With EV incentives tied to domestic battery content, US lithium mines are needed.
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Exxon will mine lithium for electric vehicle batteries in Arkansas
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To be fair, mining resources rarely is easy on the environment. You basically exploit this very environment for what you want to have from it and this at scale.
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Exxon's press release is probably referring to the Smackover formation in South Arkansas. Wells that extract and re-inject brine from the formation already exist and have been in production 50+ years to extract bromine, making South Arkansas a (the?) major bromine producer in the world. A project started several years ago to extract lithium from the tail brine of the bromine-extraction operation. My guess is that Exxon has acquired the existing lithium extraction operation, and is providing capital to expand operations.
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Provided the rates are properly managed...
What would inspire them to start properly managing something?
These are the investors who loudly profiteered by gouging fuel prices when Russia invaded Ukraine. Why would they let a little environmental catastrophe or human suffering slow them down now?
Based on their track record, it seems fair to assume all assets will be managed for the benefit of shareholders and to the detriment of society as well as life on earth.
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Thanks for that clarification. I-am-not-a-lawyer and I'm not privy to all the relevant details but it seems Compass had merely found a use for what it was already 'extracting' - lithium chloride - but which had previously been regarded as waste.
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We eat a lot of baked yams and while we are not materials experts, we think baked yam skins are impervious to every know caustic household substance we know of. Possibly, it would have an application in lithium handling?
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Stopping said corporations from lying about how much they're actually doing to reduce climate change would be another wicked step.
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With that much unironic use of scare quotes, just gonna press this real shiny button right here.
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As someone who works in the maritime coatings industry (steel substrates mostly) you are on the right path already. If there was an affordable alternative material, those components struggling with brine would already be made out of it. The next best solution is to coat the component, but it's not always that simple, it's not cheap, and even correctly selected correctly applied coatings can still struggle with brine. Brine is extremely corrosive and can leave a nice crystalline deposit great for fouling up sensitive moving mechanical components.
If they've selected the best material, are using good preservation, and still struggling, then I'd think the next step is to consider the component replaceable at some point and factor it's cost into the design.
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They would not? The NIH has betrayed you!
So is a 20% probability of significant weight gain associated with consuming therapeutic amounts of lithium, but you went there.
That "Lithium is linked to obesity" is completely irrelevant to the story, and that people aren't going to be exposed to 600-1800 mg/day of lithium from "tainted" groundwater supplies around ultradeep withdrawal and injection wells as you were so willing to claim.
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The sealioning is not convincing when a google search turns up reliable results in the first ten links.
Now you'll ask what sealioning means. See the previous sentence and try it yourself.
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Not to mention that Arkansas' brines will be equally corrosive.
The Salton Sea is certainly still in the race.
It's a secret, but not Exxon's. Smaller companies which have developed such technologies. are getting bought up left and right.
The direct extraction technology is certainly about ready to use, seeing how many projects are in the pipeline, worldwide.
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Yes, it is! I'm glad that this mining operation is in south Arkansas. After the fight to get rid of the hog farm that was going to seriously damage the Buffalo River, I sure didn't want to see something like this around this beautiful area.
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The same thing that inspires people to drive the speed limit: consistently and fairly applied regulations coupled with large fines for violations.
So just change the regulations so that the benefit of the shareholders and the benefit of society align.
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The article you linked was a bunch of scaremongering speculation based on essentially nothing. It is great if you want something to read that will make you dumber, but that doesn't add as much to the conservation as you think. I suggest letting it go and moving on to something more on topic before the rest of your posts are hidden too.
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At least for now, I would expect that the feds are likely to help keep them in line.
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Based on my extensive research consisting of watching youtube videos of lithium, sodium, potassium, and caesium metals thrown into water, I'd guess the lithium brine is less reactive than the sodium brine. But don't quote me; I'm an electrical engineer, not a chemical engineer.
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Well mostly by boys I'm guessing. Most of the girls will probably be made child brides.
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Your cited study did. It did not say that any passing exposure to lithium was linked to obesity. Your evidence does not support your proposition.
Yes, it is. So why are you doing it? How is a 45 year old article that provides no biological mechanism, and which concerns therapeutic doses of lithium (again, 600-1800 mg/day) relevant to your argument?
Such water would be considered "brackish" on any scale, but here you are claiming that people will be consuming it, long term, despite a complete absence of a mechanism for getting the lithium from 10000 ft below ground to the 100-200ft depth that Arkansas wells are drilled into to obtain fresh water.
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Photo caption: "These are piles of lithium harvested in Bolivia; Exxon's site in Arkansas will look almost entirely unlike this…"
In other words, the photo illustrates nothing relevant to the article and is there… why? Why, exactly? To disturb recovering cocaine addicts with mountains of fluffy white joy? Because we can't read without pictures? For the hidden mind control pixels that make me want to drink Axe shower gel?
Expiring minds want to know.
In other words, the photo illustrates nothing relevant to the article and is there… why? Why, exactly? To disturb recovering cocaine addicts with mountains of fluffy white joy? Because we can't read without pictures? For the hidden mind control pixels that make me want to drink Axe shower gel?
Expiring minds want to know.
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Because there's a spot in the article template where a picture goes, and a picture of a pipe sticking out of the ground is even less relevant than piles of fluffy lithium salt crystals. Also the mind control pixels. Now, where's that shower gel bottle?
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Great video by Nick Zentner and Rachel Hampton on the Thacker Pass mine in Nevada. It's one of the largest lithium-bearing formations in the world. The video looks at how lithium makes its way to the surface, how it's concentrated in natural formations and the economic methods of extracting it.
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The entire premise of the article hinges on the 1976 study. The article itself jumps from therapeutic use of lithium causing weight gain in ~64% of a small cohort of lithium users in that study to "background exposure to lithium is going to cause an obesity epidemic." It is just a huge, huge leap that relies on rather flimsy correlations to get there. What you linked isn't a peer reviewed journal or anything. It doesn't even pass muster as true journalism. It's just a blog post that is peddling consulting services with no acknowledgement on who is funding them, why, or any potential COIs with current, past or prospective clients or revealing the authors' identities: "We offer consulting on statistics, study design, science communication, writing, editing, and other unspecified services."
What's wild to me is that even on podcasts where they speak the "sibling duo" behind that blog 1) do not reveal their names, education, or relevant work experience. One claims to be "sort of" a cognitive scientist, historian (?), and statistician." The other has a background "sociology and chemistry" and has "worked in a couple of biochem labs." No citation of actual institutions they worked at, the positions they held, relevant education... nothing. No proof they are even actual siblings. Yet they're asking people for money on Patreon or direct donation and there's wild blog posts (see a publishing trend) of random people claiming to donate 90% of their income to these two and encouraging others to donate as much as possible.
So, yeah, it's right to call this out as highly suspect. It looks, smells, and feels more like a fearmongering money making scam than science.
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What are the chances this extraction of shit out of the earth is just as locally damaging as every other Exxon extraction of shit out of the ground?
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No, the hydrofracking water does not "have to be pumped down into a second, lower layer." In fact, that's something the industry tries to avoid in most tight-oil situations being developed by horizontal directional drilling. The entire point of fracking, no more and no less, is opening fractures in the target hydrocarbon-bearing rock layer, typically shale but also sandstone (and coal, in the case of coalbed methane), which allows the hydrocarbons to escape the rock matrix. You're not trying to open up channels into a salt-dome style of oil reservoir because that geology doesn't occur in tight-oil.
Problems with fracking begin when the fracturing process unintentionally fractures layers above or below the target rock. In the case of induced seismicity, one of the aggravating factors is unintentional fracturing extending to a greater depth than was intended, particularly into the crystalline basement rocks typically far beneath the sedimentary hydrocarbon-bearing layers. The increased pore pressure can lubricate existing faultlines and potentially enable new faults to occur by reducing the rock's resistance to shear.
In any case, the dissolution mining proposed for this (and most other lithium or other brine mines) has basically nothing in common with fracking or hydrocarbon exploration in general, other than they're both holes in the ground.
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Did you read any of those articles? The obesity question is regarding the therapeautic usage of Lithium. Not really sure there is some documented link between "battery" Lithium and obesity. I'd almost think you are trolling but maybe you are not.
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Putrid Polecat
Ars Tribunus Militum
Not true. Didn't the prior President authorize more bleach production for anal COVID applications?
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If you read the press release, yes it is referring to he Smackover formation. However it’s a new operation, not them simply acquiring and existing producer like Standard Lithium. If you google a bit, you’ll see they’ve been acquiring acreage across the formation over the past couple of years, and also acquired a company with the requisite technology a couple of years ago. Tax incentives are what’s driving the pick up in Lithium extraction in the US.
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As someone who does not work in the maritime coatings industry but is aware that they make ships out of metal, I thought this was a solved problem. Don't you attach some sacrificial anodes (zinc) to the steel to avoid corrosion?
Why do I feel like this has all the makings of the next pollution-related catastrophe? We're going to look back in 20 years like "oh, we probably should have checked to make sure they weren't dumping tailings directly into school lunches?" And then Exxon will be like "we're not responsible, but even if we are, lithium is great for mood regulation," and then their research papers will leak and then they will settle for an undisclosed sum without admitting fault, and someone will make a movie about sticking it to the man and we'll all feel better.
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Piggybacking off a topic from the California lithium article mentioned above, someone in the comments asked why we don't recycle more of our batteries. While obviously this would not sate the current demand for lithium, it certainly would add to the current supply.
My point in all this, though, is to ask if Ars would consider doing a deep dive into lithium recycling. I think it would be a fascinating article to understand both the processes and the potential economic benefit (or not) of the whole operation.
My point in all this, though, is to ask if Ars would consider doing a deep dive into lithium recycling. I think it would be a fascinating article to understand both the processes and the potential economic benefit (or not) of the whole operation.
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