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Expect groups with lithium claims to interfere with cheaper competitive elements.
by fartcannon 4y ago
Expect groups with lithium claims to interfere with cheaper competitive elements.
- shiftpgdn 4y agoEvery single pumpjack well in Texas is pulling up brine water extremely rich with lithium that could be cheaply extracted with evap pools. It just hasn’t been profitable until now. Lithium typically isn’t mined like gold, silver or diamonds, with a handful of exceptions.
- fartcannon 4y agoOh, OK, so expect the oil companies to interfere with alternatives then.
- toomuchtodo 4y agoIdeally, you'd buy these wells from O&G companies at distressed prices using ESG funding and repurpose them for lithium production.
- fartcannon 4y agoA quick google search suggests that sodium is 1000x more abundant than lithium. Will distressed prices be 1000x lower?
- shiftpgdn 4y agoYou actually don't even need to buy the well. Currently they pay to haul the brine water away and reinject it into a disposal well.
- epistasis 4y agoI think that it's going to be hard to interfere that way, they'll be too busy making money hand over fist from lithium. The grid storage market, which sodium would serve, tends to be far more price sensitive since the storage is not attached to a massive amount of other tech that is sold primarily based on marketing and emotion, which is what sells cars. Grid storage is pure industrial economics. I bet lithium miners and lithium battery manufacturers will be happy to hand over the grid storage market for the next decade, as vehicle battery demand will keep far ahead of vehicle battery supply.