and examining the feasibility of bringing new ones not
counted here into production.
98 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103

Fig. 5. Cumulative availability curve for lithium. Quantities are displayed on a recoverable basis. Based on Yaksic and Tilton (2009) and Evans (2008b).

The general method of production from brine resources is to resource expansion. More discussion of lithium resources can be
pump the brine out and then to subsequently concentrate it found in Evans (2008), Yaksic and Tilton (2009) and Gruber et al.
through evaporation. The major operations in the Andes and (2011).
Tibet, which together comprise the vast majority of the resource,
use solar evaporation for this initial step. Because of this, such
Oceanic lithium stocks as a backstop technology
brine resources are cheap and energetically efficient to extract,
and will be generally insensitive to input costs. The Salar de
The availability of a viable process to extract lithium from the
Atacama in Chile is outstanding in terms of size and cost as seen
ocean is a critical determinant of the lithium supply curve
in Fig. 5. Limits on how much of the brine lithium resource is
because of its sheer magnitude. The oceanic stock is dilute, but
available therefore stem from the technical ability to obtain the
greatly exceeds any conceivable societal need; the 170 ppb of
brine from the ground formations, as well as the degree of
lithium present as a solute means some 230,000 Mt of lithium
extraction deemed socially and environmentally acceptable. We
metal (Garrett, 2004; Evans, 2008b). A viable extraction process
have assumed that extraction will proceed to the technical limit,
for any portion of this would fit the classic definition of a
but there are potentially significant environmental implications
‘backstop’ resource technology (Nordhaus et al., 1973). As a final
such as effluent and reagent use; large amounts of hydrochloric
‘waste basket’ (Ayres, 1999) for lithium, the ocean would be an
acid has left barren toxic zones at Atacama (Regolado and
infinitely sustainable source for all practical purposes.
Friedman-Rudovsky, 2010); and this could be objectionable or
Extracting lithium from seawater requires only a trivial
expensive to deal with in areas such as Uyuni (Bolivia) or the
amount of energy in theory. The change in free energy is
Salton (USA) or Dead Sea (Jordan/Israel) that have protected
RT ln(C0/C1), or 30 kJ/mol Li (1.2 kWh/kg) to move lithium up a
wildlife or competing land use claims. Salars on the surface are
gradient from ocean concentration to 2% solution. This means that
obviously well known, but there are many underground salars
advanced technologies for concentrating it could theoretically be
with either unknown or assumed to be economically irrelevant
possible, but nothing convincing has yet been demonstrated.
chemical compositions that are not included in the resource
Some newer nanomaterial-based adsorption processes (Chung
estimates. Other brine sources include oil field and geothermal
et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2009) could fit this bill, but the scalability
brines that are harder to quantify.
of such processes is still very much open to question: engineered
Ore deposits come as minerals ranging up to  5% Li by weight
nanomaterials still imply high embodied energies, and the low
(usually as Li2O) along with a wide variety of impurities. Most
adsorption efficiencies (e.g. 2% in Wang) thus far achieved with
commercial ores are lower in concentration; however, 0.3% to
such methods would mean comparatively large supporting infra-
1.5% are more common grades (Garrett, 2004; Yaksic and Tilton,
structure. The low or uncertain reversibility of the process,
2009), indicating that the gross inputs and impacts of lithium ore-
meaning that the material would need to be replaced, rounds
mining could perhaps be vaguely analogous to those of copper
out this set of concerns.
mining in crude terms of energy input and material moving.
Moving from theoretical possibilities to more practical
Generally used assumptions for recovery are 50% for underground
arrangements, lithium can be extracted from the ocean via a
mining, and 75% for open pit methods (Hustrulid and Kuchta,
number of well-understood processes (Steinberg and Dang, 1975;
2006; Yaksic and Tilton, 2009). There are also deposits of lithium
Takeuchi, 1980; Schwochau, 1984; Marinsky and Marcus, 1995).
that has been adsorbed from brines into clay. The grades are
The estimates for the actual cost to do so vary wildly. Steinberg
generally lower, but there are some large deposits and the soft
and Dang (1975) calculate the full process cost as $15–22 USD/kg
clay makes mining relatively easy. As an example, a feasibility
LCE, if we use a factor of 3.89 to inflate 1976 dollars.6 Their
study at the King’s Lake, Nevada, USA deposit (Ajie, 2010)
calculated optimum electricity requirement was 0.1 kWh/g or
indicates cash costs around US $6/kg without by-product credits
0.1 MWh/kg of lithium metal which actually appears to be less
to produce lithium carbonate, indicating that large clay resources
energy than the processing of some ‘viable’ hard rock resources
could theoretically be produced at costs similar to those paid for
lithium carbonate today. Economic mineral deposits can occur
underground and thus there may be some scope indeed for 6
As done also by Yaksic and Tilton, 2009.
 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103
Fig. 6. Potential maximum mine output from mineral resources. Shaded area indicates one possible production profile peaking at the sum of the most likely outputs from
the mineral sources. The lines indicate the maximum and minimum profiles with the mineral sites producing at extreme rates.
but is still two orders of magnitude larger than the free energy
change. To accomplish this however, the process assumed a high-
insolation solar pond covering 400 square kilometres per 1 kt/
year facility capacity to provide the majority of the initial brine
concentration, quite a caveat indeed. At 2000 kWh/m2 yr as an
estimate for high insolation, such a facility assumes a ‘renewable’
energy input of 2 TWh per square kilometre per year, or 800 MWh
of sun energy per kg lithium. The ponds required for a 100 kt/year
capacity would thus be 40,000 km2, intercepting about 80 PWh in
a high insolation area, on a scale comparable with current global
energy consumption.
From a theoretical viewpoint, extracting lithium from the
ocean is a thus a possibility, but there are massive problems
and uncertainties surrounding practical incarnations of such a
technology. Scenarios ending this century with a significant rate
of virgin resource input implicitly assume it to be possible, but
the ocean should by no means be assumed to exist on the supply
curve for planning purposes.
Extraction capacity limits
Lithium resource flows and potential limits
Roughly 25 kt of lithium metal equivalent is extracted
annually at present from a number of locations. This rate will
need to rise a minimum of 8 times, to 200 kt for the low vehicle
intensity scenario with 9 kWh batteries, and correspondingly
more with the other scenarios (Fig. 7). The following section lays
out some potential limits on flows from resource stocks, and the
implications for the potential speed of a transition.
Estimating production limits for ore and clay deposits
There is no way to know the potential output or recovery from
as of yet unknown mineral resources, but the historical dataset of
mines offers one possibility to estimate that from known sources.
Taylor (1977) noted that observed output rates of mines are more
closely correlated to a logarithmic function of ore volume than
any other variable and proposed a power law relating the
elasticity of mine capacity with ore reserves:
P ¼ aRb
where P (tonnes/day) is the ore production, R (tonnes) is the
remaining ore reserves in the mine, and a and b are constants.
Taylor estimated a and b at 0.014 and 0.75, respectively. Recently,
99
a study using a sample of over 1000 mines and covering the full
range of modern mining methods over the range of mineral
grades confirmed the validity of Taylors basic model (Long,
2009). However, in this more comprehensive study, a and b were
estimated at 0.12 and 0.65 for open pit mines and 0.30 and 0.56
for underground mines.
Applying this formula to the data set of mineral resource sites
included in the cumulative resource curve produces an estimate
of 125 kt/yr capacity from the included mineral resources if all
such resources were considered to be reserves (e.g., in a high
lithium price scenario) and with recoveries of 50% and 75% for
underground and open pit mining, respectively. The 95% con-
fidence interval coefficients from the same data set produce a
range of 60–330 thousand tons lithium metal per year production
capacity, or some three to 15 times current extraction rates
(which are from both brines and minerals).
Fig. 6 shows the estimated mineral output over time fit to a
logistic curve with magnitude and time constants resulting from
this estimation over the mineral resources which total 5.5 Mt of
recoverable lithium. The lines represent the production profile if
each lithium resource site was represented by coefficients at the
95% high and low confidence boundaries from Long’s study, an
exceedingly unlikely scenario.7
Estimating limiting factors for lithium flows from brines
The most important resource is the Salar de Atacama, and it is
difficult to think of physical constraints on the possible rate of
production. With three meters of evaporation per year, and an
average porosity of roughly 20% over the 200 m mining conces-
sion (Evans, 1978; Garrett, 2004), 15 m depth, or 8% of the
resource could be evaporated per year by covering the entire
surface with evaporation ponds. As the evaporation slows with
concentration, and the current cycle takes two years, dividing this
output by two gives a rough estimate of 500 kt/yr lithium metal,
some 45 times the current rate; this could serve as a proxy for the
maximum conceivable rate of production. The ability to pump
this much brine, and the potential to damage the porous salt
structure or otherwise limit the recoverable resource is open to
question (Garrett, 2004; Tahil, 2008). Although the potential is
7
Observe that the output from the individual mines could be added in many
ways resulting in many different shapes of the curve for total output, besides the
bell shape of the logistic curve. This does not affect the basic argument, that if the
most likely outputs of the individual mines, according to Long’s estimate, are
added one gets a maximum total output of 125 kt/yr.
100 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103
Fig. 7. Implied resource extraction rates. The demand curves assume 80% recycling. The bottom end of each band corresponds to the 0.2 cars/capita scenario and the upper
end to the 0.5 cars/capita scenario. The estimated limited mineral extraction rate from Fig. 6 is shown, indicating the role of lithium from brines and ocean.
certainly high, it is also highly uncertain. Unhappily, the ultimate
extraction rate from Atacama is of central importance to the
supply debate because as long as the production there can be (or
is thought to be) easily increased, there will be a cap on the
incentives to start new production elsewhere.
Zabuye salt lake, also spelled Chabyer, is now the largest
lithium operation in China. Initially, extraction at the location
was considered difficult because of the high magnesium content
(Evans, 2008; Zheng and Liu, 2009), but it is now proceeding with
a targeted production of 10 kt/yr lithium to be achieved some
time in the foreseeable future. The potential production rate is
unknown, though presumably higher than this. Tibetan glaciers
and rivers give ample chance for water supply, and thus the
achievable rate of extraction could possibly be very high.
The Salar de Uyuni is the largest or second largest lithium resource
on the planet, depending on the resource estimate used (Ericksen
et al., 1978; Garrett, 2004; Evans, 2008). So far, the extraction has not
been easy to make cost competitive. The high magnesium levels, and
the annual flooding, lower evaporation, and transport difficulties
make logistics far harder than at Atacama and similar extraction
rates are unlikely to be achievable. More importantly, there are
serious potential extraction limits at Uyuni stemming from limited
freshwater supplies8; the water use required for the extraction
process is mutually exclusive with existing quinoa farms. Further-
more, the water use at 10 kt/yr production is larger than the recharge
rate of the basin (Aguilar-Fernandez, 2009), and would give an
estimated aquifer draw down lifetime of only twenty years, while
displacing local agriculture. If this limit cannot be overcome then only
a small percentage of Uyuni’s resources could become available over a
timeframe relevant for the electric vehicle expansion considered in
this paper. As a contrast, although Atacama’s region is already using
most of its total available water (Grosjean and Veit, 2005), there is no
similar issue because the actual processing takes place at Antofagasta,
which is on the coast and gets water from a different source.
Other geothermal and oilfield brines could add production, but
not with the potential of the Andean salars. As an example, the
Salton Sea is a protected wildlife refuge, which may eliminate
surface ponds as an option, but the seven existing geothermal
power plants there could produce an estimated 3 kt/yr from their
brine throughput. There are many additional brine sources (e.g.
8
From 300 to 600 t of purified water is used during processing per ton LCE.
Estimates from Garrett (2004) and Aguilar-Fernandez (2009).
smaller lithium containing salars) not mentioned here. Each will
likely have some local limit on extraction, but the overall picture
remains the same: in general the sum of brine resources likely
enables a very high resource production rate, but with the bulk of
the potential at Atacama, possibly other undeveloped salars in
South America and perhaps in Tibet.
Implications of limiting flow factors
Fig. 7 demonstrates that there are two different problems related
to annual lithium availability. The first relates to the build-up phase.
From the preceding section on mineral flow limitations, it is clear that
the rate production from brine sources will determine the timeframe
and form of an electric vehicle transition. Although the potential flow
from Atacama could reach as high as 500 kt/yr, Fig. 7 shows that the
build-up of a BEV stock over the next couple of decades presents a
huge challenge. On the other hand, the PHEV scenarios seem to be
easily within reach.
The second problem relates to maintaining the lithium stock. The
scenarios in Fig. 7 assume 80% recycling. Making up for the 20% loss
in each cycle will then create a substantial demand in the second part
of the century. If the recycling efficiency is not substantially increased
and if no major new resource flows are found, this will have to be
supplied from the ocean (see Section 3.2).
Institutional factors and transient events
As the previous sections depict, there is wide latitude, but not
unlimited space for lithium battery transition scenarios. Lithium
does however have human factors that pose risk for supply
security, such as the geographic concentration of resources, the
market structure of producers, time lags in supply system
response and a lock-in effect leading to demand inelasticity. Some
of these aspects have been discussed for lithium (Andersson and
Råde, 2001; Ebensperger et al., 2005) as well as for some other
materials such as cobalt (Alonso et al., 2007), where they have
been directly implicated in supply disruption.
Geographic concentration of resources
There are a small number of critical resource locations and
high rates of demand will only increase our reliance on them. If
more than a moderately intense use of batteries is envisioned and
 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103
Fig. 8. Geographic distribution of recoverable lithium stocks from Fig. 5.
new resources prove more difficult to locate than anticipated then
the demand structure will be reliant upon these locations with no
other sources able to make up the rate of extraction required.
Fig. 8 shows the distribution of the recoverable resources
included in this study (e.g. Fig. 5). The data from Yaksic, Tilton
and Evans is based on a wider and more updated set of resources
than included in the latest USGS report (Jaskula, 2011a, 2011b),
and are subsequently scaled down for their individual recovery
factors, leading to a different distribution than the USGS in-situ
values.
In Fig. 8, the large predominance of Chile has much to do with
the great size and amount of work that has been put into defining
the resource at the Salar de Atacama. Similarly, the USA has
undergone a great deal of work in defining deposits. Most notable
however is that the other three of the top five countries (Bolivia,
China and Argentina) are associated with forms of institutional
risk as seen by the mining industry (McMahon and Cervantes,
2011). Examples include uncertain mineral rights, conflicting land
use, security risks and other unquantifiable political exposure.
This could be problematic for development as they hold much of
the potential for expansion of the highest quality brine resources.
Additionally, Zaire (DRC), Russia and a large component of the
‘Other’ category also routinely find themselves on the bottom of
such surveys. This serves to underline the importance of the
resources in stable jurisdictions, and most particularly Atacama.
These risks of distribution may be underappreciated when dis-
cussing resources at the aggregate level.
Producer concentration
The lithium market is very concentrated at the production end,
with the top four producers representing approximately 90% or
more of world production in 2009 as well as over the preceding
decade. Furthermore, as Ebensperger et al. (2005) note: ‘‘The high
level of concentration of producers, and the recent continuing
rises of lithium carbonate prices since 2001 seems to imply the
exertion of market power, significant barriers to entry and
associated strategic behaviour to ensure long-term profits.’’ This
is not an irrational position where the by-far largest and cheap-
est-to-produce resources are controlled by an oligopoly with an
interest in maximizing profit. Over the longer term however, new
resources at the prefeasibility stage are already deemed profitable
in the current price regime, and shut-in production in the US,
Argentina and other countries may not require much investment
to restart. The evidence so far is that producers have cut prices in
101
order to compete, but even if the current lithium producers were
to operate as a cartel, prices much above those prevailing today
would likely be met with new production sources.
This suggests another risk factor however: if the current brine
producers are able to keep prices limited, they can likely supply
the market for a very long time before it is considered profitable
to bring other sources online. If under such a scenario, a major
source, e.g. Atacama becomes unavailable due to either some
form of interference (e.g. natural disasters or sabotage) or through
production unexpectedly dropping (e.g. problems with pumping
rates, non-disclosure of exhaustion) then the production would
need to be replaced. This would be a major strain on the flow rate,
and rely on sources in less stable jurisdictions. Such a scenario is
not necessarily far-fetched; the loss of the main producer in the
cobalt industry produced years of large price swings and
shortages (Alonso et al., 2007).
Time lags for supply infrastructure change
The supply system takes time to change, and comparatively
rapid increases in demand could result in a comparatively limited
supply being rationed through high prices. A sustained price point
high enough to preclude the gainful use of a resource for a given
purpose for which an alternative exists could shift demand and
processes over time accordingly, and a perception of scarcity
could be a real and critical determinant of how demand may
evolve.
The lithium supply system currently has a limited fast (12
months) response capability which lies mostly with the brine
producers. Constructing a new holding pond, and then pumping
more brine to begin the evaporation period is quite a fast under-
taking, and fastest at Atacama, where the high evaporation allows
a roughly 12 month cycle through the first drying pond (Garrett,
2004). New processing plants take an average of two years for
construction if the process is known (Topp et al., 2008), indicating
that almost any surge in brine output from the salars could be
accommodated at the processing level by the same time it
becomes available from the drying ponds.
Bringing a new mine online requires several years for permit-
ting and construction of facilities, and can easily take more than a
decade from resource delineation to production in the western
world. The technology to build a mine is largely fixed upon
construction and is site specific. Upgrading the capacity from
existing mines is possible in a shorter time frame, but subject to
logistic constraints; mine upgrades have been observed to fit into
the same function used to calculate output from the mines (Long,
2009) which strongly implies decreasing returns to expansion.
In the short term, e.g. less than two years, there is no easy way
to increase production past that which already has ‘shovels in the
ground’. Between two years and the length of time it takes to get
the next major mine into production, only increased brine
production, or higher throughput through producing mineral
operations can take up slack. Unforeseen demand or problems
with extraction are thus quite inelastic or difficult to fix at a
supply level.
Conclusions
Lithium resources and societal stocks
The presently known lithium resources excluding the ocean
will only be exhausted this century if large scale use of predomi-
nantly BEV sized batteries comes into play, or if batteries are not
recycled. This same resource will extend into next century for low
vehicle count scenarios with plug in hybrids and high recycling
102 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103
rates. The magnitude of the resource will clearly support the
creation of a large number of electric vehicles, but visions of the
future that involve simply continuing present mobility trends
with vehicles based on lithium ion batteries may involve opti-
mistic assumptions about resource growth as well as recycling.
The known lithium resource is also expanding however and
current prices seem more than sufficient to spur on exploration
activity in even slightly more marginal deposits. The possibility
for discovering resources is of course unknown; the salars are
mostly found because they are surface features, but there are
many lithium-containing lakes not included in USGS resource
figures or those presented here. Yet current and future explora-
tion will presumably result in the addition of more resources.
Alternatively if environmental, political or social concerns suc-
ceed in preventing the exploitation of resources presented here
then the outlook could also deteriorate somewhat; for instance
the Salar de Uyuni, the second largest resource, has water and
wildlife issues with its exploitation as well as conflicting indi-
genous claims. Many other potential resources face similar
uncertainties as discussed in Section 5.2.
For all BEV scenarios or PHEV scenarios not involving a drastic
reduction in mobility trends, recycling will be a necessary option
if not for the build-up, then for maintenance of a societal lithium
stock. Yet recycling economics are currently not good and may
actually degrade somewhat instead of improving. The present
view that there is ‘enough’ lithium may also hinder recycling
efforts. If, as the cumulative availability curve suggests, lithium
remains at a low cost for a long time then it may be necessary to
design policy to encourage recycling rather than simply waiting
for it to evolve from commercial consideration. In the end, the
sale price of recovered material plus any recycling fees must be
greater than processing and return/collection costs. If these
should fail to line up, strong policy support will be required to
ensure recycling processes are available, and that their imple-
mentation is assured.
Lithium extraction and societal flows
The initial build-up of lithium stocks in society must be
accomplished from primary resources. There is nothing about
the conceivable rate of extraction that places a fundamental limit
on the timeline for a moderate transition, although this currently
appears contingent upon an increasingly irreplaceable supply
from lithium brines, most particularly the Salar de Atacama.
The peak virgin lithium demand will occur before 2050 in all
scenarios considered here. Recycling will not ease demand during
the build-up stage of lithium stocks because annual lithium use
will have to be increasing rapidly and the stock potentially
available for recycling will be small compared to the demand.
Extraction from known mineral deposits with typical logistics will
not be able to cover the virgin resource demand for PHEV
scenarios, and will assuredly leave a large shortfall in heavier
adoption scenarios. The world will therefore be dependent on
brine extraction for the remainder in any scenario.
This supply gap is almost certainly feasible to produce with brine
resources over the peak for moderate PHEV scenarios. Larger bat-
teries, quicker transitions or high vehicle growth will increase the
burden. Full electric vehicle scenarios where the world approaches
Western European vehicle density by the end of the century will not
only strain the resource stock, but produce flow requirements with
no currently clear possibility of addressing them.
Towards the end of the century, a steady flow of new lithium
will be necessary to make up for losses in the recycling loop and,
to a smaller extent, for losses from dispersive use in other
applications. This flow may have to come from ocean resources.
Transient events and disruptions
Although there is not necessarily a physical logic for scarcity, it
is not difficult to construct plausible supply scenarios that result
in supply growth stalling. The arguments thus far have also
implicitly assumed foresight and a smoothly functioning market,
yet there are structural features of the lithium market that have
been implicated as risk factors or as having contributed to other
transient resource disruptions. It would therefore be unwise to
neglect them in an analysis of resource adequacy. Of particular
concern is the poor quality of relevant institutions in countries
containing much of the prospective lithium resource.
The potential effects of certain actions or unknown risks could
and perhaps should be evaluated via scenarios; for instance
scenarios can be constructed where producers could theoretically
control production output to achieve prices not quite high enough
or too volatile for many marginal mineral resources to begin
extraction. If the main producers were disrupted, or they were
simply unable to keep up with the logistics required to maintain
output, then it could very easily be the case that there would not
be enough alternative supply to make up for the production for
many years, if at all. Therefore the time lag response of the supply
system, coupled with large information asymmetry poses definite
risks that could negatively impact supply, despite the lack of any
physical reason for it to be constricted. In order to assure a
smooth transition, policy may be required to address these risks.
Synthesis
It is not enough to look at lithium resource stocks and
conclude that there is enough. Although policy support may be
required to enable recycling, if recycling does occur then resource
exhaustion does not appear to be credible threat. Yet the time
dimension and its implications are more important in the case of
lithium. Issues surrounding the required rate of lithium flows, and
particularly their dependency on a concentration of producers
and countries, will occur well before any limits to resource
quantity. Maintaining the present vision of personal mobility
through simply changing the technology of the car may thus be
unrealistic unless the time scale for such a transition is extended.
A worldwide push for lithium batteries risks building up a large,
capital intensive stock of vehicles and associated production systems
that are vulnerable to resources more concentrated than that of the
oil supply system existing today; more than two thirds of the
resources considered here are concentrated in a small area shared
by three countries and possibly to be exported via a single port. There
is currently no battery technology able to compete with lithium for
large vehicle batteries, and no concrete indication that this will
change in the foreseeable future. If there are no readily scalable
alternative lithium supplies or alternative vehicle energy technolo-
gies, this would be a considerable risk to critical societal infrastruc-
ture. This is a strong case for maintaining diversity at all levels of the
system. Possible policy responses could be to maintain a portfolio of
known lithium resources at the feasibility stage to minimize the time
of any prospective disruption as well as bringing other vehicle
technologies to competitive readiness.
These obstacles and possible responses to them certainly
deserve serious consideration, without which the promise of
transport energy diversity risks running aground by shifting
energy source dependence to one of material dependence.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Göteborg Energi, Mistra, IMIT
and Chalmers Energy Initiative for their gracious support for this
 D. Kushnir, B.A. Sandén / Resources Policy 37 (2012) 93–103
article. We would also like to thank Bengt Kasemo, Roland Clift,
and several others for insightful comments.
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