Scientists make 'huge' $540 billion discovery at the bottom of a giant lake

[NJCher]

Story by Greg Evans, Indy 100

snip

Michael McKibben, a geochemistry professor at the University of California, Riverside, who was one of the 22 authors on the study said: "This is one of the largest lithium brine deposits in the world. This could make the United States completely self-sufficient in lithium and stop importing it through China."

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, previously referred to the Salton Lake as Saudi Arabia of lithium. Now this new discovery means that the lake is the biggest source of lithium in the world.

The LA Times climate journalist Sammy Roth, told KJZZ radio: "They found that there's potentially enough lithium down there to supply batteries for 382 million electric vehicles, which is more, more vehicles than there are on the road in the United States today. So, if we could get all that lithium, that'd be huge."

According to SFGATE, getting to the lithium will not be easy and will require "geothermal production wells to extract the lithium-rich brine from thousands of feet below the earth’s surface, and once the lithium is dissolved from the brine, the liquid is pumped back underground."

snip

More at link.

[GreenWave]

1. Careful! All is not safe there...

This movie scared the bejeezus out of us.

Attacking the Navy.
Living in the never heard of "Saltine Sea". Where we afraid to eat saltine crackers for some time.

When we got home, my sister grabbed a pair of these

put them to her face and started squeezing them saying "Klinkergoo! Klinkergoo!"

Such terror!

[NBachers]

5. That movie is better than you think it will be

[brush]

2. Great find. I used to live in southern AZ and would pass by the Salton Sea when traveling by car to LA.

Last edited Tue Jun 4, 2024, 12:02 PM - Edit history (1)

Always wondered how it came to be.

[Blues Heron]

3. It was filled by accident when an irrigation canal from the Colorado river was overwhelmed during a flood

And drained into the basin for a solid two years. This was back in 1900-02 The basin itself is what would be the northern end of the gulf of California were it not cut off from the ocean by the delta of the Colorado river.

[brush]

6. Thanks for that info. At one time weren't there a lot of inhabitants...

living there, sort of off-the-grid in trailers and RVs?

Maybe still there.

[cbabe]

7. Slab City

https://www.smithsonianmag.com › travel › inside-slab-city-squatters-paradise-southern-california-180970218

Inside Slab City, a Squatters' Paradise in Southern California

October 1, 2018. "Slab City: Dispatches from the Last Free Place" is a new book that explores a one-square-mile patch of desert

…

Lots of videos

https://m.

[brush]

9. Guess I'm too spoiled and decadent to live without power and running water.

Seem a bit God forsaken but more power to those who can handle it. It can be done with a power generator...not to far from a place to get groceries and more fuel for the generator though...and of course an RV for shelter/showering/fridge.

[mopinko]

4. this is a stupid statement- getting to the lithium will not be easy

oh puhleeze. the alternative is digging huge holes halfway around the world, and grinding boulders to dust.
gimme a break. this cd b done w simple filters.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Filters would be expensive. Just dry it in large ponds in the sun. Lots of sun there

Your point is good though: extraction from the brine is not difficult.

Filters are good for removing small quantities of impurities. I'm no expert, but I think industrial scale extraction would be easiest by drying. Then the lithium can be scooped up by front loaders and refined. Like salt (sodium chloride) is dried in the sun and scooped up by front loaders.

If there are large portions of salt or potassium salts or other dissolved salts, then refine is more involved, but even then I think it is not difficult. There may be ways of doing gravity/centrifuge separation or selective precipitation. As the proportion of water declines by evaporation, different salts begin precipitation ahead of others. Lithium might come out early or late.

[mopinko]

14. even so. it's nothing like mining ore.

and no, i dont think they’d b that spendy. simple molecular sieve.

[mopinko]

15. u can prolly precipitate it out w a simple ph shift.

[muriel_volestrangler]

16. Sure. It's simple. You just need water.

Oh shit.

https://www.sfgate.com/california/article/imperial-county-california-salton-sea-lithium-18527598.php

[bahboo]

8. this area can certainly use the economic boost....

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. "dissolved FROM the brine" ?

The lithium is dissolved IN the brine. It should be written "once the lithium is extracted from the brine". Alternates for "extracted" would be retrieved, precipitated, removed, recovered, obtained, taken, gained, ....

The stupid writer failed 6th Grade Science.

[hunter]

11. Could be moot if sodium battery technology catches up.

Sodium is a much more plentiful element.

Revolutionizing Renewables: How Sodium-Ion Batteries Are Changing the Game

As society shifts away from fossil fuels, the demand for batteries is surging. Concurrently, this surge is likely to lead to a scarcity of lithium and cobalt, essential elements in prevalent battery types. An alternative solution could be sodium-ion batteries, which primarily utilize table salt and biomass derived from the forestry sector as their raw materials.

Now, researchers from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, show that these sodium-ion batteries have an equivalent climate impact as their lithium-ion counterparts – without the risk of running out of raw materials.

“The materials we use in the batteries of the future will be important in order to be able to switch to renewable energy and a fossil-free vehicle fleet,” says Rickard Arvidsson, Associate Professor of Environmental Systems Analysis at Chalmers.

According to the European Commission’s Critical Raw Materials Act, the demand for critical raw battery materials is expected to increase exponentially as EU countries transition to renewable energy systems and electric vehicles. The green transition will also require more local production of batteries and other new fossil-free technologies, and a steady supply of raw materials is needed to meet demand. At the same time, such production carries a high risk of supply disruptions, due to the limited number of sources for raw materials.

--more--

https://scitechdaily.com/revolutionizing-renewables-how-sodium-ion-batteries-are-changing-the-game/

Of course the rational solution would be to abandon our car culture and build energy networks that don't require batteries.

[Traurigkeit]

13. Thought Scientists were worthless, as per The Republicans ?