This is how the idea is introduced:

Donald Sadoway is working on a battery miracle — an inexpensive, incredibly efficient, three-layered battery using “liquid metal.”

Professor Sadoway explains that his angle has been to design around the oil price point, not around some wild and cool technology that can never compete economically. He goes on to say he wants his battery to use abundantly available materials and work in a simple, low cost way. The talk is loaded with an understated arrogance and false modesty.

After the talk I did some reading on one of the electrode materials, Antinomy (Sb). I discovered that it is very rare, produced almost exclusively in China, and expected to be completely depleted on Earth in a few years. Could this be the same plentiful material that Sadoway is talking about? His presentation suggests that for his system to work at the grid level, he’s going to need a whole lot of Sb, and possibly continue needing a new supply forever.

Either he knows something we don’t or he is just getting warmed up using antimony and will be substituting for it with some other more commonly available materials.

I’d like to hear more about this antimony and what I am missing…..

Donald Sadoway: The missing link to renewable energy | Video on TED.com

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The sustainability of water resources in future decades is likely to be affected by increases in water demand due to population growth, increases in power generation, and climate change. This study presents water withdrawal projections in the United States (U.S.) in 2050 as a result of projected population increases and power generation at the county level as well as the availability of local renewable water supplies. The growth scenario assumes the per capita water use rate for municipal withdrawals to remain at 2005 levels and the water use rates for new thermoelectric plants at levels in modern closed-loop cooling systems. In projecting renewable water supply in future years, median projected monthly precipitation and temperature by sixteen climate models were used to derive available precipitation in 2050 (averaged over 2040–2059). Withdrawals and available precipitation were compared to identify regions that use a large fraction of their renewable local water supply. A water supply sustainability risk index that takes into account additional attributes such as susceptibility to drought, growth in water withdrawal, increased need for storage, and groundwater use was developed to evaluate areas at greater risk. Based on the ranking by the index, high risk areas can be assessed in more mechanistic detail in future work.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es2030774

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Following the lead of the European Union in introducing binding measures to promote the use of regenerative energy forms, it is not unreasonable to assume that the global demand for combustible raw materials for energy generation will be reduced considerably in the second half of this century. This will not only have a favourable effect on the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, but will also help preserve fossil fuels—important as raw materials in the chemical industry—for future generations. Nevertheless, associated with the concomitant massive shift to regenerative energy forms, there will be a strong demand for other exhaustible raw materials, in particular metals, some of which are already regarded as scarce. After reviewing the debate on mineral depletion between “cornucopians” and “pessimists”, we discuss the meaning of mineral “scarcity”, particularly in the geochemical sense, and mineral “exhaustion”. The expected drastic increase in demand for mineral resources caused by demographic and societal pressures, that is, due to the increase in in-use stock, is emphasised. Whilst not discussing the issue of “strong” versus “weak” sustainability in detail, we conclude that regenerative energy systems—like nearly all resource-consuming systems in our society—do not necessarily satisfy generally accepted sustainability criteria. In this regard, we discuss some current examples, namely, lithium and cobalt for batteries, rare earth-based permanent magnets for wind turbines, cadmium and tellurium for solar cells and copper for electrical power distribution.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cssc.201100563

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The objective of this study is to develop a forecasting model to predict world crude oil supply with better accuracy than the existing models. Even though our approach originates from Hubbert model, it overcomes the limitations and restrictions associated with the original Hubbert model. As opposed to Hubbert single-cycle model, our model has more than one cycle depending on the historical oil production trend and known oil reserves. The presented method is a viable tool to predict the peak oil production rate and time. The model is simple, accurate, and totally data driven, which allows a continuous updating once new data are available. The analysis of 47 major oil producing countries estimates the world’s ultimate crude oil reserve by 2140 BSTB and the remaining recoverable oil by 1161 BSTB. The world production is estimated to peak in 2014 at a rate of 79 MMSTB/D. OPEC has remaining reserve of 909 BSTB, which is about 78% of the world reserves. OPEC production is expected to peak in 2026 at a rate of 53 MMSTB/D. On the basis of 2005 world crude oil production and current recovery techniques, the world oil reserves are being depleted at an annual rate of 2.1%.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/ef901240p

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The Hubbert-type analysis used to analyze the production history of oil is applied here to other raw materials. Many resources commonly thought of as being close to “peaking” such as lithium, helium, copper, and the rare earth elements, show no evidence of logistic behavior at any point in their production histories. Although many resources have exhibited logistic behavior in the past, many now show exponential or superexponential growth. In most cases, the transition has occurred in the last ten to twenty years.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es203065g

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The Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex (J-PARC), based in Tokai, was supposed to be one of the leading facilities of its kind, allowing an unprecedented view of microstructures in the life and physical sciences. But when the $1.5 billion (£1 billion) facility opened in 2009, it was missing something important: helium-3, a neutron-detector material. Thanks to a global shortage, which came to light the year before, availability of helium-3 has plummeted while prices have skyrocketed.

Shortages spur race for helium-3 alternatives

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