What sodium already does before it reaches a battery
A sodium ion battery stores and releases power much like a lithium ion battery, except sodium, the same element that makes table salt salty, carries the charge instead of lithium. Sodium already comes out of the ground for jobs that have nothing to do with batteries. The United States produced an estimated 40 million tons of salt in 2024, some of it dug as rock salt and some pumped up as brine, salty water drawn from underground deposits. World salt production reached 280 million tons that year. Sodium carbonate, the compound many sodium battery cathodes use, is usually refined from trona, a mineral dug in Wyoming, or made from salt. The United States produced an estimated 12 million tons of natural soda ash in 2024, 10% more than in 2023, worth an estimated 2,500,000,000 dollars, and world production reached 24 million tons. Almost all of both goes to roads, food, glass and chemical plants, not to any battery.
Salt in brine is pumped up as salty water from underground deposits. Solar salt and vacuum pan salt are evaporated from brine by the sun or by heat. All 4 methods already run at scale for uses that have nothing to do with batteries.
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| Salt in brine | 42 |
| Rock salt | 40 |
| Solar salt | 9 |
| Vacuum pan salt | 9 |
Lithium comes from a much shorter list of places
Lithium does not exist in anything like that abundance. World lithium mine production reached 240,000 tons in 2024, up 18% from 204,000 tons the year before, according to the United States Geological Survey. That total came from 34 mine and brine operations spread across just 7 countries, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China and Zimbabwe. Most of what is believed to still sit in the ground, a category the government calls resources, broader than reserves, the narrower amount already proven profitable to dig up right now, is concentrated even further. Argentina and Bolivia each hold an estimated 23 million tons of lithium resources, Chile holds 11 million tons, and Australia holds 8.9 million tons.
Resources is the broader government category, material believed to exist. Reserves, the narrower amount already proven profitable to extract today, is not used here because the reserves by country table pulled from this source came back internally inconsistent and could not be verified.
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| Argentina | 23 |
| Bolivia | 23 |
| Chile | 11 |
| Australia | 8.9 |
| China | 6.8 |
| Canada | 5.7 |
| Germany | 4 |
| Congo, Kinshasa | 3 |
Getting more lithium out of the ground is slow or costly
Both of the main ways to produce more lithium take real time or real cost. Spodumene, a hard rock ore, has to be roasted at about 1,100 degrees Celsius before its lithium becomes usable, and even then the rock itself is only about 8% lithium oxide, which works out to about 4% actual lithium, according to a technical review written with researchers at a Department of Energy national laboratory. The other method pumps up brine and lets it evaporate in ponds, which takes 10 to 24 months and loses 100 to 800 cubic meters of water for every ton of lithium carbonate it produces, though the same review states it costs 30 to 50% less than roasting hard rock.
The lithium figure is the United States Geological Survey world total for 2024, source 2, 240,000 tons, converted here to million tons, 0.24, to sit on the same scale as the salt figure from source 4. A MAOWCE unit conversion, not a new fact.
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| Salt, world production | 280 |
| Lithium, world mine production | 0.24 |
What each raw material actually costs
The price gap matches the supply gap. Trona, the mineral refined into sodium carbonate, sold for 135 to 165 dollars a ton, according to a peer reviewed review of sodium battery materials. Lithium carbonate, the material a battery maker actually buys, sold for about 68,000 dollars a ton around the time that same review was published in January 2025, up from about 5,000 dollars a ton in 2010. A sodium battery draws on a raw material supply that already exists for roads, food and glass. A lithium battery draws on one that has to keep being found, mostly in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Australia and China.