this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2023
2054 points (96.1% liked)

Memes

45726 readers
922 users here now

Rules:

  1. Be civil and nice.
  2. Try not to excessively repost, as a rule of thumb, wait at least 2 months to do it if you have to.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] vjxtdibobyd@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is lithium mining a solvable problem? Genuinely asking

[–] frezik@midwest.social 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oceanic sources. The projects getting underway are focusing on brine pools like California's Salton Sea, but sea water sources of lithium in general are basically indefinite, and can work anywhere with a coastline. Other harvested salts may also produce useful byproducts, and you may even be able to run it as part of a general desalination plant for freshwater.

[–] GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not to mention there are advances with lithium recycling, both in facilities and new processes to make it more efficient.

[–] Anamana@feddit.de 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also, wouldn't it be an option at some point to switch to other resources? There is so much money being thrown at alternative battery technology

[–] antipiratgruppen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Now, this is interesting!

Seawater contains 230 billion tons of lithium, compared to just 21 million tons in conventional land-based reserves. Lihytech estimates that extracting just 0.1 per cent of all lithium from seawater would be enough to meet humanity's technology needs.

Source: https://www.theengineer.co.uk/content/news/kaust-spinout-will-extract-lithium-from-seawater/