The Energy Thread

[Jeff Lebowski]

This is exciting. Exxon is building a plant to extract brine water from underground formations in Arkansas and neighboring states to mine lithium.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-ar...-boom-54ad7306

Exxon Mobil, a new player in the hunt for U.S. lithium, is planning to build one of the world’s largest lithium processing facilities not far from Magnolia, with a capacity to produce 75,000 to 100,000 metric tons of lithium a year, according to people familiar with the matter.

At that scale, it would equate to about 15% of all finished lithium produced globally last year, according to one analyst.

The Wall Street Journal reported in May that Exxon purchased 120,000 gross acres in the area for a price tag of more than $100 million. A consultant for the seller had estimated the prospect could have the equivalent of 4 million tons of lithium carbonate equivalent, enough to power 50 million EVs.

This is good because right now China controls too much of the lithium industry.

[Moliere]

This is exciting. Exxon is building a plant to extract brine water from underground formations in Arkansas and neighboring states to mine lithium.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/this-ar...-boom-54ad7306





This is good because right now China controls too much of the lithium industry.

Very exciting. I Hope they can commercialize it.

[Flystripper]

This is good because right now China controls too much of the lithium industry.

Agreed. Also as part of my work have been valuing the tech for these guys and it appears very promising...recycling just might be another option and these guys are close to commercialization of an eco friendly way of doing it.

https://ir.aquametals.com/press-rele...refining-pilot

[Jeff Lebowski]

Agreed. Also as part of my work have been doing valuing the tech for these guys and it appears very promising...recycling just might be another option and these guys are close to commercialization of an eco friendly way of doing it.

https://ir.aquametals.com/press-rele...refining-pilot

Very cool.

[Bo Diddley]

Rigged readouts of driving range in Teslas.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates...tteries-range/

About a decade ago, Tesla rigged the dashboard readouts in its electric cars to provide “rosy” projections of how far owners can drive before needing to recharge, a source told Reuters. The automaker last year became so inundated with driving-range complaints that it created a special team to cancel owners’ service appointments.

[All-American]

NIF repeats its achievement from late last year, with slightly greater energy gains.

https://fortune.com/2023/08/06/nucle...ed-by-lab/amp/

[Uncle Ted]

All that AI processing need energy...

Three Mile Island nuclear plant to restart, power Microsoft data centers

Microsoft and Constellation Energy just unveiled a power purchase deal that would enable a restart of a reactor at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant.
[...]

https://www.axios.com/2024/09/20/thr...rosoft-ai-deal

And our AI overlords need electricity even when the sun isn't shinning.

[All-American]

Commonwealth Fusion Systems announces plans to build first commercial fusion power plant in Virginia, expected to come online "in the early 2030's." Fusion power now only always ten years away.


https://news.mit.edu/2024/commonweal...wer-plant-1217

[All-American]

First fusion power plant under construction with goal to provide power by 2028.

https://interestingengineering.com/e...r-plant-helion

That seems way ahead of realistic to me, but wouldn’t that be something.

[Applejack]

First fusion power plant under construction with goal to provide power by 2028.

https://interestingengineering.com/e...r-plant-helion

That seems way ahead of realistic to me, but wouldn’t that be something.

The U was so far ahead of its time!

[Northwestcoug]

It lives!!!!

By 2019, separate teams of scientists were ready to say that while cold fusion had started off as a notorious flop, there were interesting scientific questions at the heart of the story that merited further study.

Now one of those teams has revealed that they can reliably demonstrate an enhanced version of nuclear fusion at temperatures far below those at which reactors typically operate, which they say opens the door to new advances.

Not yet ready for the Nobel Prize though:

To be clear, Dr. Berlinguette added, there is no immediate “energy miracle” associated with the result. The Thunderbird reactor – named after the UBC mascot, a mythical creature in Indigenous lore – only produces about one-billionth of a watt of power for every 15 watts needed to run it.

But when applied as a tool for examining a curious and elusive electrochemical effect, there remains the possibility that it could lead to something more.

good enough for a Nature paper apparently.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/cana...medium=bluesky

[Northwestcoug]

I have never heard of a sand battery. A company in Finland is using it to store energy produced from renewable resources:

https://newatlas.com/energy/largest-...and-pornainen/

tldr: When the demand for renewable energy sources is low it gets converted to heat to 'charge' a sand battery, which can capture and hold the heat for long periods of time. That heat can then be used to power things like turbines to provide energy.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I have never heard of a sand battery. A company in Finland is using it to store energy produced from renewable resources:

https://newatlas.com/energy/largest-...and-pornainen/

tldr: When the demand for renewable energy sources is low it gets converted to heat to 'charge' a sand battery, which can capture and hold the heat for long periods of time. That heat can then be used to power things like turbines to provide energy.

That is very cool.

Japan recently opened an "osmotic power plant". Basically, the put highly saline water and fresh water together and use the resulting pressure differential to generated power. Won't generate much power, but kind of cool.

https://www.renewableinstitute.org/j...-clean-energy/

[Green Monstah]

My personal favorite storage technique is to use green energy to pump water up a mountain, then at night/when the wind doesn’t blow, flow the water down the mountain, turning turbines that generate electricity. Not sure how efficient it is, but for whatever reason, I enjoy the simplicity of the concept.

[Northwestcoug]

That is very cool.

Japan recently opened an "osmotic power plant". Basically, the put highly saline water and fresh water together and use the resulting pressure differential to generated power. Won't generate much power, but kind of cool.

https://www.renewableinstitute.org/j...-clean-energy/

Hadn't heard of that either.

Osmosis, is there anything it can't do?