r/Futurology • u/ToffeeFever • Sep 10 '23

Energy Lithium discovery in US volcano could be biggest deposit ever found

https://www.chemistryworld.com/news/lithium-discovery-in-us-volcano-could-be-biggest-deposit-ever-found/4018032.article
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u/equals42_net Sep 10 '23

Processing is also an issue. Nearly all processing to extract that <2% lithium content from the ore happens in China. We need to build processing plants for domestic refinement or it’s just going to get on a boat to China too.

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u/Danavixen Sep 10 '23

We need to build processing plants for domestic refinement

I imagine this will happen in time.

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u/dont_tread_on_dc Sep 11 '23

It could have always been feasible. We could slap tariffs and quotas on imports. We could subsidize our own production, it was foolish not to do this in the past.

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u/Suspended-Again Sep 11 '23

How about a trade war instead? 🙄

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u/dont_tread_on_dc Sep 11 '23

More like not letting oil companies dictate what we produce and consume. if they had their way we wouldnt even be able to produce or buy batteries, only oil.

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u/bremidon Sep 11 '23

The good news is that processing is the *easier* part of the process to get up running fast. You can have a bunch of processing set up and running within two or three years.

The bad news is that even a big exciting find like this is going to take ten years to get the mine up to speed.

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u/Suspended-Again Sep 11 '23

If only the democrats passed some enormous clean energy bill that incentivizes just that.

Requirements Affecting Lithium Starting in 2024, 40% of critical minerals found in EV batteries will have to be extracted or processed in the United States or countries with which it has free trade agreements; or, they will have to have been recycled in North America. That percentage rises to 80% by the end of 2026

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesbroughel/2022/09/14/how-the-inflation-reduction-act-could-cause-a-lithium-crunch/amp/

It’s funny, the article worry-worts about insufficient domestic lithium - guess they can rest easy now lol.

The IRA is a monster.