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Searching for lithium deposits with satellites
- neonate 9y agohttp://archive.is/n0sr4 http://archive.is/n0sr4
- kozikow 9y agoI would pay for just this article, but I don't want 12. Why does every newspaper only offers subscription option?
- paulie_a 9y agoBecause otherwise you get incredibly terrible advertising. Although from my experience with paywalls, you still get that same bad advertising experience for 5 bucks a month.
- Hextinium 9y agoI would gladly pay .10 cents for each article that I read until I reach 3 dollars a month which is what they currently offer but I think that they like the repeatable revenue. I am guessing that they are betting that people will buy the economist and then just have it keep re-subscribing.
- dawnerd 9y agoAnd like the nyt make it damn near impossible to cancel without talking to someone on the phone. I ain’t got time for that.
- Gys 9y agoBecause we still have no good micro payment system. So payments are slow (enter creditcard numbers, paypal credentials) and expensive (whatever you use, transactions have a USD 0.30 miniumum plus a percentage...).
- Animats 9y agoBitcoin! Oh, right.
- overcast 9y agoWe need a proper Netflix for news/magazines.
- IntronExon 9y agoThe bottom line is: The plan is to use satellites already in orbit to detect and map geological and botanical features that might betray the presence of subterranean lithium. Though satellite prospecting of this sort has been employed before, to look for metals such as gold and copper, using it to search for lithium is new. The searchers are not searching blind. They know, from mining records dating from the mid-1800s, that there is lithium in Cornwall’s rocks. Those records tell of underground springs containing salts of lithium—at that time quite a recently discovered element.
- ggm 9y agoAs an aside, we're not actually short of lithium. What we're short of is current sources, so this is about exploiting a mechanism to find new sources cheaply, to sell to developers who want to make a killing on lithium futures. Because right now, there's actually quite a lot of lithium out there, ready to be extracted. A Tesla battery uses 63kg. There is estimated to be around 50MT (megatonnes) of Lithium in the supply chain and known deposits. If we fermi-maths this around, call it 50kg per car, thats 20 per Tonne, so we have enough in known deposits for 1 billion tesla cars. Sure, thats less than one car and one powerwall per person on the planet. So in some sense, we know we'll need more. But, whilst I applaud this use of satellites, please don't mistake this for news because earth-sensing sats have been used for mining research since before tesla was a thing. As the article says: its only new using it to search for lithium.
- rmm 9y agoMining guy here. I have done plenty of feasibility study works for lithium projects over past few years and in general; There is a lot of supply coming online from hard rock lithium sources in the next 12-24 months, especially from Australian spodumene sources. Demand side is heavily from the Chinese electric car market. Smaller cars, only 5-6kg max LCE per car. All other demand is a small percentage of what Chinese demand is estimated to be. And yes you are right, we have been using satellite imagery for decades, it’s just a lot easier now.
- xiphias 9y agoChinese demand and Chinese car markets may not mean the same thing. Isn't China planning to assemble and sell batteries to European car manufacturers?
- ggm 9y agoDorothy Dunnetts 'nicolo' series of bodice-ripper historical fiction has its roots in the discovery of Tolfa (alum) mines and the impact on the dye industry. The clue to location being (amongst other things) holly and a differential preference for alum rich soil. I guess in some sense remote sensing for vegetation and then focussed analysis has deep deep roots. Interesting that lithium sources are going to rock. I thought the saltpan stuff in the Atacama was a price beater for years to come. I also believe the various rare earth dependencies are determined not to get caught behind China as a sole source.
- sytelus 9y agoTLDR; Li ore prices have doubled in past 10 years. How do you search for it from space? satellite cameras, both optical and infra-red, and also satellite-borne radar, to look for mineral formations caused by hot liquids reacting with existing rock, and for rock fractures that could act as channels for lithium-bearing brine. They will, as well, record anomalies in vegetation that might be the result of lithium-rich soils, or of hot springs that might contain the element.