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"Clayton Valley Nevada has the only commercial Lithium Mines in North America" Oceanview Mine (part of the Pala Chief group) in San Diego county California is
by lightedman 10y ago
"Clayton Valley Nevada has the only commercial Lithium Mines in North America"
Oceanview Mine (part of the Pala Chief group) in San Diego county California is a commercial lepidolite (micaceous lithium ore) mine. They're shipping out TONS of that nice purple rock every time I'm out there buying it from them.
- prefect42 10y agoAh, what pray tell, does one do with all that fancy purple rock?
- cptskippy 10y agoJewelry.
- lightedman 10y agoRarely is lepidolite gem-grade. It's much more useful as a lithium ore, as the extraction methods improved as of last year, putting it almost on par with brine extraction.
- cptskippy 10y agoStone, not gems, are frequently used in jewelry. What extraction methods are you referring to? The Sileach method that Lithium Australia began piloting this year? That still isn't commercially viable.
- lightedman 10y agoGeothermal extraction. Very viable here in SoCal where a huge chunk of our lithium mines are located, since we've got plenty of geothermal around. See, spodumene and lepidolite make up more than 50% of the world's supply of lithium because those sources produce large amounts rapidly, despite the costs. Having these sources next to geothermal energy sources makes it much more viable to do the 'roasting' at practically zero energy cost.
- cptskippy 10y agoNeat! I hadn't heard of that.
- lightedman 10y agoAlso, there are more methods coming onto market which might make brine and geothermal methods of the past. Leaching, solvent extraction, and electrolysis are methods gaining traction and developing at a fair pace.
- lightedman 10y agoSpodumene and Lepidolite are the most readily-available source of high-quality lithium, making up over 50% of the world's lithium supply. Rarely is it made into jewelry, usually only as an inclusion into another mineral such as quartz or feldspar.
- cptskippy 10y agoExtracting lithium from lepidolite is at best twice as expensive as extracting it from brine. Lithium from ore sources is not commercially viable. So while Oceanview might be a commercial mine, it's not a commercial lithium mine.