Problem solved? If the problem is supplying enough lithium to build batteries for all the electric vehicles that will be needed by 2030, then a new lithium deposit in Arkansas might be a resounding “Yes!” The discovery involves the Smackover Formation — and we’ll be honest here that half the reason we chose to feature this story was to be able to write “Smackover Formation” — which is a limestone aquifer covering a vast arc from the Rio Grande River in Texas through to the western tip of the Florida panhandle. Parts of the aquifer, including the bit that bulges up into southern Arkansas, bear a brine rich in lithium salts, far more so than any of the brines currently commercially exploited for lithium metal production elsewhere in the world. Given the measured concentration and estimated volume of brine in the formation, there could be between 5 million and 19 million tons of lithium in the formation; even at the lower end of the range, that’s enough to build nine times the number of EV batteries needed.
There are still a lot of unknowns, not least of which is whether any of the lithium in the brine is recoverable, and there are surely technical and regulatory hurdles aplenty. But the mere existence of a brine deposit that rich in lithium that covers such a vast area is encouraging; surely there’s somewhere within the formation where it’ll be possible to extract and concentrate the brine in an environmentally sensitive manner. And, once again just for fun, Smackover Formation.
While not ones to cheer for interstellar catastrophes, we can’t say that we haven’t been rooting for Betelgeuse to go supernova these last few years. Ever since the red supergiant star that sits on Orion’s shoulder started its peculiar dimming a while back, talk among astronomy buffs was that the activity presaged an imminent explosion of the star, one that could make Betelgeuse the brightest object in the night sky for a few months, and possibly make it visible in the daytime as well. As thrilling — and foreboding, at least by ancient astronomy standards — as that sounds, it seems as if the unusual dimming recently observed has a more prosaic explanation: a “Betelbuddy” star. According to astronomers who pored over observations, after ruling out all the other possibilities to explain the dimming, it seems like there must be a smaller star orbiting Betelgeuse that’s periodically plowing a clear spot through the cloud of dust surrounding the dying star. That would explain the periodic dimming and brightening, but why have we not seen this Betelbuddy before? It could be that the smaller star is lost in the giant’s glare, hiding in its halo of incandescent gas. So, don’t hold your breath on seeing a supernova anytime soon.
Do you find password rules annoying? We sure do, and even using a password manager with a generator that can handle all sorts of restrictions like password length and special characters, being told how to generate a password seems silly, especially since the information on what characters a valid password would have seems like valuable clues to potential crackers. But if for some reason you haven’t had enough password pestering, try out the password game. You start by entering a password — we, of course, started with correct horse battery staple
— and then deal with the consequences of your obviously poor choices. You’ll be asked to do all the silly stuff that only decreases the entropy of your password, which only makes it harder to remember and easier to guess. We haven’t played it through — it’s way too annoying — but we assume that if you ever actually manage to compose a suitable password, you’ll be asked to change it every 90 days.
And finally, we’ve managed to live long enough now to have cycled completely through all the major music recording modalities except wax cylinders. Having heard them all, we’ve got to agree with the hipsters: vinyl is the best. That’s especially true after watching this fascinating look at the LP record production process, which covers everything from mastering to packaging. The painstaking steps at the beginning are perhaps the most interesting, but anyone who doesn’t appreciate the hot vinyl squeezing out from the press is a cold, heartless monster. The video is only 15 minutes long and mercifully free of narration, so enjoy.
You’re about 650 years too late. Back when they first brewed Löwenbräu they should have gotten drunk and encouraged a supernova. Or maybe started even earlier since those things don’t happen…overnight (ba-dum)!
If you like Smackover, you’re gonna LOVE a little town we call Toad Suck.
And if they don’t retroactively name the baby in Beetlejuice Beetlejuice as “BeetleBuddy”, I think I may cry.
I like to use the first letters of common phrases or song lyrics for my passwords.
For example, my home Wifi password is: luitsiabiapis, which is the first letters of “look, up in the sky, it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman”.
Easy to remember, and lots of entropy.
Had a client that provisions passworded devices to his clients, needed a quick password to set each device to that wasn’t default, and had to be easy for my client to remember and use. And tell his employees to use. “rrrybgdts” was found to be easy to remember and non-default. “Row, row, row your boat…”
Cool concept, but this is how it works out for me in most cases. Please enter password…
rrrybgdts
sorry, password not accepted, you need at least 10 characters
luitsiabiapis
sorry, password not accepted, you need at least 2 upper case characters
LUITSIABIAPIS
sorry, password not accepted, you need at least 2 lower case characters
LuitsiabiapiS
sorry, password not accepted, you need at least 2 special characters
LuitsiabiapiS!!
sorry, password not accepted, you need at least 2 numerical characters
LuitsiabiapiS!!24
this password is already being used, please use a different one
LuitsiabiapiS!!25
password accepted
you can also use the first letter of the lines on a certain book page (just don’t use a phone book)
“And finally, we’ve managed to live long enough now to have cycled completely through all the major music recording modalities except wax cylinders.”
I guess I must have slept through the wire recorder resurgence. :-)
Well, Hackaday did have an article about a wire recorder:
https://hackaday.com/2016/08/16/a-tech-that-didnt-make-it-sound-on-stainless-steel-wire
but then again… there also was an article about something with wax cyclinders too:
https://hackaday.com/2021/03/20/reproducing-a-reproducer-servicing-a-cylinder-phonograph-in-the-year-2021
I’m confused…
So, a major oil company, ExxonMobil, has purchased exclusive rights to [a portion of] the Smackover Formation..
And I’ve heard rumors all my life that major oil companies buy up competing technologies to stifle them…
Honestly if they’re smart they’ll use their knowledge to actually mine the stuff – the EV genie is not going back in the bottle, if they don’t get with it someone else will. And a deposit that significant would be hard to sit on without the government putting a lot of pressure on you or trying to pry you back off it given the current dependency on China etc.
Considering the development of Sodium-ion cells is still proceeding apace – with commercial batteries already entering the market – trying to influence things by playing with Lithium supply is not likely to work out. Better to pivot and start using their institutional oil extraction knowledge to do brine extraction and either sell the brine on to a refinery, or build some lithium refineries.
If we were making bets, that’s what I bet Exxon/Mobil is actually planning.
Yes. We can expect, that the oil companies also know, that oil is limited and there are tendencies away from it. But they are in the energy market and want to stay there. Some, like Shell are also in the PV business in the meantime. So I am quite sure, they want to mine and sell the lithium. The sodium Ion cell may be an alternative for stationary storage batteries, but for mobile application, EV, I just want the best energy density and not the second best.
So when we buy a record we’re buying a copy of a copy of a copy of a tape of a recording. And somewhere before the the tape recording its messaged by a Sound Engineer to compress the dynamic range to match the Phonographic Amplifier. Which is much better than correctly digitizing the source.
Hopefully the Sound Engineer does not do live shows as most of them are deaf. Otherwise the shows would sound better and the speakers wouldn’t be over driven.
I am not a geologist, but I did take two semesters of it, so I pretend to understand rocks.
Most of the smackover formation is below 3000m, a lot is below 10km, and there is but a small section relatively near the surface. The problem with deep fluid insertions and extractions from the crust is the creation of instabilities. Ask Texas and Oklahoma about the earthquakes resulting from fracking.
Mother Earth is a stern mistress. She will make you pay for whatever you are able to take from her.
The dust on the surface at 1:20 when the technician finishes blowing dust off is quite triggering.