Comments by "Bo McGillacutty" (@Mrbfgray) on "The 'white gold rush': Inside a lithium mine, where stores of recyclable energy lie | Nightline" video.

I built some process equipment for Foote Mineral at that site back in the '80's, based on Google Earth at least some of it is still in use. (last I checked tho they had suspended operations according to the website) Apparently it has now changed corporate hands, good to hear they are doubling production. I seriously doubt any such mining will occur in Cali as our state ran most mining out decades ago.
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@michaelharrison3046 BTW--I come as 3rd gen mining background, more informed but biased in favor of extractive industries done right There won't be an open pit or anything spectacular changed about that valley. Nothing much cleaner than simply pumping an extremely salty shallow aquifer that could never be used for anything else, evaporating the water in the sun and wind and extracting a couple components. It's mostly solar powered with incredible efficiency. :D Those salts are from recurring lakes without outlets, filled and evaporated by climate changes for M's of yrs, massive glacial till/runoff, made lakes far bigger than the Great Lakes at times in recent past Nevada. As glaciers advance and retreat, repeat, fresh water (always some natural salts in fresh) gradually becomes far saltier than the oceans. Lake may be Yuge but shrinks to the lowest points, again, concentrating the salts. The geology retains the brine indefinitely. I assume they are dropping the small valley floor a little via the removed brine and the surface will have more salts than it used to...pending the next time ice sheets again level the N. Hemisphere, most recent only ended around 14k yrs ago, yesterday in geologic terms and well within human experience...tangent. Otherwise it will be more or less the "wasteland" it always was. Pardon caring on, sheesh.
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@dirtydoughboy2854 YEAH...always try to profit off of a tragedy. Maybe YOU caused it.
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@michaelharrison3046 I'm not up to date but my guess would be the same primary methods at least, that is the ponds concentrate and drop various unwanted salts until Li salt is about to come out of solution then they pipe it into the mill. Hard to imagine any of that changing much. I wouldn't be surprised if the mill had been upgraded a few times but it seemed to me a relatively simple process already, almost always a little room for at least tinkering around the edges of course. Assuming the vid is current--nice to see them still in operation.
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@staralioflundnv Thanks, I try to be brief this in no place for a booklet but... :D I have engineering background but dad was geologist and I was raised only a few hours drive from Silver Pk. (which is literally next town away in that area) we explored all over. Dad occasionally taught university extension classes from home town, Bishop, CA, and was always on top of developments in the field.
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@staralioflundnv Like your rare perspective. Dad was something of a 'covert environmentalist', that is he didn't want to be labeled as such among his peers in the mining industry at that time but he did things like help establish wilderness boundaries for the Sierras. Mom had HER name on Sierra Club membership, lol. Dad had great career at Pine Creek tungsten mine, starting taking ore samples underground and finishing as mine superintendent. He traveled many places to look at company prospects from an operators perspective (exploration geologists often were too optimistic about the economic potential of an ore body they were working on)...Portugal, Australia, Brazil....and he would sometimes take some of us on vacations back to the countries he liked most from biz trips--especially Brazil many times, I went with to Portugal/Spain.
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@staralioflundnv An interesting aside: The bottom of the "upside-down" Pine Creek Mine is the Easy Going Tunnel portal at 8200 ft. alt., (dad designed that tunnel) a few miles long and drains the entire mine up to around 11k alt. That portal was plugged in the '90's after mine shutdown to back up the water to high pressure for a small electric plant. It must be the "cleanest" power plant on Earth as it actually returned the very localized hydrogeology close to it's original state by re-pressurizing the fissures and restoring some of the historic seeps and springs while feeding power into the old existing lines that were previously used to power the mine. It would be even more restorative to plug the portal completely and not allow the water out at all but it wasn't likely to happen as the "micro power plant" was the impetuous to the expense of plugging it at all. What I'd pay to have that cold sweet untreated "spring" water (actually from the mine) flowing in my home pipes! Used to love drinking it when I worked briefly at the mine mill as it was fed into all the drinking fountains on the property.
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@staralioflundnv Sounds like you might already know more about it than I. Didn't remember the CFS. :D Dad tried to persuade them to run a heavy steel pipe thru one area of unstable ground near the portal plug, prior to plugging it, for fear it would collapse one day shutting off the water flow but they didn't want to go to that expense apparently, and didn't follow that advice. Anyway dad enjoyed being consulted a little on the project.
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@staralioflundnv Prior to reading--one crucial point is that, surprisingly--earthquake waves travel on the surface and are not even felt underground, even when it's a mine cut into a cliff face. (exactly how far under such waves fail to penetrate/propagate IDK)
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@staralioflundnv (thanks for link--very interesting to ME!)
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@staralioflundnv At 1st blush I would think seismic activity, even severe quakes, would have negligible effect on zone beyond plug due to above stated reason....given distance underground. It would of course be of concern for the surface infrastructure. I'd want everything possible to be underground where it's safe, turbine, electrical, etc. Also having everything at constant temperature and protected from snow drifts, freezing and so on. Rocks come off the cliffs like bullets and pass right thru any manmade object, vehicles, structures or whatever, even with common modest 7 mag quakes. Dad would order everyone to stay underground until aftershocks dissipated. Funny tangent story but relevant: Easy Go is about 3 miles plus long (called Easy Going because prior to that tunnel they had to transport all the 100s of employees up treacherous switchbacks on steep avalanche prone roads to around 10k alt original access and offices) Ray Gray (dad) designed the tunnel and the ditch on the side of it, for most of the length of the long tunnel mining process "Gray's ditch" was a standing joke bc it was dry until near the end when hitting abundant water and it filled to the top. This was not trivial bc the entire tunnel must be bigger and more expensive to accommodate the ditch. Dad simply measured the flow from many existing tunnels per length and averaged the results to figure the flow rate needed and it turned out to be on the money, pun intended. Some luck no doubt but everyone forgot the Gray's Ditch joke after that. SO...that plug could have been installed deep under and still capture most of the water available. In some places the water would blast out against the train cars as you passed, it was like Disneyland but better.
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Interesting. Here we cross due to common interest in obscure topic and location... :D Thanks for the background and fam history! I lived in Silver Peak for a combined couple months while completing bid projects in the mid/late 1980's. Randy Weld was the purchasing manager I worked with...if I remember his title. I did custom structural steel work, some from shops in Cali but most on site. Remember it well and got aquainted with distillation ponds, where at least ONE of my projects seems to be still in use, a large industrial tank with special steel to resist abrasion, can be seen on Google Earth due to my unique design with top tank rim supported with radial "spokes") and with parts of the mill that I worked in. Wonder if I crossed paths with your dad, surely I would have if time frames overlapped. (((in case you were wondering--my YT handle is a joke name)))
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@staralioflundnv You are getting me back into this--dad had other concerns about that plug, can't remember details at the moment but maybe something to do with rebar and how it was attached to rock. Seepage could be very bad, in fact automatically is BAD. The granite will erode very slowly but the concrete?? Solid granite is vastly stronger, tougher and more erosion resistant than lousy concrete. I don't recall mention of option to locate plug further underground for seismic reasons tho that seems a pertinent consideration given the water coming mostly from far down that drift, deep underground. Underground miners report only "clicks" when the surface is shaken up to the point the canyon is filled with dust from rock slides, that starts around high mag 6's...6.8 plus say...still very modest, just enough to shake some things off shelves at home and make me run outside to keep motorcycle from falling over. hahaha Mag 5 is a joke, seriously. Plug and associated equipment should be rated for an 8.5 which is well over 1000X stronger. (in my amateur opinion) A plug just isn't that expensive to do right compared to a dam say.
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@jimburdin Too bad you are so simple.
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@jimburdin Lighten up and Happy Holidays! :D
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