IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jrpoli/v97y2024ics0301420724005932.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Long-run availability of mineral resources: The dynamic case of lithium

Author

Listed:
  • Fleming, Maxwell
  • Kannan, Sangita Gayatri
  • Eggert, Roderick

Abstract

Lithium requirements will increase substantially in the energy transition - raising concerns about adequacy and affordability of lithium over the long term. A cumulative availability curve (CAC) helps assess these concerns. A CAC summarizes estimates of quantities, costs and locations of resources, which are key characteristics of future resource availability. With estimates of in situ resources and production costs for 150 conventional and unconventional lithium deposits, the CAC developed in this study shows that: in situ resources doubled between 2009 and 2023 to 726 million metric tonnes lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE), illustrating the dynamic nature of our knowledge of resources; cost estimates suggest an incentive price of US$12,500-$15,000 per metric tonne LCE, well below the peak price in 2023 but above the average price from 2011 to 2020; and resources are more geographically dispersed than current production. Production is not constrained by physical availability but by investment to convert resources into reserves, and further into operating mines and processing facilities, in ways that are environmentally and socially responsible.

Suggested Citation

  • Fleming, Maxwell & Kannan, Sangita Gayatri & Eggert, Roderick, 2024. "Long-run availability of mineral resources: The dynamic case of lithium," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:97:y:2024:i:c:s0301420724005932
    DOI: 10.1016/j.resourpol.2024.105226
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301420724005932
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.resourpol.2024.105226?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Yaksic, Andrés & Tilton, John E., 2009. "Using the cumulative availability curve to assess the threat of mineral depletion: The case of lithium," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 185-194, December.
    2. Roberto F. Aguilera & Roderick G. Eggert & Lagos C.C. Gustavo & John E. Tilton, 2009. "Depletion and the Future Availability of Petroleum Resources," The Energy Journal, , vol. 30(1), pages 141-174, January.
    3. Tilton, John E. & Crowson, Phillip C.F. & DeYoung, John H. & Eggert, Roderick G. & Ericsson, Magnus & Guzmán, Juan Ignacio & Humphreys, David & Lagos, Gustavo & Maxwell, Philip & Radetzki, Marian & Si, 2018. "Public policy and future mineral supplies," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 55-60.
    4. Jordan, Brett W. & Eggert, Roderick G. & Dixon, Brent W. & Carlsen, Brett W., 2015. "Thorium: Crustal abundance, joint production, and economic availability," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 81-93.
    5. James T. Frith & Matthew J. Lacey & Ulderico Ulissi, 2023. "A non-academic perspective on the future of lithium-based batteries," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-17, December.
    6. Pustov, Alexander & Malanichev, Alexander & Khobotilov, Ilya, 2013. "Long-term iron ore price modeling: Marginal costs vs. incentive price," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(4), pages 558-567.
    7. William T. Stringfellow & Patrick F. Dobson, 2021. "Technology for the Recovery of Lithium from Geothermal Brines," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-72, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Juan Ignacio Guzmán & Enrique Silva, 2018. "Copper price determination: fundamentals versus non-fundamentals," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 31(3), pages 283-300, October.
    2. Emilio Castillo & Roderick Eggert, 2019. "Reconciling Diverging Views on Mineral Depletion: A Modified Cumulative Availability Curve Applied to Copper Resources," Working Papers 2019-02, Colorado School of Mines, Division of Economics and Business.
    3. Roland W. Scholz & Gerald Steiner, 2022. "The role of transdisciplinarity for mineral economics and mineral resource management: coping with fallacies related to phosphorus in science and practice," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 35(3), pages 745-763, December.
    4. Frenzel, Max & Ketris, Marina P. & Seifert, Thomas & Gutzmer, Jens, 2016. "On the current and future availability of gallium," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 38-50.
    5. Bazhanov, Andrei, 2018. "Difficulties in the forecasting of iron ore price: a review," MPRA Paper 87881, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 12 Jul 2018.
    6. António Mateus & Catarina Lopes & Luís Martins & Mário Abel Gonçalves, 2021. "Current and Foreseen Tungsten Production in Portugal, and the Need of Safeguarding the Access to Relevant Known Resources," Resources, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-26, June.
    7. Proost, Stef & Van Dender, Kurt, 2012. "Energy and environment challenges in the transport sector," Economics of Transportation, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 77-87.
    8. Aguilera, Roberto F., 2014. "Production costs of global conventional and unconventional petroleum," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 134-140.
    9. Hache, Emmanuel & Seck, Gondia Sokhna & Simoen, Marine & Bonnet, Clément & Carcanague, Samuel, 2019. "Critical raw materials and transportation sector electrification: A detailed bottom-up analysis in world transport," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 240(C), pages 6-25.
    10. Karan Bhuwalka & Randolph E. Kirchain & Elsa A. Olivetti & Richard Roth, 2023. "Quantifying the drivers of long‐term prices in materials supply chains," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 27(1), pages 141-154, February.
    11. Richa, Kirti & Babbitt, Callie W. & Gaustad, Gabrielle & Wang, Xue, 2014. "A future perspective on lithium-ion battery waste flows from electric vehicles," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 63-76.
    12. Paltsev, Sergey & Jacoby, Henry D. & Reilly, John M. & Ejaz, Qudsia J. & Morris, Jennifer & O'Sullivan, Francis & Rausch, Sebastian & Winchester, Niven & Kragha, Oghenerume, 2011. "The future of U.S. natural gas production, use, and trade," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 5309-5321, September.
    13. Marc Germain, 2022. "Limits to green growth [Des limites à la croissance verte]," Working Papers hal-03913177, HAL.
    14. Philip Maxwell & Mauricio Mora, 2020. "Lithium and Chile: looking back and looking forward," Mineral Economics, Springer;Raw Materials Group (RMG);Luleå University of Technology, vol. 33(1), pages 57-71, July.
    15. Ewees, Ahmed A. & Elaziz, Mohamed Abd & Alameer, Zakaria & Ye, Haiwang & Jianhua, Zhang, 2020. "Improving multilayer perceptron neural network using chaotic grasshopper optimization algorithm to forecast iron ore price volatility," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    16. Fernando Moreno-Brieva & Carlos Merino, 2020. "African international trade in the global value chain of lithium batteries," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 25(6), pages 1031-1052, August.
    17. Okullo, Samuel J. & Reynès, Frédéric & Hofkes, Marjan W., 2015. "Modeling peak oil and the geological constraints on oil production," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 36-56.
    18. West, James, 2020. "Extractable global resources and the future availability of metal stocks: “Known Unknowns” for the foreseeable future," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    19. Daniel Huppmann and Franziska Holz, 2012. "Crude Oil Market Power—A Shift in Recent Years?," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 4).
    20. Langer, Lissy & Huppmann, Daniel & Holz, Franziska, 2016. "Lifting the US crude oil export ban: A numerical partial equilibrium analysis," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 258-266.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jrpoli:v:97:y:2024:i:c:s0301420724005932. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30467 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.