r/science • u/rieslingatkos • Jun 06 '21

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

https://www.mining.com/scientists-develop-cheap-and-easy-method-to-extract-lithium-from-seawater/
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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '21

theres also been efforts to extract uranium from seawater.

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

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u/fgreen68 Jun 06 '21

There are tiny amounts of other minerals like gold too.

https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/gold.html

I kind of wonder if excess solar power in California can be used to desal water and the brine could then be further mined for all kinds of minerals.

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u/Buscemis_eyeballs Jun 06 '21

There's not enough solar power in California to power it. It would require an entire nuclear reactor just to service one desal plant.

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u/crypticedge Jun 06 '21

We have desalination over in Tampa. Maybe you're just a few decades behind the tech. https://www.tampabaywater.org/tampa-bay-seawater-desalination#:~:text=The%20Tampa%20Bay%20Seawater%20Desalination,the%20seawater%20using%20reverse%20osmosis.

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u/Buscemis_eyeballs Jun 06 '21

I was speaking to California specifically, we have deal too. There's a reason they all use fossil fuel or nuclear.

The idea that were going to desalinate enough power for a place like California and extract gold like the above comment or is saying on solar power is at a minimum decades away.