It isn't, but we can't assume in advance that a particular technology will be economical within some time-frame, or indeed ever.
I'm all for sustainable power generation, but it's important to realise technologies that look sustainable may not actually be when one considers the resources need to construct them, and considering that all forms of generation have to be constructed over and over because they don't last forever.
Sylvia.
The fatal flaw in all your post is the adoption of a unitary extremism.
One thing that might change it suddenly is the impending need for desalination plants. A waste-product of those is everything that was disolved in the seawater....
-- Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
There are about 0.000015 moles of lithium per litre of water. Which is to say, about 103 milligrams of lithium per kilolitre of water. So to obtain a tonne of lithium, we have to process about 10,000 megalitres.
Sydney's desalinator has a capacity of 250 megalitres per day, so running it for 40 days has the potential to yield one tonne of lithium, giving a potential output of 9 tonnes per year. Compare this with Australia's output of more than 14,000 tonnes.
Sylvia.
You aren't rebutting my logic, you're twisting the narrative in an attempt to 'win'.
Most dams are for water collection, storage and supply. The 'collection' part means there is a source.
Anyway you've changed this into something it wasn't. My comment was in response to your statement (which of course you snipped), reinserted below;
"** Pumped hydro storage does not rely on rainfall, cos the same water goes up and down, over and over."
If there is no input to compensate for evaporation then it wouldn't last long. Why would you say rainfall isn't needed then reply saying that, on the East coast rainfall is the same as evaoration?
-- Shaun. "Humans will have advanced a long, long way when religious belief has a cozy little classification in the DSM*." David Melville (in r.a.s.f1) (*Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)
----------------
** You did not post logic - just a smartarse remark.** But there is always some rainfall and it does the job.
** But I didn't.
What I wrote was that since pumped hydro is a closed system, it is not essential to it.
Shame if that completely baffled you tiny brain.
... Phil
Ridiculous, like the other claims. It seems that the calculation was based on the assumption that a giant lithium battery is present sufficient to run Australia from one load for a whole year.
Lithium is sustainable as hell. The supply in the ocean is unlimited.
Groetjes Albert
-- Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters. albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst
It was not. I provided the basis for the calculation in response to Phil near the top of the thread.
Can you get it out. Have you looked at the economics?
Sylvia.
The major problem isn't the supply of lithium. It is the other elements that are also used.
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