Lithium Mining at the Edge of DV

[netllama]

Lithium is a mission critical mineral in the manufacture of rechargeable batteries.  Without it, there are no electric vehicles and no whole house solar.  On the other hand, the mining outfits want to mine right up to the national park boundaries plus whatever they can steal.  Is it possible to win this game?  At 75, I take the long run view.  In the long run, I'm dead.

Other than your age, the remainder of what you've written here is inaccurate.

If there is a substitute for lithium, I don't know what it is, but I would like to learn.

Apologies, I was mistaken.

[GowerGulch42]

Lithium is useful for a million applications, of which batteries are the biggest for news only. It's in medication, small electronics, metal alloys, and has a plethora of other uses we encounter every day. Lithium-ion batteries are the most common small battery around right now, but they won't be forever and they aren't the best type for large applications.

EVs and "The Energy Transition" are and will be a big user in the short term, next couple decades, but alternatives using easier-to-obtain materials are gaining traction. Those same things are also big news items in general. Lithium is getting mined and used no matter where it gets mined from; would you like it somewhere it can be regulated and have a very close watch kept on it or would you like it to be mined in another part of the world without the strict laws we have here?

[trailhound]

Gower Gulch wrote:

Lithium is getting mined and used no matter where it gets mined from; would you like it somewhere it can be regulated and have a very close watch kept on it or would you like it to be mined in another part of the world without the strict laws we have here?

That does not square with what Beardilocks wrote about mining in the US:

One of the bigger issue I think is the lobbying that mining conglomerates do to make sure the penalties for polluting and/or failing to clean up after they get all the $$ out of the ground are so minimal as to be no deterrent to leaving a massive ecological disaster behind.

[GowerGulch42]

I can't speak for Nevada, but that is very much the case in Oregon, Washington, and California. Nevada has rather permissive mining regulations, but the big battle with the style of mining that is planned for many of Nevada's identified and predicted lithium deposits is that it will require huge amounts of water. Like salt mining, they pump out lithium-enriched groundwater and pump in more water to keep the cycle going. These styles of mines will look similar to Trona and Silver Peak.

It is also true that environmental lobbies have never been stronger in world history.

[DAW89446]

These styles of mines will look similar to Trona and Silver Peak.

I worked at the plants in Trona 1987-2004. I was a plant operator for six years, in soda ash production. The majority of other products were produced in the same manner.

In the case of soda ash production, brine is pumped from deep below the surface of Searles Lake and into carbonators; there being six 1,000,000 gallon tanks. In the tanks, CO2 - drawn off large rotary kilns downstream - percolated into the brine, stirred by a big paddle run by a 4,160V, 1,000 HP motor. This started a crystallization process. The resulting thin slurry was pumped over to the bicarb area, where rotary filters up high on catwalks sucked the liquid out by huge vacuum pumps down below on the surface. In my days in process, the wet sand-like bicarbonate of soda dropped into a pre-dryer, a 100' long rotary kiln, heated with 15# steam; just as I was ending my tenure in process tests were done to see if eliminating this step would cause any issues and later eliminated from the process. At the other end of the pre-dryer, semi dried bicarbonate of soda dropped through conveyors to the main dryer, the same size and heated with 450# steam. Afterward, it went up elevators and over to the mono-hydrate process of recrystallization and bleaching to finish and then carried by elevators and conveyors over to shipping.

On the bicarb side, all "spent liquor," or liquid that has been stripped of usable mineral value, is sent back to the dry lake to be reinjected back into the strata. Basically, every gallon that is pumped out of the brine aquafer must be replaced or else Searles Valley would eventually subside upon itself. The vast majority of reinjected liquid was sourced from spent liquor. That liquid would percolate through the strata, picking up new minerals. The process allowed near indefinite sustainability, or so said the scientists.

Fresh water for the plants and homes in Trona primarily come from the Indian Wells Valley. There are pipelines that tap into nearby springs as well as brackish ground water. Brackish water is used primarily in the plants for cleaning and non domestic use. Most of it is collected and stored at Valley Wells for distribution.

Back in the old days, when I first came to Trona, Kerr-McGee owned the plants and Valley Wells was the recreation spot of the valley. Swimming, golf, tennis, basketball, baseball and employee family days with lots of activities, prizes, food, fun and music were conducted at Valley Wells. The big reservoir was the community pool, the "island" often had bands playing, especially prior to my arrival and back through the earlier decades of the 20th century.

After KMCC sold out to North American Chemical Company, that company downsized, modernized, cannibalized, abandoned and demolished over the years of ownership. For instance, potash was processed via pump, carbonate, filter, dry. The figures I remember hearing were approximately $200 per ton to make. The machinery was among the oldest in the plant and equipment used no longer available, so cannibalization of old equipment was done long before NACC came along. NACC had far larger holdings on the Great Salt Lake flats and used solar dying methods and made potash for basically pennies per ton. So those areas were shut down and eventually those large buildings, huge silos, shipping equipment for truck and railroad eventually were demolished. Look at ariel views of Trona's plants from, say, the 1970s and today. It looks emaciated now.

[MojaveGeek]

I went through Trona for the first time a year ago. It was raining, low clouds, shoulders were wet, muddy, and not to be stopped in. The town looked like it had seen better days. Is that plant still running?

[netllama]

I went through Trona for the first time a year ago. It was raining, low clouds, shoulders were wet, muddy, and not to be stopped in. The town looked like it had seen better days. Is that plant still running?

Trona has looked much like that for a _long_ time. The first time I drove through was around 2004, and it was bleak back then too.

[DAW89446]

Trona was hit hard after KMCC sold to NACC at the end of 1990. KMCC supported the town and employees. Businesses were open - a market, liquor store, a variety store, restaurants, Western Auto, Circle K, even a Ford dealership. I always heard around 10,000 people lived in Trona when I moved there. Ridgecrest was still relatively small and didn't have much more to offer in 1987 when I came there.

But NACC came, took the money and gave it to CEOs and stockholders. They downsized to the bare minimum. People moved away, burned down their asbestos filled homes to get insurance money because no one was buying. The company wouldn't clean up the mess, neither did San Bernardino County. The county even shut down the sheriff station for a time; but issues caused by deputies living in Barstow and one in Tehachapi and at least a two hour wait for help caused so much public outcry that they reopened it. I bought a home and moved to Ridgecrest in 1992, bought my home in Big Pine two years later (but didn't move there until 2002). Business closed. The town settled to around 3,000 people. Those petitioned for annexation to Inyo County, which was popular, but Inyo could barely take care of their own, let alone Trona (even though the company did and still does pay taxes in Inyo).

When I took a voluntary buyout in 2004, I spent two weeks emptying my rented duplex that I stayed at during my work week (4-days on, 4-off, straight days) and I've never returned since. When I first came to Trona it was an active town and a good place to raise my kids for the five years I lived there. Now it's an industrial moonscape but with a small population as rugged and independent and loyal as they come.

[DAW89446]

Is that plant still running?

I think so. After the bad earthquake that hit a few years ago, I read that the plants were heavily damaged. There was some press speculation as to whether the company would shut down. I haven't really found anything online to say that the plants are shut down and their website is still active.

[DVexile]

Searles Valley Minerals resumed operations in Dec 2019 after the earthquake. You can read a lot about recent activities on their Facebook page (recently a lot about water fees):

https://www.facebook.com/p/Searles-Valle...798123733/