this post was submitted on 11 May 2026
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Lithium isn't quite like gold. It is not rare at all. The news isn't that it is there, the news is that someone has found a place where it is relatively easy to dig, and lots of it.
In only a few years, most batteries will be made without lithium anyway.
Citation needed.
Have you not been paying attention to the development of sodium batteries? They are already surpassing LithIon batteries in energy density and cost.
Cost, yes, energy density, very much no.
So good for grid storage, bad for vehicles?
Yes. Chinese manufacturers are using sodium batteries in some low-range cheap city-cars, too. But fundamentally there is less energy storage in a charged sodium atom than a charged lithium atom so it seems sodium batteries must always be bigger and heavier than equivalent-capacity lithium batteries.
Not exactly, they work better in cold temps for northern countries.