[vitus]

Clicking through to the actual study:

https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2021/EE/D1EE0...

"Based on these data, we estimated the total electricity required to enrich 1 kg lithium from seawater to 9000 ppm in five stages to be 76.34 kW h. Simultaneously, 0.87 kg H2 and 31.12 kg Cl2 were collected from the cathode and the anode, respectively. Taking the US electricity price of US$ 0.065 per kW h into consideration, the total electricity cost for this process is approximately US$ 5.0."

So, the electricity usage is even higher than you estimated, with an even lower cost per kWh. But that said, there are places in the US that have even cheaper electricity (especially if you're looking at industrial rates).

[Gibbon1]

To me, 76.34kwh per kg seems really bad. Tempered by, what do I know actually.

Here is an article describing electrowinning iron at 3.53kw/kg.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6918249/