Progress

The Li production market IS weird and poorly developed. It does not seem to be concentrated into ores by geologic processes, and like REEs is most easily extracted from brines. The companies doing this are getting revenue from many different elements in the brines, not just Li.

The price of Li is not set by an international trade process, but negotiated with the producers. It seems that battery makers buy LiOH at $3 to $4 per pound. I suppose that means that would be ~$20 per pound of elemental Li. For comparison Ni is currently $8/lb.

The ~20lbs of Li in my EV would be ~$400, a non-trivial but not limiting fraction of the battery cost (Nissan has a replacement plan that values a new battery at $6500). In a future '$100/kWh_storage' Li-ion battery, the Li would be ~20% of the cost.

http://lithiuminvestingnews.com/5886/lithium-prices-2012-carbonate-hydroxide-chloride/

An interesting report re the above PV-EV-storage nexus was recently published by the bank UBS:

http://www.qualenergia.it/sites/default/files/articolo-doc/ues45625.pdf

There is a summary here: http://insideevs.com/subsidy-free-evs-solar-battery-storage-2020/

Notably, it suggests that fossil fuel electricity production will become 'extinct' over then next 20 or so years.

Those radical bankers.

So when will the stock markets factor in a drop in value of 'stranded' fossil fuel reserves?
(I am loving this thread).

dougstove said:

So when will the stock markets factor in a drop in value of 'stranded' fossil fuel reserves?

Click to expand...

Likely only after we have converted over to renewables. Even then we will have to be careful with pricing or it (mostly coal) will be shipped to another country as their lowest cost fuel.

dougstove said:

So when will the stock markets factor in a drop in value of 'stranded' fossil fuel reserves?
(I am loving this thread).

Click to expand...

Great question. I wish I knew...the king of all shorts. My WAG would be that it depends on the fuel. For Coal, the answer is probably about now, for oil sometime after EVs get to ~30% of US car sales (from the current 0.7%), and for natural gas.....it could be a long time.

Thinking again, if PV seriously offsets fossil fuel demand, the value of the marginal fossil fuel resources (low grade coal, tar sands, deep offshore oil) will fall below their recuperation and processing costs. The value of the high quality accessible fossil fuels will be more stable, to fill ongoing needs for jet fuel, plastics etc.
I think there is a sub-text to Canadian & Australian energy policies: Pipe it and burn it now while it is still worth something.