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Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

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Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#61
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I wanted to fall under that reporting limit, can I just dilute my wastewater a bit more?

The classic pre-EPA slogan comes to mind: "the solution to pollution is dilution".

Accumulation makes the... what rhymes here?

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#63
post #4

Obviously, discharging "dark and murky" polluted water is bad. But some of the figures from the lab report don't seem that terrible: * Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around. * Arsenic at 0.002…

yaaaay hexavalent chromium and arsenic, the classics. Are they melting or plating something? Or is it just ores being ores?

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#64
post #4

Obviously, discharging "dark and murky" polluted water is bad. But some of the figures from the lab report don't seem that terrible: * Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around. * Arsenic at 0.002…

nah, there is no reason they should be discharging any hexavalent chromium, we have better, less insanely toxic ways of chroming things. trivalent chromium is much less toxic, hexavalent chromium should be banned world-wide. what's more, i'm not finding a reason that tesla would need hexavalent chromium in battery production, which leads me to speculate that this is waste from one of their other car factories where t…

[deleted]

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#65
post #2

This is the report from testing the water: > Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around. > Arsenic at 0.0025 mg/L. That is below the federal drinking water standard of 0.01 mg/L, but present. > Str…

> I hate elon as much as the next guy

I honor your refusal to presume guilt and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#66

[flagged]

I'm glad you're so forward thinking. It is a genuinely better alternative to ICE engines for numerous reasons.

The best world would be significantly lessening the need for cars but electric is a clear win over gas.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#67
post #10

> Quality, the state environmental regulator known as TCEQ, had quietly issued Tesla a wastewater discharge permit on January 15, 2025. Are permits issued loudly usually?

i think they just meant "quietly" as in not notifying the Nueces County drainage department that a permit was granted in their area.

That must be it. I can see if they are normally published or announced publicly somewhere, then it makes sense but if it's not done for other permits then it's sounds like they are implying nefariousness.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#68
post #4

Obviously, discharging "dark and murky" polluted water is bad. But some of the figures from the lab report don't seem that terrible: * Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around. * Arsenic at 0.002…

So, it's fine as long as it's legal, then? How about when it enters the food chain and starts to accumulate? Will the elements say that "we're under legal limits, and accumulate slowly, so we will act nice and don't poison the organism we're in?" Love that way of thinking.

> we're under legal limits

That's the definition of law. As long as it is legal it won't be charged.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#69
post #36
post #4

Obviously, discharging "dark and murky" polluted water is bad. But some of the figures from the lab report don't seem that terrible: * Hexavalent chromium at 0.0104 milligrams per liter, just above the lab’s reporting limit of 0.01 mg/L. Hexavalent chromium is classified as a known human carcinogen by the US National Toxicology Program. It is the substance the Erin Brockovich case was built around. * Arsenic at 0.002…

[flagged]

Yes, past the limit of drinking water, which is something different.

Re: Tesla's lithium refinery discharges 231,000 gallons of polluted wastewater a day

#70
post #38
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, it's fine as long as it's legal, then? > Love that way of thinking. I mean.. yeah, kinda'? We live in a society made up of laws, that's kind of the premise. So if we don't think something is fine, we can make it illegal (and we often do). It's a pretty good way of thinking methinks, what's your alternative?

Dunno, maybe strive to release no pollutants at all? Then we wouldn't need all the pesky big government overreach.

Taking this as a good faith engineering argument. What does that mean? What do you constitute a pollutant and how much is zero?

I guess as a contrived example your breath releases 40k PPM Co2. Have you tried aiming for no pollution?

The reality is we make things which involve pollutants, which we create laws to govern the safe disposal of. Engineers optimise for these constraints the same way you do. You wouldn’t have one k8s pod per request to ‘strive to keep the response times as low as possible’.

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