• Spiralvortexisalie@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Most Lithium comes from South America and Australia and has for some time. I do not believe that Lithium has ever had the geopolitical issues that other rare earth metals such as cobalt have had.

    • jonne
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      1 year ago

      Yeah, the difference between lithium and oil is that oil is a consumable. If the price of oil goes up, that has an instant effect on energy/transportation costs. If the price of lithium goes up, it’ll only affect the price of new batteries, and anything that’s already in use is unaffected. It’ll slow down investments in new projects, people might delay the purchase of a new car, etc, but it’s a way smaller economic impact.