If the entire worlds reserve of lithium was used, how many hybrid cars could be made?
Hybrid cars will dominate new car sales by at least 2020. When stories such as how the Greenland ice cap is melting twice as fast as was thought just a few years ago hit the press, those of us that worry about global warming get anxious and even angry. Still, I believe that in the next decade, the evidence of global will become so clear, that the majority of the world will demand action. Such demand could justify the extra costs of hybrid vehicles, even if those costs can’t be made up solely by saving money on fuel. While hybrid critics might claim that such demand could benefit clean diesel instead of hybrid cars, those critics simply have no vision. Why? New research being done at Sandi National Laboratories, for example, demonstrates that a new generation of lithium-ion batteries will be ready to take over the hybrid battery market before 2010. Once this transition takes place, lithium-ion batteries will be cheaper, lighter and far more efficient than the current Ni MH batteries use
