The modelling for the Australian Government’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan has been published and, while the report makes bold and arguably fantastic assumptions about future progress, it does contain some very useful information and commentary on various technologies relevant to decarbonisation. One important technology is the lithium-ion battery and the modelling report notes on p. 20: ” Lithium-ion batteries are the cheapest form of grid-scale battery storage currently available. Costs are expected to fall further thanks to manufacturing scale up driven by the rapidly growing electric vehicles market.” There is a lot of excitement in industry about lithium, and let’s hope industry is right, so we can cheaply store all the new intermittent energy being generated by wind and solar, and we don’t end up with an unreliable electricity grid with regular brownouts and blackouts.

One industry expert who is very enthusiastic about lithium is UK-based Lukasz Bednarski, a battery materials analyst and a former commodity trader. In Economics Explored episode 113, I interview Lukasz about his new book Lithium: The Global Race for Battery Dominance and the New Energy Revolution.

In his book, Lukasz describes:

How a little-known mineral will affect our jobs and daily lives as much as, if not more than, AI or Big Data have done.

It’s a fascinating mineral to learn about: lithium, the third element on the periodic table and the lightest metal and solid (under standard conditions), so please check out my podcast interview with Lukasz and consider picking up a copy of his book.

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