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by cantaloupe 1370 days ago
Do you have a source for that estimate? Seems truly absurd. I found a source that you are perhaps misquoting: 400,000 gallons of water are used produce 1 ton of lithium from brine [1]. It also apparently takes 8 kilograms for an EV battery [2]. So 3500 gallons per vehicle.

[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/mining-lithium-for...

[2] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/07/electric-vehicles-wor...

1 comments

You don't have to make lithium from brine. In Australia it's mined out of the rock, it's only South America that it's from brine.
Brines are being used in Silver Peak, NV. [1]

[1]: https://desertfog.org/aerial-of-silver-peak-nev-lithium-mini...]