|
|
Post by huon on Dec 20, 2021 14:58:49 GMT 9.5
MIT researchers develop optimized sulfidation separation process for rare earth and other key metals 19 Dec 2021 Green Car Congress www.greencarcongress.com/2021/12/20211219-mitsulfidation.htmlThe reported process, by cutting costs and energy use, may greatly increase supplies of key metals and encourage their recycling. |
|
|
|
Post by huon on Feb 10, 2022 15:39:15 GMT 9.5
Flash Joule heating extracts rare earth elements from fly ash, bauxite residue, electronic waste Rice University 09 Feb 2022 Phys.org phys.org/news/2022-02-joule-rare-earth-elements-ash.htmlThis process could potentially "resolve issues [of supply?] for manufacturers while boosting profits." Rice University is one of the top science and engineering schools in the US. |
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on May 2, 2022 7:32:13 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
|
Post by David B. Benson on Dec 25, 2022 6:22:49 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
|
Post by huon on May 7, 2023 14:56:22 GMT 9.5
Major deposits of rare earth elements reported at Ramaco's Brook Mine in Wyoming 04 May 2023 Green Car Congress www.greencarcongress.com/2023/05/20230504-ramaco.htmlHigh concentrations of certain desirable REE's in and around a coal seam. North of Sheridan to the east of I-90 near the Montana border. |
|
|
|
Post by huon on Sept 2, 2023 9:18:47 GMT 9.5
Copied and moved from Open Thread as a reference for the following post. |
|
|
|
Post by huon on Sept 2, 2023 9:40:59 GMT 9.5
|
|
|
|
Post by eclipse on Nov 4, 2023 10:05:14 GMT 9.5
Yep - we keep discovering lithium faster than we can use it. We haven't even reached peak discovery - let alone the peak of mining which generally occurs decades later. This stuff below is influenced by the fact that I'm looking more into grid storage because, for some nations like Australia, I'm now more open to renewables doing the job. A lot has changed since you all helped open my mind to nuclear. I'm still a fan of nuclear, but now that renewables are less than a tenth of what they cost back when I got into nuclear - the many engineers I read say Overbuild is now economically viable. Even Australia's La Nina year of 2022 only required an overbuild of 70% - so a 170% renewable grid - to guarantee supply and radically cut storage requirements. So - that out the way - storage minerals? GRID STORAGE: Sodium is super-abundant - we'll never run out. Sodium batteries are less toxic, less prone to thermal run away, and 30% cheaper than lithium. EV’s are going LFP - Lithium Iron Phosphate. The USGS says there is 89 MILLION tons of lithium which at 6 kg for some models of Tesla is enough for 14 BILLION Cars - we only need 1.4 billion. And that's before we count the latest finds from August 2023 in America's McDermitt Caldera - the biggest single lithium deposit in the world. Also, for GRIDS USE PHES! Off-river Pumped-Hydro Electricity Storage hardly uses any metal for the enormous energy stored. The best PHES sites are 400 to 800 metres. Australia’s Professor Andrew Blakers won the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering (like a Nobel prize for engineers). Here’s his global tour of pumped-hydro storage. youtu.be/_Lk3elu3zf4?t=986 The world has 100 TIMES the pumped hydro we need! re100.eng.anu.edu.au/global/ The sad thing is they selected Snowy 2.0 in 2017 under Malcolm Turnbull, before the Blakers team published their global atlas of PHES sites in 2021. re100.eng.anu.edu.au/pumped_hydro_atlas/ Blakers says about Snowy2.0 that he recently found several BIGGER storage sites that only need 1 or 2 km tunnels, not the 20 plus km tunnels of Snowy2.0 that are costing so much! theconversation.com/im-not-an-apologist-for-the-snowy-2-0-hydro-scheme-but-lets-not-obsess-over-the-delays-and-cost-blowouts-204915 The Queensland government used the Blaker's team to plan their pumped hydro. |
|
|
|
Post by cyrilr on Nov 4, 2023 19:20:35 GMT 9.5
I wouldn't say the unreliables issues are "out of the way". There is current not a single country being powered by wind and sun. This after trillions in "investment" (renewables people often have difficulty underestanding the difference between investing and spending). For example be sure to read Jack Devanney's work on making wind and solar work for Germany. gordianknotbook.com/download/nuclear-and-dunkelflauten/That is one heck of a lot of overbuilding. That means much more steel, concrete and land used, and wasted power. Isn't going green supposed to reduce our footprint and reduce waste? Seems like a wind and solar powered grid would would embrace waste and excessive resource consumption. That includes critical metals - copper, rare earths, you name it. Devanney's work doesn't even include grid costs. Here in Holland we are going to spend 90 billion euros to connect 21 GWp of offshore power. Which is at most 10 GW average power. That's 9000 EUR/kWe just to plug the pinwheels in. And by the time all the infrastructure is in place, the wind turbines will be at the end of life and turned to scrap. How is this fixed in terms of economics and ecologics? |
|
|
|
Post by cyrilr on Nov 4, 2023 19:23:43 GMT 9.5
And I should point out that the 9000 EUR/kWe is being paid for by the taxpayer; the Dutch grid infrastructure company, Tennet, is state owned.
So that's a 9000 EUR/kWe subsidy. Hiding in plain sight.
|
|
|
|
Post by huon on Feb 29, 2024 13:41:24 GMT 9.5
|
|
