>It's workable and scales if we are able to reuse lithium. When does that happen? (recycling is not reuse)
I assume you mean reuse is not recycling ie using old batteries as lower-capacity storage is not workable indefinitely.
First off the most pressing issue is that there is no practical replacement for cobalt in many li-ion applications. Chemistries without cobalt, like lithium titanate or iron phosphate, have a price and weight premium and reduced capacity. Cobalt is rarer than lithium, makes up more of the battery, and is harder to mine. The price might go up very quickly past a certain point, if supply from the DRC becomes tighter.
Lithium is very widespread and relatively abundant but most importantly its final impact on the price of a battery is only a few percent. If it becomes more expensive to reclaim or mine, it will still have a pretty small impact on the cost of batteries.
LiS8 + silicon batteries would be a dream: immediate 8x boost in capacity for a given weight and the size is halved.
Unfortunately the damn thing tries to swell to 200% size when you charge it and lasts for six cycles. Someone may figure out how to make it work but most likely itll use nanotech (like a123 did with FePO4, or a graphene coating). The fact is its such a hard problem there are very few ways it could be done cheaply. Right now LiS is only applicable to very, very niche applications. SolarImpulse used them. They come at a very high price and limited longevity.
I assume you mean reuse is not recycling ie using old batteries as lower-capacity storage is not workable indefinitely.
First off the most pressing issue is that there is no practical replacement for cobalt in many li-ion applications. Chemistries without cobalt, like lithium titanate or iron phosphate, have a price and weight premium and reduced capacity. Cobalt is rarer than lithium, makes up more of the battery, and is harder to mine. The price might go up very quickly past a certain point, if supply from the DRC becomes tighter.
Lithium is very widespread and relatively abundant but most importantly its final impact on the price of a battery is only a few percent. If it becomes more expensive to reclaim or mine, it will still have a pretty small impact on the cost of batteries.