Quote:
Originally Posted by Eevo
Lithium is less abundant than lead, if you look at the published reserves. But like any mineral, the known reserves depend largely on demand - without a market, nobody is going to be looking for it, and the demand for lithium is a lot less than that for lead. Crustal total for the metals are about 14 parts per million for lead and estimates for lithium of 20-70 ppm. Lithium is more uncertain because, not being nearly as economically important, it is less studied. In reality, it is impossible to say which material is more abundant, except in the very short term, where lead, having been a major industrial input material for at least two thousand years, can be supplied immediately in very large quantities, where any sudden surge in lithium demand is likely to have to wait on the development of new mines and perhaps the finding of new deposits.
Then there is the point that lithium batteries, as pointed out, weigh a lot less than lead-acid batteries - which means that you get a lot more storage capacity per kg from lithium. So if you want to claim the ingredients for lithium batteries are less abundant, you need to specify what time frame you mean, do some careful calculations and acknowledge large error bars!
