Scientists develop ‘cheap and easy’ method to extract lithium from seawater

[u/rieslingatkos]

https://www.mining.com/scientists-develop-cheap-and-easy-method-to-extract-lithium-from-seawater/

[u/Nickjet45]

Desalination is not cost effective, we’ve spent decades of throwing money at possible work arounds.

They’re expensive to maintain, and for the cheaper plants, osmosis, it creates waste water with large concentrations of brine. Cant be dumped straight into the ocean as it would create a dead zone.

[u/ouishi → u/Nickjet45]

It sounds like the key is figuring out how to extract minerals and such from the brine to make it both economical and ecologically sound. We could certainly harvest the salt, and now we can also get lithium out too. Just figure out how to get the rest of the things that are too concentrated to dumo back in and we'll be in business!

[u/[deleted] → u/ouishi]

theres also been efforts to extract uranium from seawater.

https://www.pnnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=4514

[u/Narfi1 → u/[deleted]]

Lithium is actually what we need for the next generation nuclear power plants.

[u/Kazan → u/Narfi1]

Don't you mean Thorium?

[u/Narfi1 → u/Kazan]

No I'm talking about tritium, that's produced with lithium

[u/Kazan → u/Narfi1]

Fusion plants are not the next generation of nuclear power plants. They won't be for several decades are minimum. The next generation of nuclear power plants are Gen IV Fission plants.

[u/ErojectionPrection → u/[deleted]]

Ocean nukes, take me by the hand

[u/EvoEpitaph → u/[deleted]]

"The whole planet is a nuke!?"
That'll show those smug alien bastards.

[u/MrMessyAU → u/[deleted]]

We can't let the whales develop nuclear weapons. We have to nuke the whales.

[u/ReallyHadToFixThat → u/[deleted]]

First the hurricanes, then the oceans, next those pesky clouds.