A mining company has announced plans to extract 10,000 tonnes of lithium a year from rocks beneath a County Durham beauty spot after drilling found vast volumes of hot brines laden with the precious mineral.
Lithium is an essential component of the rechargeable batteries that power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles – but the UK is currently entirely dependent on imports.
Weardale Lithium’s planned processing plant in the Co Durham valley would strip the lithium from water pumped from deep underground reservoirs, creating the UK’s first domestic supply of the mineral.
If the deposits prove commercially viable then the UK could reduce its current complete reliance on imports which mainly come from Australia and South America.
The area is the second part of the UK to yield commercially viable lithium deposits. Cornish Lithium is already seeking to exploit similar deposits in Cornwall. It too expects to produce about 10,000 tonnes a year.
The idea’s sensible enough. Lithium is soluble in water. Therefore geothermal waters going through a nice granite etc (a usual host rock for lithium) might well be enriched in lithium.
It’s technically feasible – for a slightly weird reason the people who do this contacted me about something else – to extract the Li from the Cornish Lithium waters. Weardale I assume is somewhat similar. 50 ppm is good enough.
That’s not the same as comercially viable of course. And with the Li price down in the dumps perhaps it isn’t.
There are two other things e can test against. On the Rhine, and around the Salton Sea, there are geothermal energy plants. That water is also Li enriched. So, they’ve two revenues from that same water. And the Rhine, well, maybe the Li is commercially extractable. From what I hear the Salton Sea is (note, hear, not know).
But if with two revenue sources the Rhine is still, well, we dunno, then Weardale with only one revenue stream, well, is it commercially viable?
In the Weardale doc package there will be a price assumption for lithium. If that’s realistic and the numbers are positive then yes, commercially viable, subject to uncertainty about future prices. But what is that assumption?
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The extent to which the journalist thinks the story important is reflected in the painstaking accuracy of the reporting
This is the advantage of capitalism. Someone else (ie not ME!!) is betting their money on this.
TMB – or maybe they’re feeling the cold wind of uncertainty on the back of their neck, as the DT’s up for sale again.
£400k in grant funding from Innovate UK secured this time last year for pilot process. I’m wondering if that was for one year and there’s a fresh taxpayer funding decision later this month from that same august body. A bit of good press will help.
Being cynical, but the timing of this story seems fishy
EVs, in their current form, are the Norwegian Blues of the automotive industry.
All this pumping and extracting of fluids deep into the earths crust will of course be subject to the same restrictions as fracking won’t it?
If it’s for milk float batteries, that’s about as sound an “economic” case as turning the country into one big gulag to increase demand for chains!
Bit nerdy this but I live in the same county. This is the planning application – no mention of expected price, but the corporate web-site uses 28$ per kg Lithium Carbonate as the end point on their snazzy graph.
https://publicaccess.durham.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=SBSDBXGDH8G00
The only interesting doc in my view is the general layout drawing showing where the bore holes will go.
It will be fun to read the objections as they come in.
If anyone wants to submit a support for it, please do, I will be.
About $14 right now. So, erm, ambitious.
Of course Jim!!!!!
“ This is the advantage of capitalism. Someone else (ie not ME!!) is betting their money on this”
Ya think?
Commercially viable when the magic words climate change or the like are invoked means only with massive government ie tax payer subsidies.
Bloke in North Dorset
May 1, 2024 at 7:39 pm
‘only with massive government ie tax payer subsidies.’
Ya got me BiND!!!