Old Rocks
Diamond Member
Two or three years ago, you would have been correct;
The Bolivian dream lithium batteries included GlobalPost
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Is Bolivia poised to become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” the vital ingredient in batteries for smartphones and electric cars?
The Uyuni salt flats, stretching across a remote Andean plateau in the southwest of the country, are easily the world’s largest reserve of the soft, light, whitish metal coveted by high-tech firms from Silicon Valley to Tokyo.
This year, President Evo Morales has moved swiftly ahead with plans to finally begin reaping a potential lithium windfall of billions of dollars for the impoverished South American nation.
In January, Bolivia opened its first trial plant. It will produce 40 tons of lithium carbonate a year. Over time, the government wants to ramp production up to 30,000 tons — roughly a fifth of current global demand.
However, Bolivia faces a series of technical challenges.
Uyuni’s lithium deposits are unusually salty and humid, with the entire salt flats flooded by seasonal rainfall every February and resembling an endless mirror perfectly reflecting the sky.
The lithium is mixed with magnesium, complicating the extraction process. The remote location will raise the cost of bringing in energy, water and other inputs.
But that was yesterday
Massive deposit of lithium found in Wyoming could meet all U.S. demand TreeHugger
First, production of lithium from brines requires soda ash (sodium carbonate), and importation of soda ash to lithium production facilities often represents a large expense. However, the Rock Springs Uplift CO2 storage site is located within 20 to 30 miles of the world’s largest industrial soda ash supplies, so the costs of soda ash delivery (by rail, truck or pipeline) would be minimal.
Second, magnesium must be removed from brines before they can be used for lithium recovery, which makes the entire lithium recovery process more expensive. Fortunately, the brines from the Rock Springs Uplift reservoirs contain much less magnesium than brines at existing, currently profitable lithium mining operations.
Third, brines must be heated and pressurized before lithium can be extracted from them. However, because the Rock Springs Uplift brines lie so far underground, they are already at a higher pressure and temperature than brines at existing lithium operations. This would allow operators to essentially eliminate this step in the process, resulting in significant cost savings. (source)
Lithium the Salton Sea and a startup that 8217 s trying to change the game mdash Tech News and Analysis
The project is only at the demonstration scale right now, but the company plans to build a much larger (1,000 times larger in terms of volume produced) commercial-scale factory just south of the current one that could eventually create 15,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate equivalent a year. Lithium carbonate is one of the two lithium products that Simbol’s tech can deliver; the other is lithium hydroxide. Depending on the type of battery chemistry used, lithium ion battery makers would buy one or the other.
China, india and all first world countries do this. Stop bitching, retarded losertrian.
