David Attenborough: 'Climate Change 2007 predictions for 2020

Anon220806 · Jun 10, 2022

oss said: ↑

I'm speaking about accessible Lithium, there are about 1.5 billion operational cars in the world approx, an EV uses about 10kg of Lithium per car, replacing all of those cars with EVs would need about 15 million tonnes of Lithium, current world reserves are estimated at about 90 million tonnes. Then you have all the storage systems Musk amongst others is planning on building for solar and wind storage and you have all the commercial vehicles trucks and so on to replace.

Current world Lithium production is around 80,000 tonnes per year, that's satisfying current demands for EVs and other Lithium uses, so it needs to scale up pretty dramatically in order to replace all cars with EVs and it needs to do it quickly.

Yeah as I mentioned there are trillions of tonnes of Lithium in the oceans and you've pointed out the Salton sea, they estimate 600,000 tonnes per year of Lithium Carbonate from the Salton Sea, the issue is going to be achieving the required scale quickly enough and bearing in mind that it will be needed for other uses as well and that vehicle numbers are likely to grow not shrink then that 90 million tons buffer does not seem so big, the batteries will have to be recycled to extract the rare earths and the lithium which is going to drive up the overall energy cost of EVs.

These batteries don't last forever and global lithium supplies will have to meet requirements for new replacement batteries as well.

Personally I thought hydrogen fuel cells tech would have been a better bet for EVs, simply produced from renewables, needs new infrastructure hydrogen network but that could be achieved, can power multiple modes of transport and replace gas as fuel in homes, doesn't suffer from the recharge times needed for lithium ion batteries, and can act as long term storage for renewable energy via electrolysis, but outside of a few countries it does not seem likely that hydrogen will gain much traction.
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It is accessible. It’s as accessible as oil and gas.

Normally with an oil or gas well the hydrocarbons come with “accessory minerals / gases” etc etc. These have to be removed at some point and in fact are. The process is the same for geothermal drilling but because the geology differs and the target can typically be within or adjacent to a granite intrusion then lithium is a by product but a byproduct of commercial interest. Totally accessible and one that is being explored and exploited. Don’t ignore it.
Lithium is of interest to the geothermal explorationists as it reduces their bills involved in energy production. Add this source in and you have a much larger lithium resource. It’s a process known as Direct Lithium Extraction, probably because it is so accessible.

Here you go. Picture to illustrate. Totally do-able and being done. New Scientist might not be up to speed with this yet.

oss · Jun 10, 2022

JohnAsh said: ↑

It is accessible. It’s as accessible as oil and gas.

Normally with an oil or gas well the hydrocarbons come with “accessory minerals / gases” etc etc. These have to be removed at some point and in fact are. The process is the same for geothermal drilling but because the geology differs and the target can typically be within or adjacent to a granite intrusion then lithium is a by product but a byproduct of commercial interest. Totally accessible and one that is being explored and exploited. Don’t ignore it.
Lithium is of interest to the geothermal explorationists as it reduces their bills involved in energy production. Add this source in and you have a much larger lithium resource. It’s a process known as Direct Lithium Extraction, probably because it is so accessible.

Here you go. Picture to illustrate. Totally do-able and being done. New Scientist might not be up to speed with this yet.

View attachment 7116
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Yeah I understand that, I wasn't aware that it was being done and the main paper I found on it from last year was stating that recovery was still experimental at the lab level and hadn't yet been commercially scaled, that paper also mentions the Salton Sea.

This is not stuff I read in New Scientist, a long time back when EV's were being developed and lithium ion battery technology was being scaled up I looked into this as I had a gut feeling that there could be resource problems further down the road.

Lithium is essentially inexhaustible given the trillions of tons of it in the oceans but getting it out of the oceans will ultimately be energy intensive, regarding this mechanism for geothermal will there be enough geothermal plants globally? Isn't this Salton Sea thing proposing that they conventionally exploit the existing surface deposits as well as geothermal recovery?

And don't forget that with the existing battery chemistry it's not just the lithium they need although there is a lot of work going on in that area with the graphene battery tech being one major area of interest not least because it offers higher storage densities.

oss · Jun 10, 2022

JohnAsh said: ↑

It is accessible. It’s as accessible as oil and gas.

Normally with an oil or gas well the hydrocarbons come with “accessory minerals / gases” etc etc. These have to be removed at some point and in fact are. The process is the same for geothermal drilling but because the geology differs and the target can typically be within or adjacent to a granite intrusion then lithium is a by product but a byproduct of commercial interest. Totally accessible and one that is being explored and exploited. Don’t ignore it.
Lithium is of interest to the geothermal explorationists as it reduces their bills involved in energy production. Add this source in and you have a much larger lithium resource. It’s a process known as Direct Lithium Extraction, probably because it is so accessible.

Here you go. Picture to illustrate. Totally do-able and being done. New Scientist might not be up to speed with this yet.

View attachment 7116
Click to expand...

This is a different paper from the one I mention in the previous post but is interesting as it is also still stating that this is at the feasibility study stage, it's also extremely detailed, read the executive summary.

Techno-Economic Analysis of Lithium Extraction from Geothermal Brines (nrel.gov)

and it is worth reading some of the detailed costings and production estimates as well regards the Salton Sea, table 3 page 12 is estimating production at 20,000 metric tonnes per annum.

The costs look quite good.

Anon220806 · Jun 10, 2022

oss said: ↑

Yeah I understand that, I wasn't aware that it was being done and the main paper I found on it from last year was stating that recovery was still experimental at the lab level and hadn't yet been commercially scaled, that paper also mentions the Salton Sea.

This is not stuff I read in New Scientist, a long time back when EV's were being developed and lithium ion battery technology was being scaled up I looked into this as I had a gut feeling that there could be resource problems further down the road.

Lithium is essentially inexhaustible given the trillions of tons of it in the oceans but getting it out of the oceans will ultimately be energy intensive, regarding this mechanism for geothermal will there be enough geothermal plants globally? Isn't this Salton Sea thing proposing that they conventionally exploit the existing surface deposits as well as geothermal recovery?

And don't forget that with the existing battery chemistry it's not just the lithium they need although there is a lot of work going on in that area with the graphene battery tech being one major area of interest not least because it offers higher storage densities.
Click to expand...

Yes but the Salton Sea project isn’t the only place where they find lithium is brought to surface. In the U.K. it is being done in Cornwall. Lithium comes to the surface with geothermal waters in the Philippines. Anywhere there has been intrusions of granite in the past. It just so happens that there is a lot of potential in the Salton Sea example. Indonesia, Italy are other examples. Anywhere there is continental crust we find granite.

There is some in Scotland too. There are geothermal projects in the Aberdeen region.

And then there is Falkirk, home of the Kelpies where they are pioneering the recycling of lithium ion batteries.

Anon220806 · Jun 10, 2022

oss said: ↑

This is a different paper from the one I mention in the previous post but is interesting as it is also still stating that this is at the feasibility study stage, it's also extremely detailed, read the executive summary.

Techno-Economic Analysis of Lithium Extraction from Geothermal Brines (nrel.gov)

and it is worth reading some of the detailed costings and production estimates as well regards the Salton Sea, table 3 page 12 is estimating production at 20,000 metric tonnes per annum.

The costs look quite good.
Click to expand...

The costs are good because they are all part of the geothermal extraction costs. It’s a bogof scenario.

How I got into this is that basically they are using existing drilling technology and adapting it for geothermal drilling. The target being heat (and lithium) rather than oil and gas.

oss · Jun 10, 2022

JohnAsh said: ↑

The costs are good because they are all part of the geothermal extraction costs. It’s a bogof scenario.

How I got into this is that basically they are using existing drilling technology and adapting it for geothermal drilling. The target being heat (and lithium) rather than oil and gas.
Click to expand...

I had to look that up, to me "bogof" reads as "bogoff" or "bog off" as in "F off"

I didn't know it had become an acronym

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David Attenborough: 'Climate Change 2007 predictions for 2020

Anon220806 Well-Known Member

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