{"id":7423,"date":"2017-01-20T17:08:57","date_gmt":"2017-01-20T16:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7423"},"modified":"2017-01-20T17:13:33","modified_gmt":"2017-01-20T16:13:33","slug":"one-thing-learnt-week-lithium-mining-cornwall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7423","title":{"rendered":"One thing we have learnt this week- lithium mining in Cornwall"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Lithium_paraffin\"<\/a>Lithium mining in Cornwall looks like it could be possible this week.\u00a0 As the costs of wind and solar fall below the cost of all other forms of energy on disparate parts of the planet and sales of hybrid\/electric cars\/laptops\/phones\/pads etc. continue to grow strongly the worlds’ demand for this metal is insatiable.\u00a0 The old conundrum of variability of renewable output looks like being solved over the next 5 years or so with a wide variety of energy storage solutions being worked on.\u00a0 The lead solution is lithium batteries however, hence the need to find new sources.<\/p>\n

As we wrote in our book<\/a> we had concerns over lithium mining and also concerns over whether there was enough of the bright shiny metal to go round.<\/p>\n

“The greatest concern may not be the issue of electricity, but that <\/em>of lithium and neodymium supply. Currently all electric cars use <\/em>lithium batteries and the electric motors require elements known as <\/em>\u2018rare earths\u2019 (especially neodymium) to make powerful permanent <\/em>magnets. There are 27 million cars in the UK and around 600<\/em>
\nmillion worldwide. It seems to us that replacing all these with <\/em>electric cars with lithium batteries, let alone increasing the number, <\/em>may not be possible. There is also an ethical issue which Christians <\/em>should be concerned about, which is where the lithium comes from <\/em>and how it is mined. At the moment most lithium is mined in South <\/em>America and the largest potential reserves are in high-altitude desert <\/em>in Bolivia, which is a unique ecosystem. There has to be concern <\/em>that we may exchange one problem of damage to the environment <\/em>caused by our driving for another. Bolivia also wants a cut of the<\/em>
\naction, that is, to add value to the supply chain by getting fairly paid <\/em>for the materials it sells us and preferably making the batteries there.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

Lithium mining in Cornwall has some attractions.\u00a0 Firstly in a developed country higher environmental standards are likely to be enforced.\u00a0 Second, there is another attraction of Lithium mining in Cornwall.\u00a0 That is the lithium is present in hot brine.\u00a0 The water is hot from the decay of uranium in the granite.\u00a0 The mining could therefore be combined with a useful source of renewable energy by sinking boreholes.\u00a0 This could make the whole process more carbon neutral.\u00a0 The concern I have is that extraction process takes very large tanks (using evaporation) although the company concerned say there is a new process which takes a lot less surface area and is much more environmentally friendly.\u00a0 In addition there maybe no use for hot water where the mining takes place (in rural areas) although there are now low temperature turbines capable of producing electricity.<\/p>\n

I’d give this idea a cautious welcome.\u00a0 The companies website is here<\/a> but gives very few details.<\/p>\n

Neil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lithium mining in Cornwall looks like it could be possible this week.\u00a0 As the costs of wind and solar fall below the cost of all other forms of energy on disparate parts of the planet and sales of hybrid\/electric cars\/laptops\/phones\/pads … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,203,17,4],"tags":[84,204],"class_list":["post-7423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book","category-energy-storage","category-one-thing-we-have-learnt-this-week","category-renewables","tag-energy-storage","tag-lithium"],"yoast_head":"\nOne thing we have learnt this week- lithium mining in Cornwall - The oil lamp - shining God's light on peak oil<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7423\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7423\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theoillamp.co.uk\/?p=7423\",\"name\":\"One thing we have learnt this week- lithium mining in Cornwall - 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