Slashdot Mirror
Searching For Lithium Deposits With Satellites (economist.com)
A group led by Cristian Rossi, an expert on remote sensing, is using 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, reads a new report in The Economist, to look for metals such as gold and copper, using it to search for lithium is new. From the report, which may be paywalled: 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. Back then these springs were seen, at best, as curiosities, and at worst as flooding risks, because there was then no market for the metal. Today, there is. In particular, lithium is the eponymous component of lithium-ion batteries. These power products ranging from smartphones to electric cars, and are being tested as a means of grid-scale electricity storage which could make the spread of renewable energy much easier. No surprise, then, that prices have been rising. In 2008 a tonne of lithium carbonate cost around $6,000. Now it would set you back more than $12,000.
Economies of scale are great except when the supply of the raw materials is limited or constrained. So much for cheap batteries. Bring on the Molten salt grid storage batteries instead of wasting the Lithium there.
You can't handle the truth! - Because I don't post left all my comments get modded down, bye bye Karma.
Lithium deposits? Now we can medicate the entire US.
There's not a lot, but there is some good shit... When you automate it, it doesn't cost a dime in human effort, which is all that matters.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
You just look for plants that have really good battery life growing above the lithium deposits.
Where's the story about cobalt production? That's a bigger bottleneck than lithium. Maybe USA will invade DRC
Rising lithium prices could be a good thing. Sounds like we're getting closer to viable asteroid mining!
... is ionically, or iconically, or maybe ironically, inferior.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
"Though satellite prospecting of this sort has been employed before, reads a new report in The Economist, to look for metals such as gold and copper, using it to search for lithium is new."
Nope, I've been using ASTER and LANDSAT 7/8 for years to do mineral-specific prospecting. I just finished a trip out to Lavic near the 29 Palms bombing range hunting boron and lithium minerals.
These guys are what's new, not the technology nor technique.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"lithium is the eponymous component of lithium-ion batteries"
Eponymous - that word does not mean what you think it means.
I thought you would be looking for plants that were chilled out and relaxed?
Meanwhile the plants in lithium-poor zones are depressed, have low self-esteem, and get stressed by thoughts of their Mother-In-Law sending seeds their way!