No, the same arguments do not apply. Lithium ion battery production is essentially a chemical industry. It cannot become cheaper than its input materials. Most of the cobalt produced goes to lithium ion batteries [1]. Eventually, the battery industry hits the ceiling of what extraction industries can supply and shortages are already on the horizon [2].

Nuclear power plants are mostly steel, concrete, and copper. They need to be manufactured to precise tolerances, but the cost of a nuclear plant isn't driven by the cost of concrete and steel as rae inputs. The nuclear industry accounts for a negligible share of steel, copper, and concrete consumption. The lion's share of the cost is in the design, approval, and construction of the plants. Unlike batteries, these are factors that benefit from building the same repeated design. A serial run of 40 heat exchangers is a lot cheaper than a one-off production of 3 or 4 heat exchangers. This is why nuclear plants were so much cheaper in the 1970s and 80s when the same designs were built repeatedly.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1143399/global-cobalt-co...

2. https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/shortages-flagged-ev...

There are two flaws with your argument. First, it’s actually somewhat unlikely that lithium ion batteries are going to be the cheapest grid storage. Second, natural resources almost always get cheaper to extract as demand increases, especially when they’re not actually scarce (there’s tons of Lithium out there).

> First, it’s actually somewhat unlikely that lithium ion batteries are going to be the cheapest grid storage

Then please share what storage mechanism is going to be cheaper.

> Second, natural resources almost always get cheaper to extract as demand increases, especially when they’re not actually scarce (there’s tons of Lithium out there).

Incorrect, as easily accessible reserves get depleted more and more remote reserves must be tapped. This increases cost of extraction.

You’d think so but in reality extraction costs just drop as technology improves. For example, lithium..

Lithium prices have more than doubled over the last decade: https://www.metalary.com/lithium-price/

They've increased more than sixfold since 2000.

"Past performance does not indicate future returns."

All you're doing is repeating the fact that we've been under-investing in lithium (and other energy minerals[0]) for the past decade+. Everyone already knows that.

Nothing indicates lithium mining & refining is at its physical or technology limits. Far from it: we see large low-hanging fruit for process improvements in both.

Ion exchange and/or membrane and/or electrochemical separation vs ponds, lithium carbonate intermediate vs lithium hydroxide, clay vs spodumene, etc. Lots of exciting stuff going on!

[0] https://youtu.be/Keja23R2N7g

Lithium ion is just one type of battery. There are many including quite a few that don't involve exotic materials. For grid storage, energy density is a lot less important.

Even so, we're on track to produce li on batteries for cars by the twh per year. And most of those will have a second life in grid storage. That's before considering the effects of vehicle to grid storage.

There are no plans for nuclear anywhere close to the same scale. Changing that will require a debate about cost. This article does a great job of avoiding that topic entirely.