Lithium drilling advances at the Salton Sea

Lithium hydroxide sales could fund restoration of the Salton Sea using the "perimeter lake" concept or one of the other plans for a partial freshwater lake that doesn't require a large diversion of fresh water from the Colorado. Center would be dry playa with some irrigated vegetation or dry salt crust to prevent dust problems, maybe even golf course(s). Southern end of the lake would have brine habitat mostly for birds and geothermal/lithium plants. Total cost is roughly $10B which Lithium extraction would cover easily.

> How can they source potable fresh water for lithium extraction

Why would they use potable (AKA drinking) water for lithium extraction from the brine? Nothing in the described extraction process involves potable water.

Finally, a use for the Salton Sea. Good.

Sodium Ion batteries are approaching somewhere in the 120-160 wh/kg in production, per CATL. I believe 200 wh/kg is on the industry "roadmap" in 3-5 years.

I believe Sodium Ion is like LFP in its safety with thermal runaway, so it, like LFP, doesn't require as much cooling and equipment overhead so its Cell-to-Module, or even better, Cell-to-Pack is bettery than cobalt/nickel li-ion chemistries.

A sodium ion battery that CATL says it is putting in production is sufficient for low-end consumer EV transport: the 100 mile city car, possibly a 200-mile one with good drivetrain design, if the Cell-to-Pack napkin math works out correctly.

Concurrent with this, LFP batteries are reaching 200-230 wh/kg this year, which thanks to their bettery thermal protection, means the Cell-to-Pack density should be "good to go" for almost all Tesla car ranges today (my napkin math on Cell-to-Pack shows 400 miles for a model 3 for 230 wh/kg LFP).

The extended range Tesla vehicles are overkill for 90% of world drivers, and at least 80% of Americans. The 300 mile range is the perfect range for the "next 10 years".

The napkin math then says you can combine sodium ion and LFP to get to 300 mile pack designs, and no cobalt/nickel, reduced lithium from sodium ion, probably a 50/50 split or similar.

This is for the next 2-4 years of mainstream car / EV production scaling, which is may be the most important for kickstarting true widespread EV and averting climate change that we have left.

Hopefully in 2-4 years we get the following (per roadmaps):

- 260+ wh/kg LFP

- 180-200 wh/kg sodium ion

That will mean all-sodium 300 mile range cars, mixed sodium/LFP for long range, light trucks, possibly long haul shipping + container ships.

If we get 400 wk/kg or better solid state battery or Li-S, then all the better. Mix in those as needed, or maybe short haul aviation becomes possible, but the important thing is that for the majority of ground transport, sodium ion and lfp will serve to scale out huge portions of carbon emissions from transportation.

wh/kg cited are all cell densities, but there is reference to Cell-to-pack being 90% of cell density for LFP and Sodium Ion approaches, which is where are the napkin math begins.

>replace all ICE with EV

I'm honestly not convinced this will happen. I think the ratio will get a lot more even but I highly doubt ICE will be replaced. Especially as the atmospheric CO2 concentration increases the economic viability of reducing it back into hydrocarbons increases. Already it's much easier to grow microalgae than it was during the first government experiments in the 60s. As these technologies improve there will be continued downward pressure on the price of petroleum products despite the state of oil drilling and the regulatory pressure against them will be gone because this makes them carbon neutral.

On top of that there are still applications where electric motors just don't make that much sense. Also transporting and storing energy in a fluid is far easier than transporting it in a battery.