You think the toxic (deadly) lithium thermal runaways that can’t be stopped are somehow better? No. They are worse and a deadly underground carpark disaster waiting to happen.

Yup, all those trains waiting to explode in carparks. Nor are we developing better batteries that don’t have these problems. Nope, just leaving things exactly as they are.

Not enough lithium in the world to supply the global suv market . . .

Even if lithium was our only battery option, this is just plain wrong. People misunderstand what “reserve” means in mining. It’s not the amount of something that’s available to be mined. It’s the amount that is currently available under current economic conditions. Both better technology and other shifts in the market mean more reserves “magically” open up.

Oceanic lithium mining may already been commercially viable, and the amount of lithium we can get from that is basically unlimited. On the lab side, there’s a promising string-based evaporation method, which would substantially reduce costs and environmental footprint–exactly the sort of tech that makes more reserves open up. It still needs to be demonstrated at scale, but the strings involved don’t use any exotic materials or have any difficult production.