Thank you to my reader, Gerry, who sent this note through from Bob Trevan:

“There are almost 20 million cars in Australia – half that is 10 million.

Depending on what you read there’s around 50 kg of lithium used in a car battery.

That means you will need around 500 million kg of lithium to reach Labor’s target.

Lithium is a 1% ore body (you need to mine 100 tonnes of dirt to get one tonne of ore) – that means you will need mine 50 billion kilograms of dirt just to come up with the raw material. 

You will also need other metals to act as the anode and cathode. 

It then takes further energy to turn these materials into batteries, (usually done offshore).

While lithium batteries may be effective for small appliances, it is not feasible for them to be ever being scaled up to meet the demands of industry – and definitely not without leaving a massive footprint on the environment or being produced at a reasonable cost.

Given they also have a limited life, there’s the issue of recycling and further extraction to cover depreciation of the original material.”

Gibber! Gibber!

Chugley, The Monkey who does not like being ‘Monkeyed” around.