I'm reminded of the Hunt brothers attempt to corner the silver market in 1980 [1].
> But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.
> “In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.” [2]
Price seems to be able to make material availability very elastic. If there is a huge demand for lithium and our collective resources are bent toward obtaining it (or finding a substitute) I think you can trust "The Market" to find a way.
There's a geothermal well near the Salton Sea in California where the scale that builds up in the pipes is high grade silver ore. The wells there are also being targeted as lithium sources. I've wondered if storage of heat in underground rocks (a cheap form of long term energy storage) could be combined with drilling into promising formations to extract traces of useful elements.
> But as the high prices persisted, new silver began to come out of the woodwork.
> “In the U.S., people rifled their dresser drawers and sofa cushions to find dimes and quarters with silver content and had them melted down,” says Pirrong, from the University of Houston. “Silver is a classic part of a bride’s trousseau in India, and when prices got high, women sold silver out of their trousseaus.” [2]
Price seems to be able to make material availability very elastic. If there is a huge demand for lithium and our collective resources are bent toward obtaining it (or finding a substitute) I think you can trust "The Market" to find a way.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
[2] https://priceonomics.com/how-the-hunt-brothers-cornered-the-...