Since the packs will be large, uniform and contain expensive metals like cobalt, they will be recycled so I would suspect demand for lithium would go down when the market becomes saturated (probably not in our lifetimes), just like how lead-acid car batteries don't need much new lead as quite a bit of it comes from old batteries.

Between these two points, I don't think lithium is worth worrying about.

The industrial era has been around less than 200 years and we have multiple non-renewables that we have or are exhausting the entire planet's supply, and our approach is "well, we probably have 200 years of it, it's not really an issue when there's other stuff running out in 60 years or so".

We are amazingly blind (or wilfully ignorant) to the future beyond our grandchildren.

For things that we are tossing away when we are done with them, as long as we mark where all our dumps are, the future generations should be fine as when they run out of an element, they will be able to mine our dumps. Its not like we are destroying the elements to build things out of them.

We could be nice and somewhat sort/record the trash in our dumps so future generations know where to dig when they need something and be able to get it in reasonable concentrations.

The figure piqued my interest. I doubt your argument weighs much on it (nor am I taking a position on it), but when are you measuring from? Some possibilities I thought of:

- 3 million years ago - Stone Age begins

- 1.8–0.2 million years ago - Homo sapiens sapiens emerges

- 13,000 BCE - Animal domestication (pigs)

- 11,500 BCE - Agriculture (rice domestication)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_modernity

In order to classify what traits should be included in modern human behavior, it is necessary to define behaviors that are universal among living human groups. Some examples of these human universals are abstract thought, planning, trade, cooperative labor, body decoration, control and use of fire. Along with these traits, humans possess a heavy reliance on social learning.

...

Archaeological evidence of behavioral modernity are:

- burial

- fishing

- figurative art (cave paintings, petroglyphs, dendroglyphs, figurines)

- systematic use of pigment (such as ochre) and jewelry for decoration or self-ornamentation

- Using bone material for tools

- Transport of resources over long distances

- Blade technology

- Diversity, standardization, and regionally distinct artifacts

- Hearths

- Composite tools

Of particular interesting is how they show criteria like abstract thought and planning, which at first blush don't seem very amenable to leaving direct archeological evidence.

I admit to being surprised by the number for Homo sapiens. I'd have to think it was closer to the 0.2 than the 1.8.

But even then, that'd make it worse.

Even at 13,000 BCE, we're still not doing so well. It can be argued that primitive man didn't have the ability to extract many resources, so it's not comparable, but I don't think that's the case. We shouldn't get a free pass because we have no history of "mass pillage of earthly resources" with which to compare.

So, a doubling every 5? 10? years, if the gigafactory is a start of a trend, rather than the last great battery factory?

Those 200 years would then be cut quite drastically!

[ed: whops, misread "projected growth" for "project growth" (ie: growth due to the gigafactory alone. Still, I think the point stands that accelerating demand could change the sustainability of resources.]

There isn't enough oil to power our civilisation for the foreseeable future, but people are still building wells and selling their contents.

There might easily be enough, or it might be easily recyclable but those are perfectly sensible questions to ask that aren't answered by your thought process.