Quote:
Originally Posted by oil pan 4
As far as storage batteries you cant use lithium, its far too expensive. You can use Ni it will be expensive, but then there will be a lot less around for electric car and hybrid batteries.
Take away lithium and nickel whats left?
On the other hand there is no shortage of lead for the time being.
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In point of fact, lithium is more abundant in the Earth's crust than lead:
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Abundance_of_elements_in_Earth's_crust And nickel is more abundant than either.
It's also interesting to note that the so-called rare earth elements are present in similar amounts.
The cost factor in lithium batteries to date isn't the lithium, it's the manufacturing scale, which hasn't yet ramped up to where it's really efficient, especially for anything larger than AA-sized cells. Then there's the fact that the tech is still being developed, so as soon as company X starts rolling out batteries with its tech, company Y or some university research lab invents something a bit better.
Another potential storage technology for utility-scale applications is the vanadium redox battery.