Don't focus on lithium so much. There are other options in the making, Sodium for instance or Iron-Air. At the moment Lithium is just too cheap for high effort.

Solar is cheap and is getting cheaper. Worst case we can store as heat and use a turbine to generate electricity at ~60% efficiency.

https://ieefa.org/articles/ieefa-us-small-modular-reactor-too-late-too-expensive-too-risky-and-too-uncertain