Researchers say Arkansas may have 19M tons of lithium critical for battery power
The researchers said in their article released last month in the journal Science Advances they had “calculated that there are 5.1 to 19 million tons of lithium in Smackover Formation brines in southern Arkansas,” making up “35 to 136% of the current US lithium resource estimate.”
#News #Environment #Energy #Arkansas #Lithium #FYI #CriticalMinerals
BUT… no one has actually looked and worse (from the USGS paper)
“‘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.”
In other words it may really be there, just technically impossible to extract.
@feloneouscat I read the study and I'm hopeful. I understood it as the lithium may be more difficult and expensive to extract but tons has already been extracted using current methods.