[grenoire]

Lithium is cheap because the externalities of the environmental damage it causes is not accounted for in the pricing. It's a highly exploitative resource which has destructive impacts on local bacterial ecosystems, human communities, and water availability.

Some articles, if you are interested:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09626... https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/fac...

It's not even comparable to sodium, which is abundant practically everywhere.

[ajuc]

> Lithium is cheap because the externalities of the environmental damage it causes is not accounted for in the pricing.

Like every other raw resource we use.

[culi]

Let's not flatten it. Different materials have different externalities. And are available in different places with different levels of human rights and environmental protections

[specialist]

Now compare to fossil fuels.