By Ole Braatelien October 24, 2024 at 12:58pm
Move over, gold. The U.S. lithium rush may be set to boom.
The United States Geological Survey said Monday that there may be an enormous lithium reserve buried in south Arkansas’ Smackover Formation, an extensive limestone aquifer hosting large volumes of mineral-rich brine.
As much as 5 million to 19 million tons of lithium could exist in the form of underground brine — salty groundwater enriched in dissolved lithium.
“If commercially recoverable, the amount of lithium present would meet projected 2030 world demand for lithium in car batteries 9 times over,” according to the USGS release.
Critical minerals don’t exist (a continuing series).
At the Smackover geological formation in Arkansas, the US government has discovered enough lithium to supply the whole world with EV batteries:https://t.co/24stAIDGYf
Afghanistan’s lithium reserves are trivial by comparison pic.twitter.com/PNIRnc152b
— Jeff Rigsby (@JeffRigsby2) October 22, 2024
Working with the Arkansas Department of Energy and Environment’s Office of the State Geologist, the USGS made the discovery using a “novel methodology” of water testing and A.I. machine learning, according to the release.
Technology for good!! “Researchers utilized machine learning—a form of artificial intelligence—to create predictive maps of lithium concentrations throughout the Smackover Formation. “ https://t.co/sUvgkWSBUX
— Benda for common sense (@BendaSense) October 23, 2024
Should lithium be heavily mined in the United States?
Despite the USGS’s optimism, it cautions that their projections are just that, projections.
“We estimate there is enough dissolved lithium present in that region to replace U.S. imports of lithium and more. It is important to caution that these estimates are an in-place assessment. We have not estimated what is technically recoverable based on newer methods to extract lithium from brines,” said Katherine Knierim, a hydrologist and the study’s principal researcher.
Five companies had already been taking strides to set up shop for the mining business in Arkansas, but they’ve met with resistance from landowners, according to the Arkansas Times.
ExxonMobil and Standard Lithium in particular have been in ongoing disputes over how much the landowners would be paid for mineral rights, the Arkansas Times reported.
If landowners want an excessively high royalty rate, the Arkansas lithium industry just won’t be able to compete globally, said a Standard Lithium spokesman, the Arkansas Times reported.
Lithium, of course, is essential for meeting the demands of the recent spike in electric vehicles sales.
In the first quarter of 2023, sales of battery-powered cars, pickups and SUVs in the U.S. rose 45 percent from 2022, according to The New York Times.
To meet demand, many car companies are cutting out suppliers and beginning to work directly with mining companies for their lithium needs, The Times reported.
Car companies are crossing the globe looking for mining partnerships in Quebec, Chile and Argentina, exposing said automobile companies to the boom-and-bust nature of the mining business, according to The Times.
Despite the U.S. having 9.1 million tons of lithium resources, Nevada’s Albemarle Silver Peak Mine is the only operating lithium mine in the United States, according to Solar Reviews.
Ole Braatelien has written for The Western Journal since 2022. He earned his bachelor’s from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
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