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- [Narrator] When it comes
to electric vehicle manufacturing,
few resources are as vital as lithium.
Over the past decade,
prospectors unearthed troves of the lithium chemicals
that power batteries,
but the shift toward a cleaner economy is accelerating
and batteries play a central role.
As a result, demand for lithium
is expected to exceed supply through 2025.
Car makers and analysts say that more lithium is needed
to produce more batteries at a faster pace.
And as China takes a leading role
in the battery supply chain,
the US government is trying
to boost domestic supply of the metal.
Here's how Lithium became such a hot commodity.
Lithium is scattered not only across the US
but the entire world.
In the top lithium producing country, Australia,
miners excavate a mineral called spodumene,
which contains the metal.
And in Chile and Argentina,
companies extract lithium from massive salt lakes
by pumping water into the ground.
The extracted metals are mixed with other elements
to produce compounds, like lithium hydroxide
and lithium carbonate.
These compounds are a key part of many batteries.
Car makers and battery researchers, like Dr. Guihua Yu
value Lithium because of its unique chemical properties.
- With lithium ions being so small,
they can be very easily recharged, as they diffuse quickly
during battery charge and discharge.
Lithium ions are also very light weight,
so batteries based on Lithium ions can offer high energy
meaning that a lot of energy can be packed
in a small amount or small volume of materials.
- [Narrator] These two properties,
energy density and rechargeability
are the reason why lithium is found in so many batteries.
Inside of all batteries are two major components,
the cathode and the anode,
compounds that contain lithium ions
transfer from one components when power is drawn down
and they return when the battery is recharging
- [Guihau Yu] And they can be charged
like hundreds or thousands of times
so they have different kind of degradation mechanism.
But lithium ions are so small, so they are very stable.
So that's the reason why the lithium ions
can offer at least a few years of use.
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- [Narrator] Scientists have spent decades
perfecting lithium based batteries.
Lithium was discovered in 1817,
but more than a century passed
before businesses used the chemical
in mainstream batteries.
In the 1990s, Sony took advantage
of new, lightweight lithium ion batteries
in a design for a hand-held video camera.
The result was the Handycam.
A smash commercial hit.
Shortly afterward, rechargeable batteries
began to appear in laptops and smartphones.
And batteries are increasingly used
in conjunction with wind and solar power.
Analysts like Simon Moores point out
that demand for the chemical is growing
as companies build bigger, battery-powered machines.
- People need more lithium today,
and in the future than in the past,
because you're going from lithium ion batteries
the size of your mobile phone
to lithium ion batteries the size of your car.
The entire chasse of an electric vehicle
is a lithium ion battery.
So there's an order of magnitude bigger,
and as a result
you need an order of magnitude more lithium supply.
- [Narrator] Which means that mining companies
around the world are searching for lithium.
In the United States,
companies like Lithium Americas and Piedmont Lithium
are looking for metal-bearing spodumene minerals
in familiar places.
In the past,
lithium from the tin-spodumene belt of the Carolinas
was used in the production of both medication,
and nuclear weapons.
Today prospectors are fanning out
in search of new deposits here,
as well as in Arkansas, Nevada, and California.
The search is based on expectations of consumer demand
for electric vehicles.
- It takes 4 to 7 years to build a lithium mine,
it takes 24 months to build a battery plant.
These two parts of the supply chain,
they don't live in the same time zones.
And that is the major challenge,
is matching the supply when the demand is needed,
and at present, the industry has really failed to date.
- [Narrator] Even though E.V. sales
currently make up about 2% of the U.S. auto market,
that share is expected to grow to 10% by 2025,
according to Morgan Stanley.
And policies coming out of Washington
could further boost demand for battery components.
President Biden ordered a review
of domestic supply chains for critical products.
That includes semiconductors, key minerals,
pharmaceuticals, and,
- Advanced batteries
like the ones used in electric vehicles.
There's strong bipartisan support
for fast reviews of these four areas
because they're essential to protecting and strengthening
American competitiveness.
- [Narrator] President Biden's emphasis
on supply chain is driven in part by geopolitics.
When it comes to lithium, only about 1% of global output
is both mined and processed in the U.S.
China unearths about 10%.
China also processes about two thirds
of the worlds lithium supply,
and dominates the global battery market.
The U.S. government has said
that relying on oversea sources
for these materials creates a strategic vulnerability,
which means that a new hunt for lithium
is only getting started.
The race is on to see who will supply the world,
with this powerful metal.
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