[runarberg]

That is not a proven fact. We probably need more silicon for the solar cells. But there is nothing about lithium ion batteries which makes them our only good choice for storing energy from renewables. Gravity is probably our best energy storage at present, there is also nickle metal hydrade for home storage, and in the near future we are probably gonna be looking at molten salt batteries (e.g. calcium-antimony liquid-metal batteries) for large scale storage. We are probably only gonna need to mine the lithium and cobalt for our consumer electronics (including electric cars). For public transit systems that can’t connect to the power grid for some reason, there is always hydrogen fuel-cells.

So no, we are not going to be needing an absurd amount of any one mineral (except maybe silicon) as they all have alternatives which quite often are even better then lithium and cobalt.

[pfdietz]

Silicon is the second most abundant element in the Earth's crust. Pick up a random rock and it will average 26% silicon. There is absolutely not ever going to be a shortage of the element silicon.