this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2023
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Looks like there's three ways to mine Lithium:
https://cen.acs.org/materials/inorganic-chemistry/Can-seawater-give-us-lithium-to-meet-our-battery-needs/99/i36
Maine has been burned in the past by previous mining operations closing up and leaving the state to clean up the remaining mess (also in the OP article). Definitely a tough situation all around.
Regarding how much Lithium can be recovered from desalination waste:
https://medium.com/prime-movers-lab/does-the-u-s-have-enough-lithium-to-support-the-growing-ev-market-d73a44a969e5
VS the amount needed/used per year:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/606481/estimated-lithium-consumption-in-the-united-states/
https://www.neefusa.org/story/water/home-water-use-united-states
So if we supplemented 10% of our needs from Desalinated water (2.74 Billion gallons a day) and recovered the same max amount of Lithium as the example a day (50 million gallons a day for 16T of Lithium a year) then we get:
(2.74B/50M)16T= 54.816T= 877T of Lithium a year
So they US just needs to open 187 more desalination plants... and find a place to put all that deadly brine.
An instant ramen factory would at least take care of the sodium!
That said, looks like the current sea water desalination worldwide is pretty huge:
https://www.wired.com/story/desalination-is-booming-but-what-about-all-that-toxic-brine/
236.5 million cubic meters of sea water processed a day, 264 gallons in a cubic meter = 62.44 Billion gallons of water per day.
If the Lithium content is the same as it is in the US example, then that is a potential 20,000 tons of Lithium a year (again assuming the same Li concentration and 100% extraction.
Sadly still short of the current global demand for lithium:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/u-s-seeks-new-lithium-sources-as-demand-for-clean-energy-grows