In 8th grade I read a book on Zinc and it projected the world's supply would run out by ~1985. The book was published in like 1970 and I was reading it in 1994. Since then I've had a big of skepticism of "it's running out" when it comes to raw industrial materials.

I came across this before:

- The Mining of Minerals and the Limits to Growth (https://tupa.gtk.fi/raportti/arkisto/16_2021.pdf)

Just to note, that is making pretty questionable assumptions to get to the conclusion that there are not enough metals. For example, they assume that there is a set need of cobalt/nickel per kWh of lithium batteries, which obviously is completely false (see LFP chemistry). They also use 2018 reserves as the yardstick, completely oblivious to the fact that already by 2021 the lithium reserves had increased compared to 2018 by more than what their own numbers say a generation of EVs need.

Ultimately, scarcity is determined by cost. Here's the cost history: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lithium

The cathode accounts for just over half a battery's cost: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/breaking-down-the-cost-of-a...