EV's White Gold

hridge2020

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For Most EV's the white Gold is lithium.

Tesla Cybertruck EV's White Gold 1642539028218

Drilling for ‘white gold’ is happening right now at the Salton Sea


A drill rig operated by Controlled Thermal Resources seeks out a superheated underground reservoir near the southern shore of the Salton Sea. The company plans to build a combined geothermal energy and lithium plant.

Barely a mile from the southern shore of the Salton Sea — an accidental lake deep in the California desert, a place best known for dust and decay — a massive drill rig stands sentinel over some of the most closely watched ground in American energy.

There’s no oil or natural gas here, despite a cluster of Halliburton cement tanks and the hum of a generator slowly pushing a drill bit through thousands of feet of underground rock. Instead, an Australian company is preparing to tap a buried reservoir of salty, superheated water to produce renewable energy — and lithium, a crucial ingredient in electric car batteries.

The $500-million project is finally getting started after years of hype and headlines about the Imperial Valley someday becoming a powerhouse in the fight against climate change. The developer, Controlled Thermal Resources, began drilling its first lithium and geothermal power production well this month, backed by millions of dollars from investors including General Motors.

If the “Hell’s Kitchen” project succeeds — still a big “if” — it will be just the second commercial lithium producer in the United States. It will also generate clean electricity around the clock, unlike solar and wind farms that depend on the weather and time of day.

“We know we can do it. Now it’s a matter of how well can we do it,” said Jim Turner, Controlled Thermal’s chief operating officer.

Other than that unexpected hitch, the operation was going smoothly. The drill had reached a depth of about 900 feet, on its way to a reservoir that seismic surveys showed would begin at about 4,000 feet, with temperatures of at least 600 degrees Fahrenheit.

The briny water is rich with lithium and other valuable minerals. Controlled Thermal is eager to reach that lucrative deposit.

“If we’re lucky, we’ll finish [drilling] before 40 days. But you don’t know until you actually get down there,” Turner said.

Jim Turner is chief operating officer of Controlled Thermal Resources.

There are already 11 geothermal power plants in the area, churning out emissions-free energy for California and Arizona. They take advantage of a natural geothermal hot spot, where heat from the Earth’s core radiates outward and warms water trapped in underground rock formations.

Energy companies drill down and bring the superheated water to the surface, where the drop in pressure causes it to “flash” from a liquid to a gas, creating bursts of steam that can turn turbines and generate electricity.

At the end of the process, the brine is injected back underground, replenishing the reservoir. The main byproduct is water vapor.

The technology is expensive, and for years development had ground to a halt. But now California is swimming in cheap solar and wind power, and officials are scrambling for clean-energy resources that can be counted on 24/7, especially after sundown.

California’s first new geothermal plant in nearly a decade recently started construction in Mono County. The Imperial Irrigation District, meanwhile, has agreed to buy most of the 50 megawatts of power that Controlled Thermal would initially generate.

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Lithium Mining in the Mojave and Great Basin Deserts

News articles are asking if lithium is the new gold rush in Nevada and California. Some have said that the desert is where a new lithium rush is beginning to turn into a stampede. A stampede is the uncontrolled act of mass impulse by a crowd of people running in panic. What could go wrong with that?

To make things even more interesting is the allegation that those responsible with protecting and administrating public desert lands may be too friendly with those wishing to exploit public lands for profit. And environmental reviews which use to take years to complete are now completed in one year.

This project looks at what is occurring as interest in lithium mining increases. The only lithium mine in production in North America is in Silver Peak, Nevada. One pilot lithium processing plant is at the site of an existing borax mine in Boron, California. There are many sites in the exploration stage. Some sites are more advanced than others and have completed extensive field testing and technical reports. Others have mining claims and a website.


Tesla Cybertruck EV's White Gold mining production sites



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Tinker71

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I don't want to FUD geothermal lithium extraction on behalf of big oil, but we need consider heat added to the atmosphere and the heat balance. Greenhouse gases are estimated to be about 60% of the global warming. Geothermal, fusion, fission and chemical combustion all add heat to our lower atmosphere. This heat has to radiat back to space. It takes a little time and things warm up.

If lithium is the future and it is 90% recyclable maybe it is worth it. Converting the 1 billion vehicles to 95% EVs should help vs the 35% efficient ICE.

Solar, wind, hydro, tidal don't add much if anything to the temperature. Nuclear, big oil, biomass, and geothermal do.

Waste heat and global warming
 

CyberGus

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Geothermal, fusion, fission and chemical combustion all add heat to our lower atmosphere. This heat has to radiat back to space. It takes a little time and things warm up.
Can’t they leave the refrigerator door open?
 

Berno

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If we take to much heat from the core the Earth might lose its magnetic field, and we need that to survive. I’d like to be around to read GRR Martins next book.
 


CostcoSamples

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I don't want to FUD geothermal lithium extraction on behalf of big oil, but we need consider heat added to the atmosphere and the heat balance. Greenhouse gases are estimated to be about 60% of the global warming. Geothermal, fusion, fission and chemical combustion all add heat to our lower atmosphere. This heat has to radiat back to space. It takes a little time and things warm up.

If lithium is the future and it is 90% recyclable maybe it is worth it. Converting the 1 billion vehicles to 95% EVs should help vs the 35% efficient ICE.

Solar, wind, hydro, tidal don't add much if anything to the temperature. Nuclear, big oil, biomass, and geothermal do.

Waste heat and global warming
It would take an ungodly amount of geothermal and nuclear to raise the temperatures directly, but I get where you are headed with this. at some point energy use will be huge and we'll need to figure out clever ways of getting rid of all the excess heat from trillions of machines generating friction and other inefficiencies (waste heat from various industrial processes etc).
 

Tinker71

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It would take an ungodly amount of geothermal and nuclear to raise the temperatures directly, but I get where you are headed with this. at some point energy use will be huge and we'll need to figure out clever ways of getting rid of all the excess heat from trillions of machines generating friction and other inefficiencies (waste heat from various industrial processes etc).
1 billion ICE vehicles acting as sizable heaters is approaching ungodly. That should be relatively easy to fix in the next 20 years.

If they ever do nuclear fusion cost effectively it will still produce heat as a byproduct which is not acceptable to halt global warming. I suppose if that heat replaces chemical waste heat that is probably a win, but if it exceeds it then no. Nuclear fusion is not a panacea. That is my main point.

Don't even get me going on green or blue hydrogen. Stupid in most circumstances.
 

Alan

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1 billion ICE vehicles acting as sizable heaters is approaching ungodly. That should be relatively easy to fix in the next 20 years.

If they ever do nuclear fusion cost effectively it will still produce heat as a byproduct which is not acceptable to halt global warming. I suppose if that heat replaces chemical waste heat that is probably a win, but if it exceeds it then no. Nuclear fusion is not a panacea. That is my main point.

Don't even get me going on green or blue hydrogen. Stupid in most circumstances.

It’s not the heat generated that is the problem. It’s the greenhouse gases.
Sunlight makes the earth habitable. While 30 percent of the solar energy that reaches our world is reflected back to space, approximately 70 percent passes through the atmosphere to the earth’s surface, where it is absorbed by the land, oceans, and atmosphere, and heats the planet. This heat is then radiated back up in the form of invisible infrared light. While some of this infrared light continues on into space, the vast majority—indeed, some 90 percent—gets absorbed by atmospheric gases, known as greenhouse gases, and redirected back toward the earth, causing further warming.

For most of the past 800,000 years—much longer than human civilization has existed—the concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere was between about 200 and 280 parts per million. (In other words, there were 200 to 280 molecules of the gases per million molecules of air.) But in the past century, that concentration has jumped to more than 400 parts per million, driven up by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. The higher concentrations of greenhouse gases—and carbon dioxide in particular—is causing extra heat to be trapped and global temperatures to rise.
 

Tinker71

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It’s not the heat generated that is the problem. It’s the greenhouse gases.
Sunlight makes the earth habitable. While 30 percent of the solar energy that reaches our world is reflected back to space, approximately 70 percent passes through the atmosphere to the earth’s surface, where it is absorbed by the land, oceans, and atmosphere, and heats the planet. This heat is then radiated back up in the form of invisible infrared light. While some of this infrared light continues on into space, the vast majority—indeed, some 90 percent—gets absorbed by atmospheric gases, known as greenhouse gases, and redirected back toward the earth, causing further warming.

For most of the past 800,000 years—much longer than human civilization has existed—the concentration of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere was between about 200 and 280 parts per million. (In other words, there were 200 to 280 molecules of the gases per million molecules of air.) But in the past century, that concentration has jumped to more than 400 parts per million, driven up by human activities such as burning fossil fuels and deforestation. The higher concentrations of greenhouse gases—and carbon dioxide in particular—is causing extra heat to be trapped and global temperatures to rise.
I agree that GHG are the primary cause of global warming and we need to address this ASAP. I wanted to draw attention to the other contributor and body of knowledge which is just plain human produced heat. Did you read the article linked?

The good news is the electrification of everything helps both causes providing the energy comes from the solar, wind, hydro. Electric Heat pump are also huge.

7.9 billion of us making heat adds up.
 

Ogre

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Was watching The Limiting Factor videos on Tesla’s lithium extraction and it was super interesting.

They will essentially dig up big chunks of clay deposits from the ground, smash the hell out of them with giant ball bearings, then mix the resulting powder with a hot salt water brine (just sodium chloride… table salt) which extracts the lithium. Then they clean up the brine a bit, reuse it, put the dirt back into the ground and use the lithium.

Gordon suggested they would then make the cathodes right at the same facility so they don’t have to pay to transport the raw materials. Should result in big savings.
 


Crissa

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They'll probably just run the clay through the salt water and use the water itself to extract the ore. Most of the flats mining in Nevada is hydraulic anyhow. Hot, high pressure fluid does all the work.

-Crissa
 

ldjessee

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Combustion wastes so much energy to heat, never going to be that easy to still generate less heat than burning stuff…
 

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I've just checked out the article and I think this kind of innovation is exactly what we need to move away from fossil fuels and towards a more sustainable future.
Welcome! Have a beverage.

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