The confusion comes from wrong vocabulary. There are two different words in use: resources and reserves. Resources is what ever there is in (or in some cases on) the ground. Reserves is what can be viably extracted.
World lithium resources are close to 100M tons, but usable part, reserves, is about 1/4 of it.
Notice how it is also stated in the article: “We are trying to find out how much can we use from the resources we found. It takes time,” Rudklao told The Nation.
World lithium resources are close to 100M tons, but usable part, reserves, is about 1/4 of it.
Notice how it is also stated in the article: “We are trying to find out how much can we use from the resources we found. It takes time,” Rudklao told The Nation.
So they don't know how big are the reserves.