Lithium is "mined" by pumping underwater brine to a surface pool and letting it evaporate. The cost effectiveness of this apparently caused most Lithium mines to shut down inthe 90's because they couldn't compete[1]. Lithium is also present in seawater, but they apparently don't have a cost effective way to extract it from that yet. Apparently the evaporation process is 18-24 months per batch though, so there is some lead time, just not 5 years (good), and it doesn't necessarily lesson by all that much if you have the facility already set up (as in you can't necessarily throw more people/machines at it for a short term increase, which is bad).
A commercially viable way to extract it from seawater would likely solve any supply problems indefinitely.
This, of course, doesn't address the need for Cobalt, but I'm not sure how much is required for the process.
A commercially viable way to extract it from seawater would likely solve any supply problems indefinitely.
This, of course, doesn't address the need for Cobalt, but I'm not sure how much is required for the process.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium#History