A New Energy Paradigm for the 21st Century
At the close of the 20th century, a new energy paradigm, forged by technological advances, resource and environmental constraints and socioeconomic demands, has begun to emerge. This paradigm is based not on a finite stock of fossil fuels, but on a virtually limitless flow of renewable energy—sun, wind, water, wood, the earth’s heat—and on the most abundant element in the universe: hydrogen. Now as then, the broader implications of this upheaval are likely to be nothing less than revolutionary.
Like the hydrocarbon era that preceded it, the dawning lithium-hydrogen age carries its own set of risks and opportunities, as well as its own set of winners and losers. Nations that anticipate and position themselves for the transition are likely to reap an array of social, economic and environmental benefits.
Lithium Mining
Lithium is the thirty-third most frequently occurring mineral so it’s not exactly scarce, but concentrations are generally too low, and extraction too difficult and costly to be viable. The major trend in the lithium industry has been a transition from hard rock mining-based sources of lithium to brine-based ones. The cost-effectiveness of brine operations forced even large producers in China and Russia to develop their own brine sources or buy raw materials from brine producers.
The economics of obtaining lithium carbonate from brine are so favorable that most hard rock production has been priced out of the market. Lithium brines are currently the only lithium source that can support mining without significant other credits from tantalum, niobium, tin etc., (low manganese content within Nevada’s Clayton Valley brines significantly reduces recovery costs, unlike Chile’s high manganese content brine deposits). Lithium brine resources are now the preferred method of lithium recovery.
Lithium recovery from brines could lead to a huge carbon footprint reduction because of a nearly zero-waste mining method. Once the lithium is recovered the chemicals used can be recycled, also the by-products include saleable compounds such as potash and/or boron.