Oh good! It’s a Canadian based mining company, we know how much they care about the environment ……… what could go wrong
America's biggest lithium jackpot found in ancient supervolcano
America may have hit the jackpot after scientists announced they found the world's largest lithium deposit lurking in an ancient supervolcano along the Nevada-Oregon border.www.dailymail.co.uk
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There's money to be made on that thar caldaria! Besides It's a big place, so expect lots of American competition. We need lithium for now to go green, with EVs in particular and batteries made from it should get quite a bit better and more energy dense. Other chemistries will be used too, particularly for stationary use and we will need lots of grid storage and HVDC interconnectors too. It's either this shit or we keep burning fossil fuels and one way to drive costs down and speed adoption is mass production at all stages, there are a ton of battery factories springing up like mushrooms and they will need raw materials.Oh good! It’s a Canadian based mining company, we know how much they care about the environment ……… what could go wrong
but at what costs to the enviroment......this caldera is also:
Not my call, but there are national energy policy priorities and big money involved so take it from there. These deposits were produced hydrothermally I believe mineral rich springs feeding a lake over time since they are in clay. Mining it is not too big an issue, refining it might be though and that uses water. Once most of the planet is converted into EVs say in 20 years and there is a robust recycling program, how much lithium will we need? I mean there are plenty of other chemistries that might be used like sodium, especially for stationary applications, flow and iron batteries for grid scale storage. It appears lithium will be the king of EVs and devices for a while with plenty of new variants based on silicon and sulfur, not to mention solid state and a lot less or non-flammable.
mining is kinda of an issue, cause they're gonna have to do it ecologically to the enviroment.....
www.saltworkstech.com
I don't like it, but because of shifting priorities, conflicting needs and climate change, I'm not about to hang a protest sign around my neck about it. The needs mitigate other feelings I might have about it, as long as it is done responsibly and that depends on the government you elect, Trump nearly killed the EPA with deregulation and corrupt leadership. There are more modern extraction methods that use a lot less water and are more efficient and I posted on them in this thread a while back. One uses a chemical that attracts and binds to the lithium and then is separated from it in another process and is recycled.mining is kinda of an issue, cause they're gonna have to do it ecologically to the enviroment.....
the other issue i have is also the refining as u mentioned, and it uses more that just water....js
Lithium Extraction and Refining
Separate lithium ions from contaminants or concentrate brines for lithium extraction, reduced evaporation time or improved recovery.
www.frontiersin.org
New lithium extraction method promises cleaner energy output
Researchers are even exploring the possibility of extracting lithium from seawater, potentially a game-changer for lithium accessibility globally.interestingengineering.com
nice to see the research, and i would hope they can put the science to use....and soon....Frontiers | A review of technologies for direct lithium extraction from low Li+ concentration aqueous solutions
Under the Paris Agreement, established by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, many countries have agreed to transition their energy so...
this one is good, my stopping point is when they re-inject the brine into the earths crust again (imo contamination of water supplies is where i'm going with it)
The thing is many of these predictions don't take new innovations into account, it might take a spell to get from the lab to industrial use, but the high potential profits and government incentives can compress that timeframe considerably for mining, extracting and building batteries. After the lessons with Russia, Europe and energy, Biden isn't about to make America dependent on China for anything and he has a list of shit with Lithium and rare earths on it, so does the EU. There will be a lot of batteries on the market and several kinds of them will be lithium based, but there are likely to be other alternatives too based on sodium, zinc and aluminum for small scale use including EVs. Already we have vastly improved regular Li-ion cells, LFP, LMFP cells and now solid-state and silicon-based anodes, of a couple of types and sodium batteries too, which are expected to improve to current Li-ion levels over a couple of generations. The breakthroughs in battery tech are in the news daily, many solving roadblocks in alternate chemistries or in production and there are new battery factories announced regularly, they will need raw materials.
A lot of people like to compare the energy available in a battery per kWh with that of gasoline (13.1 kWh/kg), but electric drive is 90% efficient and ICE cars...
it will take a spell in the overall time frames......going from lab to industrial use......is gonna take long time with out money and other resources. I realize the EV's are coming, it's just the time frame and the tech. The tech on the ground is not there at all aka charging stations and the such. The tech that gets the lab to the industrial us is not there, with exception to the tech they are using now. Agreed the science is there, but how do you get it running in an industrial setting, there is nother time limitation. imho i really don't see thing being like this till maybe nother 10yr or so, maybe even 20.......could be longer....
they are possible, and i've always here idle in a vehicle is bad for the vehicle over all and actually u use more fuel.....
We will see and are off to a flying start with batteries and lots of room to improve, billions are now pouring into R&D with the idea being products to sell. A lot of this lab work is about improving existing processes too and those very long life LMFP batteries will be made in America with a plant being built in Michigan. There are at least 3 different large companies producing sodium batteries or will soon be and they are expected to improve considerably in energy density, not as good as lithium will be but near where Li-ion batteries are now. That will be good enough for small cheap EVs, scooters. ebikes and cheap home PV storage making home solar more popular. Expect to see more solar shingles and roofing tiles that look traditional and made for the domestic market and cheap sodium batteries should make it feasible.
