How these two sentences are in any way compatible with eachother: >company will (..) separate out the small lithium-bearing grains from larger minerals by cent

How these two sentences are in any way compatible with eachother: >company will (..) separate out the small lithium-bearing grains from larger minerals by centrifuging. The clay will then be leached in vats of sulfuric acid to extract lithium. And: >‘If they can extract the lithium in a very low energy intensive way, or in a process that does not consume much acid, then this can be economically very significant,’ Centrifuging doesn't seem to be a very low energy process compared with what they do in Bolivia (just let the water evaporate in huge shallow lakes then gather the material with dozers). And the acid thing is just contradictory. They plan to leach with sulphuric acid and hope to find a way to not use acid at the same time? It is very good more lithium deposits are found outside China, but isn't lithium one of most abundant things on earth? And isn't the key difficulty in economic extraction the fact established mines use practices that would not be allowed in places like US/Europe? Surely, we should start with funding r&d to come up with an economic and less polluting process of extraction.