This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
RARE EARTH METALS ARE NOT RARE!
Lithium is the 25th most abundant element in Earth's crust!
we see these head lines all the time because it is everywhere, the problem has never been finding it, it's been refining it, and china has a Monopoly on the refining techniques and refuses to do business with anyone who tries to adopt the technology and restricts travel of the people with the knowledge to do so.
Good, the children yearn for the lithium mines. /s
Maybe I should re-train from computer programmer to lithium miner?
I don't think the people in power care for those sort of miners
Really bizarre to write or post an article saying this deposit was 'discovered'. This is decade old news. I saw the headline and thought 'oh nice that's like a whole other Thacker Pass' but it literally is just Thacker Pass.
Somebody needs to figure out a way to prevent people from upvoting headlines of articles they haven't read because as far as I can tell there is absolutely no reason to post or upvote this.
The federal government invades that state for "peace and freedom"
And "truth". Don't forget "truth".
bet it's inside a national park that the GOP just exposed through government rollbacks.
If only there was information in the post about where it is then you wouldn't have to guess. Or you can just make stuff up to get mad at.
sorry if I don't immediately trust a source of information that was founded by a venture capitalist chud.
Has anyone done the ‘US invades itself’ joke yet?
Lithium isn't quite like gold. It is not rare at all. The news isn't that it is there, the news is that someone has found a place where it is relatively easy to dig, and lots of it.
In only a few years, most batteries will be made without lithium anyway.
In only a few years, most batteries will be made without lithium anyway.
Citation needed.
Sodium-ion and maaaaybe iron are promising, with sodium-ion making the most headway.
https://batterycouncil.org/battery-facts-and-applications/about-sodium-batteries/
Not quite widely commercially available yet, but I wouldn't invest heavily in lithium is it was me.
Ehh.... Lithium batteries are going to be around for quite a while even if sodium ion batteries take off. It's just more energy dense than sodium ion, so it's always going to be better for things like portable electronics.
Sodium ion might take over the market for heavier batteries like stationary power banks.
Sure, not saying they're going away, just that investment in the new option would be how I would spend my money.
Consult a periodic table. Lithium will always out perform sodium. Sodium batteries only exist because lithium costs more, but these large deposits are being found worldwide every few months and lithium will drop in price as a commodity. At some point, recycling will require much less new lithium to be mined.
A periodic table doesnt dictate marginal rate of return on mining the element.
Consult a periodic table on which element conducts electricity best and then explain why copper is the most commonly used metal for wires.
In only a few years, most batteries will be made without lithium anyway.
Really depends on the use case. Grid-scale storage? Yeah, there's better chemistries for that. Cars? We're probably going to see a mix of chemistries in the same battery packs to tailor use case. In personal electronics? No, lithium will remain king
Sounds like america could use some freedom
Bring us some democracy while you're at it.
Oh good, more earth to pillage.
Brighter note, to date is still the best way to make batteries, we need it to build storage capabilities for a grid based on renewable energy.
Unfortunately we'll probably end up using it for disposable vapes instead
Sodium ion batteries would be better for grid storage. They're cheaper, more durable, and work in a wider range of temperatures. Plus they're going to market within the year
My understanding is these come with density issues. Basically they need significantly more space. Definently should be scalable for most utilities. Although some in more urban contexts may struggle to find the space initially. Maybe old fossil fuel plants can be refitted.
Not useful for at home systems either, but I hope they continue to improve to that point
Iirc if proper safety is employed for lithium ion, the density difference is negligible.
I bet it's like the one discovered in Portugal which is of a mineral form of it for which there is no technology to industrially extract the lithium.
In other words, about as feasible as "we can extract all the we want from sea water".
Who is going to invade USA this time ?
What happened to the last 2.5t lithium deposit? Also these deposits are just the tech to extract ever smaller amounts of valuable material from waste material right? Like oh this land has 0.0001% lithum percent but now that is profitable because advances in valuables extraction, if we crator this region.
China isn't special to have high concentration deposits they are special because no one is going to stop them from digging up hundreds of square/km of Earth in Africa.
China's special for controlling a very high proportion of the processing infrastructure that converts the lithium ore to batteries, rather than the extraction. There are a bunch of places that have substantial known lithium reserves.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/lithium-reserves-by-country
| Country | Lithium Reserves 2024 (MT) |
|---|---|
| Chile | 9.3M |
| Australia | 7M |
| Argentina | 4M |
| China | 3M |
| United States | 1.8M |
| Canada | 1.2M |
| Zimbabwe | 480K |
| Brazil | 390K |
| Portugal | 60K |
| Namibia | 14K |
| Total | 27.2M |
Australia does the most extraction:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/lithium-production-by-country
Oil-backed GOP will make sure it doesn't get developed until next century. "Buy oil instead you losers!"
Trump: "So the oil is under the lithium? How does this work?"
It's more like his cronies will claim it's under federal jurisdiction then sell all rights to one of trump's sons for a button.
Sounds like it's time to bring the U.S some Freedom! 😎🪖🕊️
