POTENTIAL GAME-CHANGER: New tech cheaply produces lithium and H2, while desalinating seawater.

China’s global leadership on high-volume EV production has put it ahead of the game, and while the majority of ground-based lithium reserves are in the “lithium triangle” of Chile, Bolivia and Argentina, China controls more than half’s the world’s supply simply through investments and ownership. It has shown in the past that it’s not afraid to wield commodity supplies as a weapon.

But as with other metals like uranium, land-based lithium reserves pale in comparison to what’s out there in the sea. According to researchers at Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), there’s about 5,000 times as much lithium in the oceans as there is in land deposits, and a newly developed technology could start extracting it cheaply enough to make the big time – while producing hydrogen gas, chorine gas and desalinated water as a bonus.

According to the research team, the electricity required to produce a kilogram of lithium in this way (about 76.3 kWh) would cost around US$5 – and every kilogram of lithium would generate a bonus 0.87 kg of hydrogen gas and 31.12 kg of chlorine gas. At 2020 prices, these side products alone could sell for between US$6.90 and $11.70.

Those are encouraging numbers. I hope this pans out.