Everyone knows that hybrid cars are the latest and greatest for anyone who wants to be considered “environmentally friendly.” Hybrids cut petroleum use significantly by implementing an battery operated electric motor that runs the car at lower speeds and allows the traditional gasoline engine only to run while at higher speeds. Hybrids seem so great that even Barack Obama has said that if he were to become president, the entire government fleet would consist of hybrid vehicles.
But does anyone know what’s in those big hybrid batteries? I’ll tell you. It’s lithium. And there really isn’t very much of it to be found naturally here on planet earth.
According to William Tahil, Director of Research for Meridian International Research, a majority of the world’s lithium deposits are found in a small area at the top of the Andes mountains. In an interview with EVWorld.com, Tahil says that we may already have reached “peak lithium,” which could have very serious implications for motorists and automakers who are scrambling to buy and produce an ever growing selection of hybrid models.
The idea of peak lithium is just one speed bump in the long and arduous road to petroleum independence that lies ahead. What I think is most important for us to take away from these findings is not that hybrids are terrible and we should all quit buying them, but that there will never be one simple and neat solution to this giant problem we have created for ourselves.
Hybrids may be great for today, but it seems they will not be viable forever, especially when the oil wells finally spit out their last drops of black gold and we have mined all of the lithium we can find on this earth. And because we haven’t seemed to find that silver bullet to save us from petroleum just yet, it looks like we need to just keep looking, and maybe someday (hopefully sooner than later) we will find that technology that does not rely on any kind of non-renewable natural resource.
Until that day comes, I say keep buying hybrids, using biofuels and taking the bus. These are the best options we have available to us right now, and just because they aren’t perfect doesn’t mean they don’t help.
