Lithium Doomsday Dreams...

Lithium Mining in South America

I remember standing at the gas pump around 1973 filling the family Pacer.  The newspapers reporting that the "end of oil" is a mere twenty years away.  Today, man is attempting to terminate societies use of the unlimited shale gas (recoverable U.S. [shale] gas from “traditional” resources, which include shale, conventional, tight sand and carbonate, jumped from 2016 by 21% to 3,218 Tcf [ trillion cubic feet]).

Marcellus shale alone "contains about 84 Tcf of undiscovered, technically recoverable natural gas. Undiscovered resources are estimated using geologic knowledge, while technically recoverable resources may be produced using currently available technology"

So an error on perhaps an six or seven orders of magnitude in supply.

Oops...

It takes twenty two hundred metric tons of water to make one metric ton of lithium (see this).  Worldwide lithium demand is estimated at 900,000 Mt according to this.  So perhaps two trillion liters of fresh water per year.  Much of this mining occurs in South America and China.

I wonder how this lithium gets to the US?

I wonder what technology powers this shipment?

The US uses approximately 100 trillion liters of fresh water per year (see this).

By 2030 lithium demand is expected to reach (from this) 2,500,000 Mt.

Looks like the mining folks will be cutting substantially into the fresh water supply.

Where exactly the "waste water" goes from all this is unclear.  Much is presumably evaporated - though what non-water components does this evaporation carry with it into the sky...?

Rushing headlong into the lithium doomsday surely makes everyone feel good though.